Hello folks
Just some tips from my personal experience with seedling yangmei trees here in Portugal northwest Atlantic coast (climate 9a):
From seeds planted back in 2013 and 2014 I successfully grew 12 seedlings. According to my records, one seedling sprouted in 2014 and all others in 2015.
Grew these seedlings in pots for some years and eventually planted all outside in the open back in 2016 or 2017 (don’t recall exact dates)
All seedlings grew well with no special care and got first flowers on a female plant back in 2020. No fruit set because no male flowers around.
In 2021 had first flowers on 3 other seedlings (1 male + 2 females ). All females had good fruit set as soon I got first male flowers in the orchard.
In 2022 all seedling trees flowered and fruited, and I ended up with exactly 6 males and 6 females.
So, my personal experience is that in 5 to 6 years from seed you can get seedlings to flower and fruit, and apparently chances are 50/50 to grow male or female trees from seed.
Absolutely you must consider having at least a male tree around your females to get good fruit set.
The main difference I have observed on male seedling trees is the vigor of the flowers and the timing of pollen production, meaning I have a male tree that starts shedding pollen very early in the year (early February) while others only start shedding pollen by march.
On the female seedling trees, I have noted a lot of variations on fruit quality, and so far, I have 4 out of 6 females that I already considered to be keepers and worth of propagation.
The 2 female seedling trees that I rated negatively for now were only because they produced lower caliber fruits even if the taste was still very good, but even these will be observed in the coming years for further evaluation as for now these 2 female trees were only on their first year of fruit set.
Two of my female seedling trees are producing what I consider excellent fruits in terms of fruit caliber and taste (a black fruit variety and a bright red fruit variety)
One of the female seedling trees is remarkable because of fruit ripeness precocity. This one show mature female flowers very early in the year (early to mid-February) and then starts ripening fruits by end of May, while the other female seedlings only start giving ripe fruits by end of June and early July, so basically this female tree gives me ripe yangmei fruits one full month ahead of others and extends the fruiting season.
For those familiar with my Facebook page you can find there some photos and videos of my Yangmei trees and fruits. Just look for "Miguel PT" on Facebook.
Before starting my experience with these 12 seedlings, I also grew a grafted tree from a supposed self-fertile variety. I imported this tree from a nursery in England back in 2008. I believe the English nursery imported it directly from China.
This grafted tree grew well and started flowering while still in a pot, and all flowers I could observe were clearly female. Even with closer observation I never detected any male flowers on this tree.
For years it flowered consistently without setting any fruits but eventually it had some fruit set some years, but the fruits were always in small quantity and production was not consistence with some years with zero fruit set, and other years with fruit set on only some branches.
On my records I found first photos of my Yangmei fruits dated from 2016 and I remember I’ve had fruits before but unfortunately, I didn’t kept any photos of it, but I still think I might have the record of the first Yangmei fruits produced in Europe.
My observation is that this self-fertile tree did in fact produced some male flowers, but not consistently and the quantity of pollen is not enough to assure good pollination and fruit set.
This is an ongoing experience, and these are for now my first report of results and comments.
Hope it can be helpful for you, guys.
Just keep it growing and good luck to you all Yangmei aficionados
