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Post by walt on Jan 20, 2020 13:03:42 GMT -5
Flowerbug has a likely answer.
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Post by walt on Jan 19, 2020 15:26:32 GMT -5
I've had good success grafting apples starting with my first try. Cut the scion while the tree is fully dormant, and keep them cold and somewhat moist. I like the scion to be as wide as a pencil, or 1 1/2 that wide. Anywhere in that range. As soon as the stock is starting to break dormancy, cut the stock at about a 30 degree angle, where the stock is just as wide as the scion. Cut the scion at a 30 degree angle. Cut so the stock and scion fit closely. Hold stock and scion together and tape them with masking tape, tightly. Now the stock is breaking dormancy and starting to grow while the scion is still dormant. Since the graft heals for the stock up, the stock will start feeding the scion by the time the scion breaks dormancy. When the scion starts showing bud growth, make a vertical cut in the tape to keep the tape from girdling the graft. Maybe a week later make another cut in the tape. Other write that the tape comes off by itself. Maybe where it is more humid. But here the tape gets dry and hard, mummyfied, and never comes off by itself.
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Post by walt on Jan 19, 2020 15:02:21 GMT -5
My mother used to pot her Bell peppers and bring them inside just before first frost. They would go ahead and finish ripening fruit that had already set, but not set more fruit. So she'd keep the plants inside, where they were moderately attractive, until spring. After last frost of winter, she'd replant them in her garden. They would make another small but early crop of peppers in their second summer. Those year old plants would be looking poor by frost so they weren't taken inside again. But she'd also have new seedlings planted that year for late peppers. Those would go in the house for a winter. She repeated this for years. I've grown chiltipines, wild, pea-sized, very hot but richly flavored peppers from Native Seeds Search. The first time I grew them, they bloomed at time for first frost. So I dug them and put them in 1 gallon pots in the house. They produced a crop. These were the first chiltipines I'd tasted, and my family and I loved them. They did fine for 5 years, in the same pots. They made attractive bonsai, and gave a crop of peppers every fall. They seemed to be daylength sensitive. I lost them due to letting them get frosted bad one year. I tried crossing chiltipines with a "Thai Hot" which was very early bloomer and very small fruit. This was not like any other "Thai Hot" pepper I've seen since. I guess the name could apply to any hot pepper from Thailand. But my F1 hybrids chiltipine x Thai Hot were much like chiltipines, except they would bloom all summer. I kept the plants going for years in 1 gallon pots. I never saved seeds or grew an F2 generation. Why mess with perfection? But finally I did loose them, and I've never re-made the cross. Maybe this year?
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Post by walt on Jan 18, 2020 14:54:41 GMT -5
I'm in central Kansas, zone 6 but near zone 5. Not prime citrus country. A year ago someone calling himself Kumin, on tropicalfruitforum.com planted 20,000 seeds from C-35. About 3,000 of them were zygotic, i.e. not clones of the mother tree. Of the 3,000 F2 seedlings, 13 survived the winter in good health. A few more survived but in bad shape. Kumin is in Lancaster Pennsylvania, zone 6. C-35 is a citrange, an F1 sross of an orange x trifoliate orange. Trifoliate orange (Ponciris trifoliata) is a close relative of genus Citrus. It is hardy up into zone 5. It makes fertile hybrids with Citrus. But except for a couple of mutants, it tastes like kerosine. Or turpentine. Different people give different descriptions. Its F1 hybrids with Citrus species taste somewhat better, but are still not good eating. And the F1 hybrids are only hardy into zone 7, and not dependable there. So I'm working (playing) with crosses of mandarins x trifoliate oranges. I bought 62 fruit of US 852, an F1 of Clementine x trifiloiate orange. US 852 gives 60% or more zygotic seedling. One report is over 80% zygotic seedlings.
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Post by walt on Jan 18, 2020 14:27:56 GMT -5
Freezing rain again yesterday. Nasty to walk or drive. But it was slightly above freezing at ground level. All was melted about the time the sun came out mid-afternoon. Sunny and above freezing today. It is still well above average temperature again today.
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Post by walt on Jan 12, 2020 14:51:21 GMT -5
I'm concentrating on hardy citrus breeding. I'm trying to get things so my breeding populations don't die with me. Not that I plan to die soon, but I'll be 70 in March, and these things do happen. Dr. John Brown made some hardier mandarins a generation ago, but they are gone now. I don't want the same to happen to my work.
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Post by walt on Jan 12, 2020 14:39:23 GMT -5
Supposed to get just above freezing today. Meanwhile, freezing rain. Not good for driving nor walking.
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Post by walt on Jan 10, 2020 12:27:04 GMT -5
Its been 15F degrees above normal for the last couple of weeks. That's over for now. Had to scrape ice off my car this morning. Not unusual this time of year. Just not used to it this winter.
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Post by walt on Dec 6, 2019 12:36:32 GMT -5
So I bought 62 fruit of US 852 from Stan McKenzie. I'm not sure I spelled that right. But US 852 is mandarin x hardy orange. I'm getting about 30 seeds per fruit. That should be about 1,800 seeds? Something like that. About 60% to 70% are zygotic, that is sexually produced. So maybe 1,000 segregating seedlings should be produced. Question now is how many will survive to maturity. Kumin in Pennsylvania left 20,000 C 35 seedlings out last winter. C 35 has about 15% zygotic seedlings, so about 3,000 of the seedlings would have been sexually produced. He got 12 healthy survivers, and a few badly damaged survivers. Taking just the healthy ones that would be 4 per thousand. C 35 is orange x Ponciris, so direct comparison isn't fair. But since there is nothing else to compare, I'll use his numbers and say I might get 4 survivers if I leave them out next winter, but I won't be leaving them out.
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Post by walt on Nov 22, 2019 11:34:13 GMT -5
4 inches of snow and more falling right now. It isn't much below freezing and no wind. So its quite pleasant actually.
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Post by walt on Nov 21, 2019 15:57:19 GMT -5
Light rain today. Very light. Not doing much good. Freeze again tonight. This might be the last time my citrus will be outside this year. They go inside tonight. Actually, they aren't getting sun today. I said its raining. But they are getting natural light.
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Post by walt on Nov 16, 2019 16:09:36 GMT -5
Yes, I sort of have a home. The home is in my wifes name, but Kansas community property law says I have rights to the home too. But the 1.2 acre garden is in my wife's sisters name. It would be worthwhile to agree to let wife have house, or most of the money from the sale of it, and I get the garden. Divorces are generally messy. I am trying to stay out of a court case. You never know how a judge will split things up. But if a couple go into court saying we are in agreement with this list of conditions, the judge generally OKs it and on to the next case.
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Post by walt on Nov 15, 2019 16:01:32 GMT -5
I've ordered the book "The $50 and up underground home" from interlibrary loan. By spring I may have one. A home. Not just the book. I've also looked at several websites on drilling my own well. Neighbors nearby have wells as little as 20ft. deep, about 6 or 6 1/2 m. Yes, 100 years ago I'd have grabbed a spade and have the well by now.
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Post by walt on Nov 15, 2019 15:57:45 GMT -5
After a few days of low 20sF, it is nice with above freezing for the next 4 days. Not that I won't be checking daily forecasts during this time. But my citrus trees are outside again for a few days. We may be moving in a couple of weeks. Only about 4 blocks. I'll still be 6 miles from my garden-orchard.
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Post by walt on Nov 13, 2019 12:09:38 GMT -5
Tripsicum and Zea diploperennis have very different growth habit. Z. dip grows its rhizomes deep underground, yet isn't very cold tolerant. Tripsicum rhizomes grow at the soil surface. Often, usually, the rhizomes can be seen by just brushing back the old growth, leaves, etc. Yet they can tack very hard freezes.
Back in the early 1980s, Dr. Galinat tried repeatedly to cross Z dip and T. dactyloides (the most winter-hardy species). They wouldn't cross in either direction. So he pollinated an amphiploid Z. maize x T. dactyloides hybrid plant with Z. dip pollen. He sent me an ear containing F1 seeds from this cross. The ear had 100% seed set, but it had few florets, so there were only a few seeds. All the seeds germinated easily, no embryo culture needed. So the seedlings each had a single complete set of cromosomes from each species, Z. maize (donestic corn), Z. dip, and T. dactyloides.
The seedlings each had many tillers, many ears, and many tassels. They made no pollen. That was expected, as Zea=Tripsicum hybrids have always been male sterile, or at least no male fertile hybrids had been obtained at that time. Tripsicum chromosomes had been backcrossed into corn cytoplasm. The reverse had also been done. It turned out Zea cytoplasm is a male sterile cytoplasm for Tripsicum. Again the reverse is also true.
But the hybrids usually were somewhat female fertile, though with very low frequency, when they had 2 sets of domestic corn chromosomes and one set of Tripsicum chromosomes. Since corn x Z. dip hybrids had good fertility, we expected our seedling descibed above to make some seeds when crossed with pollen of corn, Z. dip, or Tripsacum. We tried all tree. None of them worked for us, though we pollinated every silk they produced, which were many.
Were our hybrids perennial? Sort of, yes. They did not make rhizomes, but if we kept building up the soil covering the roots higher and higher on the plants. But otherwise. they would climb out of the soil. And though perennial in the greenhouse, if ever replanted deeper, they were not freeze hardy.
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