Is eight ball still in your collection?
Yes Brady.
No flowers yet though.
I manage to make a 90 cm plant the first year of sowing. But thatās no longer what Iām looking for.
To do that, you must cultivate in a greenhouse, water with liquid fertilizer and every 15 day Starter fertilizer in 8/24/0. There if you donāt force too much, it grows very quickly.
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Thatās exciting news. Congratulations. I think mine were a bust, including the T-bud that looked promising.
Now Iām interested to see how quickly they fruit, and whether they perform for you as well as they do for Larry.
Sounds like I may need to collect some scion in early spring 2023 and try again, especially if his air layer doesnāt take.
That is good news. However, both of my air layers have no 2022 growth; the old leaves look fine.
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I have several takes of Larryās feijoa scions as well. Mine are not yet as vigorous as @swincher ās. Iām a bit south, in Tacoma.
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The race is on for the first graft-sourced fruit from the āunknownā Portland bush.
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Iāve been reading a bit about peopleās experiences with grafting and Iām considering the process of grafting scionwood from Mark Albertās collection during the upcoming Spring Season (Iāve never grafted before). Is there a particular size a seedlingās branches should be/ideal conditions to begin the process after receiving said scions (photos of mine attached)? I assume I can just purchase some seedling plugs from Fruitwood Nursery to achieve the process, right? Thanks for any guidance you all may have.
Your plant looks like it has many branches of a suitable size, but Iām not sure what size Fruitwood sends their seedlings at. I had best luck grafting first- or second-year wood on second-year stems on mature bushes. I havenāt tried on small seedlings, so canāt give guidance there.
Here is a photo of a seedling plug($8)from Fruitwood Nursery,next to a Restoring Eden plant($50).The seedling may work for grafting,but why not buy scions for $5 each?
Oh I didnāt see that as asking if the photographed plant would be a good source of scionwood, I thought they were saying they wanted to graft ON that seedling (and/or Fruitwood plugs) using scionwood collected from Mark Albert. This part seemed to say that:
Weāre probably on the same page.I was assuming he didnāt have any of Albertās scions yet or a source for them.
I was trying to clarify if I could use seedling plugs from fruitwood nursery and graft a section of them onto my potted seedlings in the photos. If I had the yard space to do it, Iād happily be the equivalent of the crazy lady with a dozen cats, but I donāt want to allocate more yard space or buy any more pots for new cultivars. I figured I could save space and graft multiple varieties onto a single seedling so I can try as many varieties as possible conveniently.
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Oh! Then I say get actual scionwood, not seedlings.
Is there necessarily an unofficial limit to how many scions you can successfully graft onto a seedling? And also, will grafting increase the likelihood of the seedling flowering and fruiting considering it typically takes several years to flower and fruit (if it ever does)? I thought about doing an Albertās Pride with a Supreme scion on one and an 8-ball with an Abba on the other.
Using scions of a mature bush will result in quick flowering, mine mostly flowered the second season after grafting. This will be the second season after grafting Larryās scions, maybe Iāll get flowers on those this year.
But I donāt think you should get scionwood from small seedlings, you should just buy scionwood from someone selling that.
Feijoas fruit from seed in about 3-4 years. Grafted takes 1-2 years. Fruitwood seedlings are 1 year old so subtract 1 year.
Seedlings from top varieties like what fruitwood sells will taste very similar to top named varieties. And ripen around the same time.
I see little point in grafting even though I now have tons of grafted bushes. I grafted them a few years ago.
I inherited an old seedling feijoa when I bought my house. Gave it water and fertilizer and it started fruiting again but the fruit was small and sour. I bark grafted a bunch of varieties onto a couple trunks I cut off and got maybe 75% take. They suckered for a solid 6 months and I had to rub off the buds once a week to keep the energy flowing to the new scions. Will be doing a bunch more this winter - experimenting with timing a little. For me the main obstacle is the wood is so hard and dry that itās not wet and soft enough to make a solid connection.