I bought a few myrobalan seeds on ebay (never again). Has anyone grown out myro seed obtained a reliable source and could please compare them to these?
In their first year they grew somewhat upright with very right-angled branches. The large one in the pic in its second summer is now growing vigorously in a weeping style with umbrella shaped branches. It’s also developing thorns. It looks like it has some weeping apricot genetics.
I tried grafting various plums on a couple dozen test seedling rootstocks, but european plum compatibility is awful as most runted out at 1-2ft high. Only convoy chum and a northern sunset plumcot seemed to take well (6ft high / 1/2" gauge), and perhaps a couple toka’s.
Looks like what I had one time. Reddish stems and edges of leaves, small thorn like spurs. Grew like a weed, yellow, watery, squashy fruit. Was labeled prunus triflora, resembled a wild-type prunus mume. An asian friend thought it was an “ume boshi” salt pickle plum…
Thanks, I’ll search for images of p. triflora. If that’s what they are, it’s in the parentage of Toka and Shiro. I have both trees here to re-graft. Toka seemed to work well on a couple late spring bud grafts, but the Convoy was chip-budded this time last year and did very well. Convoy is 50% sand cherry/american plum, so I’m not sure why it did so much better than European plums. But I probably should cut my losses and destroy them as I’ll never know how compatible the graft unions will be.
I’ll let the big one grow out and will report back in the next couple years if/when it fruits.
I wouldn’t destroy them, necessarily. I would expect better compatibility with besseyi hybrids and plumcots as you experienced. Maybe even a good host for apricots/apriums? I thought it had interesting potential for these grafts.
Last year I tried about 10 Precious apricots using late summer chip bud grafts and they all failed. I may have tested 1 or 2 Hargrand apricots which also failed. (The same buds on manchurian seedlings worked quite well).
The only apricot hybrid I have is the northern sunset but I don’t think it’s winter hardy enough for my area. Also have an elephant heart but it’s not winter hardy enough either.
I did a few Brookgold grafts this week. I also have a couple vigorous selected seedling Manchurian apricots I could test. They prefer to grow in a bush style. Also a Mustang chum, could perhaps graft the apricot and mustang really low so they can be buried later.
I think I had the basic species version of this. Looks correct, my tree was mislabeled. Ornamental mume is worthless here because of early spring warming and late freezes.
I sourced a few hundred Myrobalan seeds from Sheffield’s. Their package states they’re from Oregon.
The seedlings look very similar as my eBay seedlings. A few of the new seedlings’ leaves have a reddish tint. I had one final seed left from the original eBay batch - in the pic with the white dish. The other two pics are the new Sheffields seedlings.
Myrobalan has a lot of variety in leaf and fruit colour, size and fruit/pit shape. Here are some of my store bought rootstocks and seedlings from local fruit:
