Yeah definitely exceptions to every rule and I also think they really try to vary up pollens for different amino acid profiles for bee bread but in general it seems the flowers are deeper and a bit more made for longer tongued bees.
I haven’t really seen any small wasps or anything on my honeyberries either mainly just bumblebees and mason bees.
I don’t think so, Richard. If you put out a tray of soy flour, the bees go crazy for this ‘free’ pollen and ignore real pollen.
And, having trapped pollen (and sold it to health food stores) I can state that if the bees are collecting plentiful pollen from something like oak trees…it’s not out of the question a trap on a strong hive can collect a quart of pollen all from one source…all one color and consistency.
At times pollen (blooms) are scarce, then the mixture of different pollen in the same hive is considerable.
Looks like a pot full of rooted honeyberry cuttings…and a little miscolored.
(Does not look like one plant in tht black pot.)
Nice horseradish plants.
Finishing cutting for reproduction. I run my fingers over the twig and test the maturity. Where it’s too fine, I’ll cut it off from the top
The ones you have in that pot, I shape shrubs like this after the autumn pruning. I gradually tie them to two recessed sticks and the result is that the crown of the bush is formed higher above the ground.
Here are the two years since the cut:
Here three years since cutting:
I had a young honeyberry that the dog stepped on and broke some new green growth. I cut it off and put it in some soil in the greenhouse. The next day it was flat and fallen over.
Do I need to wait until the greens are older before cutting? How do you keep them from falling over / going flat?
The cuttings must be semi-hardwood. On cutting with 2-3 node leave only upper leaves. Protect from direct sunlight. The humidity in the greenhouse in not high enough. One better solution is to use transparent plastic box or big plastic bottle with cuted bottom. Spray with water 1-2 times a day.
I took some cuttings today. This is the second time but the first time I put little thought into it. I put 2 hardwood cuttings into some soil (don’t even remember what it was) and was surprised at the end of the year when I pulled them out of the pots and there were roots on them. Unfortunately I left them outside in the pots over winter and it does not appear they survived (still giving them a chance though).
The ones I took today are softwood cuttings off a Tundra variety. I tried a variety of mixtures of soil, peatmoss, and perlite. Each column has 3 cuttings and a different substrate. From left to right, column 1 is a high fertilizer soil mix I mixed up for tomatoes, column 2 is pure perlite, column 3 is 50% perlite and 50% peat moss, column 4 is pure peatmoss, and column 5 is the same as column 1. I watered them well before I placed the cutting into the substrate and there is still a bit of water in the tray.
Column 1 has 1 cuttings that is actually hardwood at the bottom and softwood at the top. I also made the other 2 cuttings in column 1 bigger than the rest of the cuttings.
I have put them against my house on the North side and under a chair to block most of the sun. I considering trying to find a white bag big enough and putting the entire tray inside it to keep the humidity up (and still let some light in) but I am not sure I have any bags big enough to do so.
I have been keeping the clear plastic bags my tree orders have shipped in this year as future “humidity domes”. I may even try using wire coat hangers or something similar to prop up the bag. Good luck!
You probably should have removed all but one and a half to two leaves, but maybe your way works–let us know. I think I have one out of 15 surviving from my attempt a month ago.
What success rate, percent-wise, are you guys seeing with Haskaps?
At the end of the winter I ran a small batch through the aeroponic setup I just put together and while it took a solid month just to start developing roots I still got 6 out of 8. Strangely enough the other varieties I tested the setup with did worse. Raspberry, 0%. Montmorency, 0%. Gooseberry, about 50% while taking longer to root.
I’m currently running a much larger sample with softwood; haskap, two varieties of currant, jostaberry, and compact American cranberry.
Currants are the easiest. I got less than 10 % on honeyberries from softwood. Am going to take some viburnum trilobum cuttings in a couple weeks and try rooting. Ditto gooseberry.
(Just sticking them outdoors in shade, no controlled climate.)
Enjoy hearing the adventures in propagation…especially the haskap/honeyberry.
i haven’t gotten great percentages either but i can get near 50% success occasionally, had really poor luck with hardwood this spring. doing softwood cuttings now in a mix that is drier than normally use, rot and fungus gnat larvae eating the callus have been two major issues. I’m spraying all my cuttings now with fungicide and insecticide when they are stuck…
I put mine out to get used to the drier air and harden. Rooting in the fog is proving to be very successful and almost everything has taken root. I’ll see how they get used to it and then I’ll see how it turned out.
I started pruning the green twigs 2-3 weeks after flowering. It depends on the variety when I start cutting. Larger cuttings show more vital in rooting.
What fungicide are you using?
To borrow a page from tissue culturing… they disinfect their plant material by submerging it in 70% ethanol for 30 seconds, followed by 10% bleach for ten minutes, followed by a good rinse in distilled water. Then they cut the exposed ends whose cells may have been damaged by the procedure. It would not be hard to implement something like this.
Thats interesting, I will occasionally dip my plant material in bleach, but not that strong, typically I use about 10 drops of bleach / gallon of water. I might need to try that next time I take some cuttings. Ive been spraying the cuttings with Dithane m-45 at 1tbsp / gallon along with spectracide insect killer @ 3oz / gallon combined. I let them dry for a few minutes before covering, seems wet cuttings in 100% humidity environment invites problems also…
They do it that way because their aim is to achieve sterilization. On one hand it is pointless to aim for that level in the open, just the wind will render it moot. On the other it may show the upper limit before the risk of undue tissue damage occurs.
I was researching it because I’m in the middle of running a bunch of haskaps through my aeroponic box and the ones I got from another person may be showing signs of powdery mildew. Not sure if that what it is but I figure I need to work on my material preparation.
I do not use a fungicide or hormone to root Hascap cuttings. I have a constant swirling fog. The mist generator has a fan and forms fine drops that float and swirl. They gradually fall and constantly wash the plants. Excess water is constantly draining and knocking down. At the same time, temperatures in sunny weather sometimes reach up to 35 ° C inside. I have it shaded by a thick 300g white geotextile. If the temperatures are above this value, I ventilate, but the sprayer is always on. Maybe that’s why I don’t have a problem with fungal - fungal diseases and this swirling steam of higher temperature will make it impossible to attack the cuttings. The success of this method in fog is very high.
Any luck Farm Girl? Honeyberry cutting grow for you?
