Tomorrow’s predicted high in my northerly PNW region is 70F… compared to last year’s 53F!
Good growing and ripening weather for another week…best grape crop in years.
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The NWS Seattle office says we might even hit 80°F tomorrow, which would set a new record for latest 80 degree day in Seattle history.
And your grapes look great! Making me want to plant grapes! If only I had twice the space, I’d have room for all the things…
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I drastically pruned my 12 year old Saijo last winter…and consequently only got 1 fruit!! I realized too late that you shouldn’t do that to a tip-bearer!!
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I did that to my Izu. The tree punished me with no fruit for 3 years now.
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My recent post listing the seedlings and grafted varieties gave a good idea of the total size of the collection, but not necessarily how many of those I’ll be making available for local distribution next spring. Here’s that group:
Which includes (sorta clockwise from right side):
- (6x) Duke seedlings (top-right diagonal row)
- (11x) Royal-Wright seedlings (diagonal row through the middle)
- (5x) Bacon seedlings (bottom-left row)
- (5x) Grafted varieties (top-left near the figs)
- (4x) Mexicola seedlings (top cluster in center-left)
- (2x) Aravaipa seedlings (large & medium-large pot in top, center-right)
- (1x) Zutano seedling (centered just below the top)
Which, if my counting skills are functional, adds up to 34 trees in total. A few of these are second-year seedlings, but most of them were first germinated about a year ago or in early spring of this year. The grafted varieties might get one or two additions depending on how some recent grafts grow this fall and in the spring, but the 5 in that photo are:
- Brazos Belle
- Linh
- Jade
- Del Rio
- a mystery ortet with black fruit vaguely resembling Mexicola, found growing in a central California public park
I’ll be sending out a sign-up link in the next couple weeks, where people can join the project and indicate how many trees they would want to trial, and I’ll deliver them in mid-to-late spring some time. I’m only going to include people living in essentially my same regional climate (zone 8+ in lowlands of WA, maybe down to Portland area at the furthest).
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What a beautiful display! Everything looks super healthy - quite an accomplishment after 3 months of no rain!
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Let me tell you, if I can avoid hauling a 100 ft hose around the yard for the next 6 months I’ll be a happy gardener.
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Where is a good source to get Mexicola Grande seeds? I’m having a hard time finding them.
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Welcome to the forum @Jestronic!
I’ve only ever gotten one batch of seeds from a backyard grower in southern CA. He responded to a post I made asking for seeds on another site a few years ago, but we’ve lost touch. If you can get to Riverside CA to pick them up in person, you can get scions from the UC South Coast Research Grove. The original name of the cultivar usually sold as “Mexicola Grande” is “3-1-1”:
http://ucavo.ucr.edu/avocadovarieties/VarietyList/3-1-1.html
Unfortunately that was one that I didn’t successfully graft, but I’ll be getting it again at some point. The three seedlings of Mexicola Grande that I’m still growing have been vigorous, so I do think it’s a good candidate for either rootstock or breeding.
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I did a few inadvisable late-season bench grafts in the greenhouse last night, and I’m about to do a few more tonight. @Jestronic’s question motivated me to track down the grower who had provided me with the Mexicola Grande seeds a couple years ago. Unfortunately, he has since topworked the tree with another variety, so couldn’t offer seeds. But, he said there were still a few nurse branches of Mexicola Grande that he was planning to remove, so I just got a bundle of scions. He threw in a few scions of other Mexican avocado varieties, including Jan Boyce (technically a hybrid I believe), which I don’t suspect will be cold hardy, but I’m willing to give it a try.
I didn’t photograph all the grafts last night, but here are a couple of them:
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For anyone who lives in this area and who wants to join this project, I’ve created a sign-up form here:
https://www.drymifolia.org/join.php
I’m planning to distribute trees next spring to all members, assuming I have more trees than members!
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Very excited to have gotten two cuttings of Aravaipa on their own roots:
It is a very slow process, not for the impatient. I started these in the greenhouse on a heating pad in March, and they only started showing top growth about a month ago and last week, respectively. And these were two out of eight original cuttings. Most of them shriveled in the first few weeks, though a third one held out until August before giving up.
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Wow! You are very lucky! Congratulations!
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Even for anyone not interested in actually joining the project, you may find the new website’s tree directory a little more user-friendly than the old one, since you can filter by things like whether it has survived a winter, or whether it’s a grafted cultivar or seedling/clone:
However, as the disclaimer at the top says, I still have lots of updating to do in terms of adding new trees and updating photos and descriptions for many older ones.
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Beautiful website. This is very fascinating work indeed.
Have you considered minimally protecting your trees with winter frost blankets/Christmas lights?
It seems so hard to grow them even in parts of Northern California that maybe a little bit of “cheating” with microclimate isn’t so bad?
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I’ve thought about it, but at least for now I think killing as many seedlings as possible is providing the strongest selection pressure.
I’d rather find that, say, 1% of seedlings (these are made up numbers) that are extremely hardy instead of the, say, 20-30% that can probably do ok with protection most winters.
If, after a few years, it starts looking like the percentage in the extreme hardiness category is closer to 0.0001% or something like that, then I’ll probably switch to protecting them more.
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Also, while I’m not protecting the outside trees planted in the ground in my yard, this is the guidance I’m giving to people who join the project and get trees from me:
If you wish to protect the trees while they are young, that is fine, but please let us know the type of protection you have given them in your updates, so that we do not misjudge their hardiness.
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A great site - the amount of work that went into providing comprehensive details is evident… and your final comment reflects an honest appreciation!
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Last call for anyone who wants a chance to get a tree this coming spring!
Based on the level of registration now, many members will already be getting fewer trees than requested, but we might hit the “more members than available trees” threshold soon, so I’m going to allocate trees to members based on the member list as it stands this coming weekend, and update the sign-up page to warn people they are signing up for 2024.
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