In my experience, loquats also graft extremely easily onto Photinia. No idea about long-term compatibility, but since Photinia is ubiquitous in nurseries here, they could be a cheap rootstock to “store” loquat cultivars while waiting for seedlings to get big enough to graft onto.
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They also are compatible with quince rootstocks, which dwarf them a bit but I think are long-term compatible
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I didn’t know that about Photinia. When I looked up the plant, it said some species are toxic, releases hydrogen cyanide if the leaves are chewed. I’ll just plant out loquat seeds.
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Same with loquat leaves. Apples, pears, and stone fruit leaves too.
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I turned two of the three into rootstocks, the smallest being left for my eventual hoophouse. I had put them my new greenhouse from worries of early cold, but instead it stayed hot. With the sun a little lower in the horizon now, and it staying hot out, at least half the greenhouse was cooked by the time I got back. Both grafts failed, and it looked like one may have completely died. The other ungrafted reed that was left outside was still doing great. I moved all my frost sensitive plants into the greenhouse on oct 9th and I’m happy I did so because winter came as soon as I left. Last night, it already got down to 34°F.
I hope the third reed gets to live in-ground in a hoophouse in the future. Then I also should be able to experiment crossing it with mexican race avos. To speed up the fruiting process, I can probably get my hands on some reed scionwood too.
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Just did some pulling of weeds around the yard and took some photos of a few of the trees in the ground here. You can click on the tree numbers to see more info about each one (germination date, all previous photos, etc.).
This is # 351, seedling of Daughter, which was the first seed to sprout out of 160 that I started last fall (this one sprouted about 11 months ago):
Here’s # 301, seedling of Del Rio, which was the only unprotected* tree last winter that didn’t even fully defoliate:
*Ok, so it was “protected” insofar as it was in a pot next to the concrete foundation of my house, but all the other avocados along the wall still died above the soil line. Here is this tree shortly after the January freeze, you can see the dead siblings and cousins around it:
And it even still has one of last season’s leaves now (most of the rest dropped over the summer):
It went in the ground this spring and is the top-left tree in this photo, all the others shown regrew from their roots in the ground, some of them for 2 winters already:
Also shown in that photo (counter-clockwise from bottom right):
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So you’re saying that we might actually have a cold hardy avocado variety now? 
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Unlikely, but still an exciting possibility. There are many challenges here for avocados, even if this might be one that can survive a pretty bad freeze:
- Will the dormant flower buds be winter hardy (they will need to be)?
- Will pollination and embryo development be possible in our cool spring nights?
- Will fruit ripen before the first damaging freeze the following winter?
- Will the fruit actually be any good?
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Stopped by Van Winden’s Garden Center in Napa, CA today. They carry a lot of 4 Winds trees. One such variety was Mexicola Grande, which were very soft and fuzzy on the undersides of their leaves. I think this may be the avo variety I’ve seen with such fuzzy softness. Any idea if they’re selling true mexicola grande? @swincher
