Project: Growing Chinese Toon (toona sinensis)

Author Dave Kennedy mentioned Chinese Toon (toona sinensis) trees in a perennial greens thread. Supposedly it's a temperate-climate deciduous member of the mahogany family that has edible shoots and leaves, although many people report not enjoying the flavor, which is most often characterized as vaguely reminiscent of burnt onions.

Given that browse pressure from deer (saw a herd of 14 at the back of the property last weed), rabbits, and forest rats is extensive here, I like the idea of greens that grow on trees that could potentially be tall enough to defeat browsers. So I decided to get some seed.

I ordered seed from two different Chinese eBay sellers. One seed packet came in a nice printed foil packet of the "Flower Goddess" brand, although the English description is pretty rough: "The soil must be used by wetness fertilize and loosen. It is good for health by eat as rich of nutritious. Vigorous plant which can grow at a low." Sounds promising!

The other seed packet, by the way, came packaged like prison contraband. Sealed in a tiny wrinkled baggy with a shred of paper inside identifying the seeds, wadded up tight and wrapped with tape and stuck to the middle of a piece of cardboard in an 8x10 (or equivalent cm) envelope.

Today I am putting a lot of seeds in damp medium in my fridge for cold stratification, so I went looking for germination instructions for the Toon seeds. The best I found were from a blog:

These are rather big seeds that are difficult to germinate; they need to be pre-treated. Here is how I sowed the seeds and I prayed to God that it was the right way to do and that the seeds would germinate in a few days time. They did:
1.Soak the seeds in warm water (30C) overnight
2.Spread the soaked seeds on a wet kitchen towel and leave the seeds to germinate
3.Wait with patience
4.Once seeds germinate (took 6-7 days), pot them up with potting compost and water in well

There's a photograph of the germinating seeds, so I know it worked. Yay!

So today I will be soaking. I'll post pictures if I get germination and of the subsequent seedling/tree growth, if I should be so lucky. (I kill a *lot* of seedlings with my black thumb.)

You can also find this tree from mailorder nurseries.....over the years I got two from Forestfarm in OR, and planted them at two different sites in GA where they grew easily. A seedling a few inches high should be up safely out of deer reach in a few years at most.

Alder sadly I have been forced to avoid ordering tree seedlings from nurseries; the shipping alone tends to exceed my near-zero budget. Seeds are much harder but much cheaper.

I decided to soak and germinate the contraband-packaged seeds first, saving the sealed seed packet for later in the season. I know the seeds were fresh because as soon as I poured them out on a flat surface a warm savory smell hit my nostrils. It was so appealing I chewed one of the seeds. Toasted onion with chicken-soup notes. Promising!

How did this work out?

Complete germination failure.

I still have the second packet to try, but my garden kind of got out of control and I got behind on everything. Maybe next year, I guess.

bummer

Same, i tried the seeds on the left in the fancy package. Trying to germinate in wet paper towels, no luck 7 days so far... but it sure smells like onions

So... How did it end?
Did any of you manage to get them sprouting?

André Troylilas wrote:So... How did it end?
Did any of you manage to get them sprouting?

I think a few of them sprouted, but nothing became of them.  I broke down and bought a Toona from Forestfarm, came as a 1 foot pencil and exploded into a 6 foot staff in a year.  

How resilient have you found your Toona to be? i have read that it resists insect damage? What about slugs and snails?
I have a seedling from this spring's sowing that is now 3' tall and I'm itching to plant it out.( I do have one other seedling that is half that size if it dies!) I feel if I plant it now it should have time to get its roots in before winter. I'm in the UK , usda 8 and we're having a wet, cool summer. But I could keep it in the polytunnel until after spring frosts if its wiser!

thanks
Cesca

cesca beamish wrote:How resilient have you found your Toona to be? i have read that it resists insect damage? What about slugs and snails?
I have a seedling from this spring's sowing that is now 3' tall and I'm itching to plant it out.( I do have one other seedling that is half that size if it dies!) I feel if I plant it now it should have time to get its roots in before winter. I'm in the UK , usda 8 and we're having a wet, cool summer. But I could keep it in the polytunnel until after spring frosts if its wiser!

thanks
Cesca

Cesca, this site has some information plants for a future   I have seeds on the way and hope to stratify over the winter and plant in the spring.  Sounds like they might be cold sensitive for a winter or two.  

Propagation
Seed - best sown as soon as it is ripe in a cold frame[200]. Stored seed germinates better if given a 3 month cold stratification[113]. When large enough to handle, prick the seedlings out into individual pots and grow them on in the greenhouse for at least their first winter. Plant them out in late spring or early summer and consider giving them some protection from the cold in their first winter outdoors. Root cuttings, 4 - 5cm long, taken in December and potted up horizontally in pots in a greenhouse[78].

So Craig, do you like how it tastes? How are you using the leaves?

William Bronson wrote: So Craig, do you like how it tastes? How are you using the leaves?

To me it tastes like beans with onions and black pepper.
Has the aroma of a complex food not just onions.

As fot the germination,from my experience the seeds need to be really fresh and they also need cold stratification.
The australian Toona Cilliata seeds loose viability in just 2 weeks and Toona Sinensis has a longer viability of seeds but its still short.

Interested in practical hardiness info on this tree.  I have long wanted to try getting a few going here in zone 6b. Has anyone successfully got trees going in climates this cold or colder?  Will try my hand at germination.  Failing that, before springing for a nursery-raised tree I'd to find some precedent of them surviving winters like we have often had -though this winter seems to be largely a no-show so far.  

Germination attempt update:

I ended up purchasing a packet of seeds from Sheffield’s Seed Company.  Listed as Chinese Mahogany, Chinese Toon, Red Toon, Toona sinensis.  It contained around 70 seeds.  I soaked half of them in carbon-filtered tap water for about 24 hours and planted in peat pellets.  Kept at about 85F under a domed tray for 7 days so far.  On the sixth day, germination was evident in about half the pellets.  

In these photos, you see some of the most advanced seedlings today.  I have potted a couple as roots had penetrated the bottom of the pellets.  I put these under an LED grow lamp as it is still a little too cool to place them anyplace else to get enough light to avoid legginess.  

I am cautiously optimistic!  I soaked the remainder of the seeds yesterday and committed them to pellets this evening.  Great luck sprouting at one week.  Hopeful that we will end up with lots of little trees to pot up by summer.  

Contrary to everything I read everywhere; I had absolutely no trouble germinating my Toona Sinensis seeds purchased from my Canadian supplier! Almost 100% germination! (Link- https://www.agrohaitai.com/others/chinesetoon/north_red.htm )

nice folks at AgroHaitai Ltd., very responsive to my questions sent by email!


Probably because I used the method suggested by my supplier, or maybe my seeds were fresher?;
1) Soak seeds in room temperature water for 24 hours water, changing the water at 6 hour intervals
2) Germinate on moist paper towels, covered by layer of moist paper towels
(I found the roots grow quickly before the first leaves appear so avoid using cloth towels as the roots get trapped and break off)
3) My tray of germinating seeds was left for 7 days under my grow light in my plant room which tends to be warm and moist;
4) Wow almost 100% germination- now I have lots of little trees to transplant outside in the spring; until then I will keep them under my
LED grow light, as others have reported success with this method,

I tried the website Sheffield’s Seed Company, but shipping is more than double the seeds, so I'd rather find it somewhere else since its supposed to be standard ground shipping. I see them on the agrohaitai site but when I click to calculate it just sits there :C and that one looked most promising. Sow Exotic sells a tree but is out of stock, as well as the fact that I have yet to get a living plant from them. There is also a woman who sells them on etsy at a whopping 60$ a tree :O

I'll have to keep looking!

I bought the seeds from a private seller and came in that tiny ziplock bag. 3 seeds germinated. Now I am onto planting - wish me luck

I'm trying out the Red Toon Tree this year. Red Toon is my preferred name at the moment, although my understanding is that "fragrant spring tree" might be a literal translation of what it is called in some parts of China.

I bought seeds from the vendor TreeSeedMan and attempted germination four different ways:
* Placing the seed directly into moist soil under a germination dome.
* Placing the seed directly into a plastic baggie with a moist paper towel
* Soaking the seed for 24 hours, changing the water twice, then placing the seed in moist soil under a germination dome.
* Soaking the seed for 24 hours, changing the water twice, then placing the seed in a plastic baggie with a moist paper towel.

I'm pleased to report that all methods resulted in good germination rates, and all were successful within three days of one another.

cesca beamish wrote:How resilient have you found your Toona to be? i have read that it resists insect damage? What about slugs and snails?

Replying to an older question:  I have a little tree (purchased and planted a little shorter than a foot tall last year, is a little taller than a foot tall now) and the slugs and snails are seeming to ignore it... even as they skeletonize everything else in the bed - sob!  

To update my entry about germination above, at 2 years, some of these trees are nearing 15 ft tall now. Had a few I planted die back to roots over winter, though most sprang back and are now growing vigorously again.  Will post some photos when it quits raining.  They respond well to lots of nitrogen -chicken manure- that might burn other trees cause them to shoot out of the ground.  

John Skaggs wrote:To update my entry about germination above, at 2 years, some of these trees are nearing 15 ft tall now. Had a few I planted die back to roots over winter, though most sprang back and are now growing vigorously again.  Will post some photos when it quits raining.  They respond well to lots of nitrogen -chicken manure- that might burn other trees cause them to shoot out of the ground.  

Are you using the toon trees as food? In addition to photos, I'm interested in any stories about the practical reality of toona sinensis as food.

I just ordered four bareroot toona sinensis saplings from Fenzystore on Etsy. I decided on this vendor because of the description:

https://www.etsy.com/listing/1028394812/selection-of-1-2-3-4-edible-chinese

Now I'm trying to figure out where I'm going to plant them and how.

Question: Because of the smell and taste, will deer avoid eating this tree? Or not?

If deer do eat this tree, how high would you recommend pollarding to still be able to harvest fairly easily?

i have never had any vertebrate damage on my toon trees, and we have a fair number of deer. i’ve been trying to pollard mine at ~5.5 ft, but as noted elsewhere (i think in this thread?) mine seem to have a disease and individual trunks don’t live longer than 2 years, so the pollarding seems unnecessary. it does mean that there are always new young trunks within reach of deer though, and still, no damage from them.

Suggested by one of my customers on Etsy.  I just joined this forum today.  I am a seller on Etsy and eBay featuring the unique edible Chinese gardening stuff.  I have Chinese toona trees to sell. My trees are 2-3 years old. 2-3 feet tall.  But I have to trim it to fit shipping box.  Search “fenzystore” on Etsy you can find me.

greg mosser wrote:i have never had any vertebrate damage on my toon trees, and we have a fair number of deer. i’ve been trying to pollard mine at ~5.5 ft, but as noted elsewhere (i think in this thread?) mine seem to have a disease and individual trunks don’t live longer than 2 years, so the pollarding seems unnecessary. it does mean that there are always new young trunks within reach of deer though, and still, no damage from them.

Oh, thank you for this! When your trunks die, do they come up again from the roots? I'm hoping so!

Fenny Li wrote:Suggested by one of my customers on Etsy.

That would be me! Welcome to permies.com, Fenny!

Diane Kistner wrote:Oh, thank you for this! When your trunks die, do they come up again from the roots? I'm hoping so!

they do! where the two original plants were i now have a small grove.

One more question for you tooners out there...would toona sinensis roots threaten a septic tank, or are they shallow?

It's exciting to have even more people with experience raising and eating toon trees active in the discussion!

Can anyone advise me on what the yield is like annually per tree? It seems like two or three pollarded trees would be enough for a small household, is that right?

I wonder if this is a situation where I'll have more toon sprouts and leaves than I could use, or if that's true, but only during springtime, etc cetera.

Mark William wrote:It's exciting to have even more people with experience raising and eating toon trees active in the discussion!

Can anyone advise me on what the yield is like annually per tree? It seems like two or three pollarded trees would be enough for a small household, is that right?

I wonder if this is a situation where I'll have more toon sprouts and leaves than I could use, or if that's true, but only during springtime, etc cetera.

It's my understanding that only the tender red leaf tips are what's eaten, and that they are only available for about three weeks in the spring. But there are a number of scientific articles on the NIH and PubMed sites exploring pharmaceutical uses of toon; chemically over my head, but I'm wondering if the greener leaves could be used for that kind of thing. According to this, toon is very high in Vitamins C, E, and calcium: https://avrdc.org/chinese-toon-toona-sinensis/

I'm thinking perhaps toona sinensis would be a great candidate for chop and drop to add soil fertility, once a grove is established. I wonder if you did this if the trees would then put out new red growth for additional harvests.

I can't find it again, but one article about Chinese toon I read said the green leaves have a toxic compound that is greatly reduced by cooking. But they recommended against drying the leaves because of this compound. I'm attaching one article I found that really gets into the nitty gritty, but you have to be a chemist to understand a good bit of it!