Alcina Pinata

To update on my nectarines

I got no further germinations last year after the Sunburst twins. But I left the root trainer tray out in the garden, watered it when it was dry just in case.  We had a dry and occasionally very cold winter - the lowest was -5C (23F) in my garden.  All my little seedlings survived just fine. Spring 2022 came and April was very warm and dry, only I failed to notice as it was crazy at work and I was otherwise distracted.  Unfortunately by the time it occurred to me that it hadn't actually rained for a month it was too late for quite a few of my potted plants.  But...not the nectarines!  They all survived the abuse, though one of the Redix has peach leaf curl and all the Sunbursts had some dieback and are looking a bit scrubby, but they are alive.  But...and this is the exciting bit...when I finally staggered out into the garden and viewed the desiccated pots around me I suddenly noticed the root trainer tray...it had a shoot!!!  Amazingly it must have only just popped up in the 24 hours before otherwise it would definitely have died.  It's a Nectarlem, so another late season variety to add to the collection.  This is one of the original pits I sowed in the root trainer outside 2 years ago!  It's taken 2 winter's to scarify it and germinate it. I'm absolutely over the moon!  I potted it up and it's doing well.  Taller than the scrubby Sunburst twins already. So now i have 6 nectarines grown from seed, 3 varieties: 3 early Sunbursts, 2 late Redix, 1 late Nectarlem.  Alas the 4th variety I sowed, the early Honey Blaze have definitely not germinated and poking around the root trainer tray seemed to show that all the remaining seeds had rotted. Oh well.  Now I await the first of my 6 to bloom!!!

Mike Guye wrote:The links below show my personal experiences with avocado growing - they are ongoing, getting updated when I take new photos:

Hass:  https://imgur.com/a/5gflnlU

Hass (winter protection):  https://imgur.com/a/q3j3zCn

Fuerte:  https://imgur.com/a/0XuODou

Bacon:  https://imgur.com/a/FmRvs7d

Mexicola:  https://imgur.com/a/2wJArWr

Mike, your in ground avocados look amazingly healthy! Interesting that your Mexicola seeds rotted quickly, mine did too, but for the moment both of my plants are still alive, though one is teeny tiny (it produced 4 shoots from the seed but only the 4th and smallest survived).  I am well jealous you found Bacon avocados!  I look forward to the updates in your diaries.  Many thanks for sharing.  This collective experience of avocados in Europe is great!

Whilst we're doing show and tell...

These are the seedlings and the rootstock plant in the the greenhouse which is on the north side of the house, so plenty of light but no direct sun.  In the winter this has a couple of little heaters that has managed to keep it above freezing on sub-zero nights. Lowest night in the middle of the garden was -5C, but the greenhouse went to 0C.  The rootstock (might be Duke7 or an unknown seedling, probably Zutano therefore as I believe most commercial rootstock seedlings are Zutano) has variegation in some of its leaves.  This, from what I have read, may actually be a virus and not the "distinctive yellow flecks of a Duke". Sigh....  It is in an airpot. The reason for this is that I understand that avocado roots like plenty of air. Gary Gragg's YouTube channel shows some of his avocados that he had on a temporary display put their roots out through the small pot they were in, and had lots of healthy white roots just pushing their way into the dry bark chip that was filling the gap between their small pot and the large display pot. I thought an airpot may provide the same type of environment i.e. plenty of air.  Certainly since putting it into the airpot it has fared much better!  The others avocados seedlings are Gem and Brazos Belle (assuming I trust the seed seller). This summer the middle of the garden reached 43C and the greenhouse was 38C for several days. All seem to be doing very well.  The Gems are noticeably paler, even though I have fed them.



This is the avocado forest in my south facing window.  A large mixture of many different types (fuerte, gem, ettinger, pinkerton, mexicola grande, brazos belle, poncho, galil, fantastic). All sown winter 2020-2021. They get a lot of sun through the window in winter, less direct sun in summer but they can get quite hot!  When the temperature is set to go over 26C the curtains get closed to try to keep the house cooler, and so they are trapped between the glass and the curtains.  The glass is double glazed so even the leaves touching the glass are undoubtedly not going to suffer cold damage in winter.



This is the avocado forest in my west facing window. Again a large mixture of different types all sown winter 2020-2021 with the exception of the larger fuerte which was sown the year before. This window gets very hot in the summer - in fact during the heat wave the UK had a couple of weeks ago, I hung shade cloth outside the window in an attempt to prevent so much heat coming in.



What is noticeable, regardless of where they are being grown, the Gems are the most vigorous and require a lot more watering. I water only with rain water. The Mexicola Grandes seeds decomposed away the quickest and needed feeding before any of the others.  The rootstock also benefited greatly from feeding.  Feeding makes a big difference, who'd have thought! :)  But I have been wary of overfeeding as the conventional wisdom is that avocados really struggle with salt buildup.  I have lost 5 or 6 of the seedlings, don't know why, they just died!  Another 2 or 3 are alive but have always appeared on the sickly side - this includes my original Fuerte - very prone to leaf scorch and drop their leaves at the slightest stress.  2 germinated and grew into mutated plants - a Haas with a very small seed and a Fantastic. I believe this occurs when the fruit was harvested before the seed was fully mature.  Interestingly although their seeds are still intact I did include them in the feeding rotation this summer and both, in the last month, have put out new and non-mutated growth.  So quite fascinating!  The other plants are all pootling along nicely. All bar about 3 were snipped to encourage branching, doesn't seem to have had that much effect.  All pots have bark chips and dead avocado leaves covering the soil. All pots are only watered when the probe says the soil is dry.  The 'soil' is a mixture of potting compost, sand and perlite - so airy and very well draining, but not the most fertile.

Philip Heinemeyer wrote:
The temperature alone does not count. Why else would my seedling in the polytunnel survive the winter no problem?
The polytunnel does not have a higher temperature at night in winter, but it's drier and the moisture doesn't come down and cristallize on the leaves as happens outdoors.

I can't remember where I read it, but the polytunnel "roof" will be making a difference.  In places where they grow avocados but it sometimes goes a bit too cold for comfort in the winter (e.g. Northern California) if they can they wrap up their avocados in the winter. If they can't wrap them up then, and this is the exact bit I can't remember where I read it, even something like a golf umbrella over the top can make the difference between die back and death.  So exact same temperature but the roof is still protecting the plant from frost. It's the frost that does the damage.

Jerry Satterlee's Mexican avocados in Texas survived several days very subzero temperatures at -22C. There was 30-40% die back, but they survived.  If they can survive that then they can survive in many parts of northern Europe.  Jerry has always maintained: do not plant outside until they have brown bark, or at the very least wrap 'em up and protect them from frost until they do. Jerry buys grafted trees and with those further maintains: buy ones with low grafts and bury the graft (again when they have brown bark). Whilst the top growth may be Mexican, the root stock undoubtedly isn't.  And yet...his grafted trees survived -22C for several days.  Rootstock and all.  So he's doing something right. His citrus all died including the more cold hardy mandarin- so if you can keep citrus alive over winter then you can keep avocado alive.

I think what we probably can't do in Europe, like they can in Southern California, is just toss a seed in the ground and wait a few years and behold we have an avocado tree.  I think we will have to coddle and nurture carefully for the first five maybe even ten years. And yes we will still have more deaths than they do in Southern California.  The fact that your polytunnel avocodo is thriving is excellent.  Personally I'd keep it (and any new ones you try) in the polytunnel until it has brown bark, and only then try planting one or two outside.

My rootstock avocado (the grafted trees I purchased arrived broken below the grafts) is going to be now probably 4 years old and it still doesn't have brown bark. So our coddling, nursery phase may be quite lengthy. But I'm hoping we shall reap great rewards for our care in the end.

Mike Guye wrote:Has anyone seen these avocado fruit on sale in the U.K:  

‘Brogdon’ or 'Brogden'?
‘Ettinger’?
‘Gainesville’?

Thanks in advance for any possible leads on these ...

Ettinger definitely. I have several Ettinger seedlings.  They are like Fuerte but don't peel well.  Tasty though.  The others I have never seen for sale in the UK.  Unlike Haas which is available all year round, Fuerte, Ettinger, Pinkerton, etc. are usually available here seasonally, over the winter months.

Ooooh!  Congratulations on finding the Bacon!  Well jealous!  My seedlings are pootling along.  I have about three that have stayed in the slightly heated greenhouse all winter - I've managed to keep it above freezing thus far.  The others are all clustered on windowsills.  I've had a few deaths, including one that was abducted by a squirrel when but a few days old!  The Mexicola Grandes, having had a strong start, are not looking good now, I don't know if I should feed them.  The Gems are all looking amazingly strong.  Everything else is somewhere in the middle. The Israeli Galils are still very bijou and compact.  I've not snipped a few to see if it makes any difference to bushing out.  None of mine is actually looking any bushier for having been snipped.  One of the rootstock from Troipcaflore died, that was I think the seedling, the other, which I think is the Duke7, after a bit of a dodgy moment until I repotted it is now looking ok.  It too is in the greenhouse in an airpot.

I've not had chance to get over to the avocado tree near where I work, but I wave to it every time I pass it on the train.  It is looking glorious as ever.

I thought I'd updated this thread on Gerry's avocado trees in Texas - they're alive!!!  Well some of them are. He lost all his citrus trees, and some of his avocados, but all the Mexican ones survived.  They lost about 60% of their canopy but they're still there.  -22C for several days!  Incredible!  Hope for us all.

Ryan Kremer wrote:I started a peach tree from a pit several years ago and it's only 6 inches tall or so yet, but I see what you all have started and they seem to shoot up really quickly! Why is mine so slow growing? For context, it's directly East of an existing peach tree maybe a foot or so away from the other tree.

As I'm not really growing mine "naturally", but in pots, my pits went into root trainers (so about 2 inches square by 8 inches deep), since they sprouted they've been sitting on a barrel in the garden, still in their trainers until they're big enough with enough of a root ball to transplant into a proper pot.  Full sun (plenty of watering).  With the sun they have shot up.  Maybe yours is too close to the other tree and is in its shade?

Kevin Young wrote:I planted some peach pits last fall and none of them came up (I am in northern Utah). Did you do anything special prior to planting? I'm surprised to see how quickly your peach trees have grown!

I sowed a total of 13 pits, and 4 have germinated (one producing twins!). Some were sowed last Autumn (Fall) - I ate the nectarines, soaked the pits in water for about 24 hours, then put them into the potting compost in the root trainers.  Left them out all winter, just making sure they neither dried out nor drowned.  The others were sowed this Spring - I ate the nectarines, put them into damp kitchen towel, into plastic boxes in the fridge for a few weeks. Of these, some were de-shelled and some were not, they were removed from the fridge, soaked in warm water for 24 hours and put into the root trainers. I've had mixed results with all three methods.  One lot of direct Autumn sown pits has had half of them germinate, the other lot have not germinated at all.  One lot of Spring sown refrigerated pits has germinated, the other lot has not. Of the ones that have germinated, both the in-shell and de-shelled have germinated so I'm not sure it makes that much difference, though if they are going to germinate it's possible that the de-shelled ones manage to push up slightly earlier.

So..in short...two of the four varieties I sowed have had zero germination.  The other two varieties have germinated regardless of which method I used.  Each of the varieties comprised the pits from a single bag of nectarines.  So the reason why some have germinated and some haven't could be to do with variety, perhaps some simply are more fecund than others; or could be to do with the picking/storage/transport of that particular bag of nectarines.  What happened to those nectarines before I scoffed them is unknown. Given that I really liked the Honey Blaze, I am intending to try to find them again in a supermarket and try again with a different batch of nectarines.  I may also have a quick ferret in the root trainers to check if the pits still there have rotted, and if not, I'll just leave them out and see if any pop up next year.  They could just be shy

It's TWINS!!!

So if you look in the photo above there are what appears to be two little trunks on the new Sunburst.  I thought at first that one of the them was just a branch and where it joined the trunk would surface as the seedling grew a little.  But it didn't. It remained as two trunks.  I decided it was time to pot up and I took a chance and delved down into the root ball.  They are two separate little nectarine trees!  This is a nectarine pit that I didn't de-shell, and there were obviously two seeds in the pit and both have germinated.  I gently pulled them apart and potted them up separately.  So now I have 2 Redix and 3 Sunburst.

But wait, there's more...



In the picture you can see the twin Sunburst nectarine seedlings.  In front of them is a pot containing  a blood orange seedling. But...again...it appears to be twins!  However, this was a pip that I removed the outer case before sowing and there was definitely only one seed in there. When I repotted it I also delved into the root ball a little, but this time, the seedlings seemed to be joined at the cotyledon bits (not sure if they're called cotyledons with citrus), so I think it is identical twins rather than the fraternal twins of the nectarine.  No idea if such a thing actually happens with citrus.  I know there are polyembryonic seeds, like avocado, which can produced three or four shoots, but I thought citrus was a single embryo.  Ready to be stood corrected!  Behind are the Antonovka apple seedlings, also potted up.  And behind those are what are supposed to be cherry seedlings but not a single one has germinated. I guess I did something wrong with their scarification. Oh well, I''ll try again next year.

EDIT:
According to wikipedia (so it must be true! ) certain citrus can be polyembryonic, but one twin is a clone of the mother (the nucellar-cell-derived embryo), the other twin is the love child of mummy and daddy.  So my little blood orange seedling (I have only one, there was only one seed in the the entire bag of delicious Sanguinelli oranges!) could be two slightly different plants, but one of them will be identical to the mother and therefore produce the exact same delicious blood oranges. Golly, how very exciting!

The quote from Wikipedia:

The genus Citrus has a number of species that undergo polyembryony, where multiple nucellar-cell-derived embryos exist alongside sexually-derived embryos.[8][9] Antonie van Leeuwenhoek first described polyembryony in 1719 when the seed in Citrus was observed to have two germinating embryos.[3] In Citrus, polyembryony is genetically controlled by a shared polyembryony locus among the species, determined by single-nucleotide polymorphism in the genotypes sequenced.[8] The variation within the species of citrus is based on the amount of embryos that develop, the impact of the environment, and gene expression.[9] As with other species, due to the many embryos developing in close proximity, competition occurs, which can cause variation in seed success or vigor.[9]

[3] Batygina, T. B.; Vinogradova, G. Iu (2007-05-01). "[Phenomenon of polyembryony. Genetic heterogeneity of seeds]". Ontogenez. 38 (3): 166–191. ISSN 0475-1450. PMID 17621974.
[8] Nakano, Michiharu; Shimada, Takehiko; Endo, Tomoko; Fujii, Hiroshi; Nesumi, Hirohisa; Kita, Masayuki; Ebina, Masumi; Shimizu, Tokurou; Omura, Mitsuo (2012-02-01). "Characterization of genomic sequence showing strong association with polyembryony among diverse Citrus species and cultivars, and its synteny with Vitis and Populus". Plant Science. 183: 131–142. doi:10.1016/j.plantsci.2011.08.002. ISSN 1873-2259. PMID 22195586.
[9] Kishore, Kundan; N., Monika; D., Rinchen; Lepcha, Boniface; Pandey, Brijesh (2012-05-01). "Polyembryony and seedling emergence traits in apomictic citrus". Scientia Horticulturae. 138: 101–107. doi:10.1016/j.scienta.2012.01.035.

Introducing number 4!


Another Sunburst popped up in the midst of the horrid windy, wet and cold weather we've been having  This is one that wasn't de-shelled. So now I have two late Redix and two early Sunburst. Still no sign of the other late that's been out all winter: Nectarlam; or the other early that spent a shorter time in the fridge: Honey Blaze. Of all of the original nectarines I sampled Honey Blaze was my favourite, so really hoping I get one of those, but hey, the others were also good  

Yes the first one shot up, the second one has been much more...stunted...for want of a better word.  The third seems to be following the second.  I suspect the reason is because the first one produced its initial growth in the warm, safe and non-stress environment of the greenhouse. It was there because Spring here has been very cold (and dry) with frosts at night until very recently, which is unusual. I wanted to get the seeds warmer to encourage them to sprout.  It is now a little warmer but wet and very windy!  The tray went outside which is where the second sprouted up. Its initial growth has had to battle strong winds, consequently its little trunk is actually thicker than the bigger first one which has had something of a baptism of fire with the wind! But he's hanging in there! The third, the Sunburst, was very pale when it sprouted (as you can see in the photo) and took what felt like ages to green up.  It's still not that green.  But is proceeding much along the same lines as the second one.

They will all be going into large pots - I have very little space so my fruit trees have to be very close together - too close if they were in the ground. I appreciate this is neither 'true' permaculture, nor growing tree's naturally, but I don't like grafted trees, and the idea of dwarfing stock I find somewhat laughable. It may reduce the tree size a little but they still require substantial pruning if you want to keep them small and all I can think about is my poor tree being choked and starved by its root stock. The tray they are in are long root trainers, so the depth of the tray is a bit more than the height of the first 'tree'.  I'm just waiting until the root ball is firm enough to get out of the tray without losing all the soil, then it will go into a bigger pot.