Look at all the buds on that thing!

You made it, that's great.

Gonna take a dandy to beat 'er!

Naming it 'Elko Run'?

tj

Nice!

Don't go too crazy in Elko tonight, and good luck tomorrow!

Marv!

Tro me one scion!

Dax

Nice Job Dave!

Nice job is right. Elko is not on exactly on the main line. How did you get there? Drive?
Mike

That is a great looking plant. Congratulations on the wonderful find. I like TJ's name suggestion. :)
Cher

Er... Picea engelmannii ? T.

@Botann, no this was a air adventure. I had plenty of frequent flyer miles to get to Salt Lake City for free. The only minor annoyance was to have to abandon the cheap pair of snips at airport security.

@Tunilla, it's actually a very tight Pinus aristata broom.

As for naming it, Shastensis was the guy who first found it, so he should have first dibs on naming it.

~Dave

Now that I'm back home to base camp, here are a couple of more pics from the trip. Here's an overview of the momma tree. They really like climate here. What a lush tree.
{{gwi:637628}}

The results of yesterday's work. I took a good bunch of scions but left the majority of the broom in case none of the grafts take. I had to work fast. It was like 7 degrees(f) in Elko yesterday morning.
{{gwi:637629}}

I'm off to get them grafted this morning. There should be plenty of scions left over. Anybody want a few? Shoot me an email and I'll ship'm around Monday or Tuesday.

~Dave

Dave O, emailed ya!

Dax

Cool Dave! I love bristlecone pines but they sure take some babying here in the PNW for them to thrive. Bob Fincham has basically told me that he doesn't really think our climate is viable for them - at least without ideal conditions. I have a few in really fast draining soil but it's just so wet here I think we have to cross our fingers annually.

I'd love a graft of this new beauty in any case. The collector in my is ever optimistic.

We still need to exchange golden-seedling grafts. Maybe you want to visit Coenosium Gardens at some time in March and we can get together for some swaps?

Glad to see you're enjoying the Southwest. Thinking about it more, I think it's something I'd like to do in future Winters. What a relief to get away from the cold and rain for a week or two.

-Will

Great pic of momma tree - super form!
Looks like some nice juniper in there too!

Dave, what a beautiful little witches broom. I'm hoping after I get my grafting completed, that I can go out and do some serious scouting for witches brooms. Very nice find.

Thank you for sharing the photos.

Yesterday was results day. I started by gathering up my trusty pole pruner and going after this little guy --
Pseudotsuga menziesii 'DuPont Dynamite'
{{gwi:637630}}
The neighborhood probably was wondering what I was up to. Here's what I was able to get from the tree. I have lot of these scions left, so let me know if you can grow Pseudotsuga menziesii var. menziesii (the coastal beast). I'll send wood.
{{gwi:637631}}
I spent yesterday at Coenosium Gardens putting knife to wood. Here's the result of my first attempts at grafting. Bob recommended that I double graft the aristatas, so there wasn't a lot of scion wood left. However a couple of you lucky souls can expect some in the mail.
{{gwi:637632}}

the menziesiis. Lousy shot, but you get the idea.
{{gwi:637633}}

I think for my next adventure, I'll head out to the Pacific coast in search of Picea sitchensis and Abies grandis brooms.

~Dave

Nice job on the grafting there Dave. It looks like you definitely know what you are doing.

Great grafting job Dave!
I hope both brooms will be successful propagated.
Only now we've to wait for a good name for the Pinus aristata broom.

Searching for new Picea sitchensis and Abies grandis brooms would be nice, but it would be much nicer if you go searching for Abies amabilis brooms because till now there are none of this species...
If I'm not wrong, it's in the same area :0)

They look great. For a first attempt they look like you've been doing them for years.
Cher

"bloody excellent" ;-)

Dax

thanks for all the encouraging words, folks. I did 30 grafts without the sacrifice of a single drop of blood.

Since I've sent some scions around, I'm going with TJ's idea and attaching the provisional cultivar name, 'Elko Run.' We'll go with that for now.

@Edwin, an Abies amabilis broom would be an excellent find. However in all my days of tromping around in the woods, I can't say I've ever seen a single tree, not to mention a forest of them. Maybe one of the species guys can chime in and recommend the type of terrain/climate this species likes. . . .

Dave, here's some useful info for your future Abies amabilis witches' broom hunting :0)
You'll see that these aren't far from were you live...

Here is a link that might be useful: Abies amabilis

I found a couple brooms and pictured today.{{gwi:637634}}{{gwi:637635}}{{gwi:637636}}{{gwi:637637}}

scroll left to right to see todays broom photos.

Looks great for a first grafting session, Dave!

And at Coenesium with Bob, how cool is that?!?

Good luck with the Picea sitchensis and Abies grandis hunting.

Alley cat, what kind of brooms are those?

Hey Sluice, I need some help with this one. My knowledge of conifers is limited.Ive never found a broom before and yesterday i found 2 within 10 min. apart. Growing up we just called these scrub pine trees. I would like to know their true name.Im also thinking about sending my monkey up there and getting the small one!

alley

Start a new thread when you get a chance with more photos of the trees and call it Conifer ID so Resin et.al will see it. Cones would be helpful and anything else you can get photos of: bark/upper & lower surface of a shoot/buds/better photos of the trees.

Dax

Dave, where did you get your Pseudotsuga menziesii understock?
Is that var. menziesii or var. glauca?
Thanks

-Sam

Hi Sam,

The scions (momma-tree) is a PsMen. var. menziesii.

I got my Doug-fir understock from Jason at Western Evergreen. Don't know for sure, but I assume that it's var. menziesii. Since that scions aren't going to be hardy to zone 5-6, I didn't see the point of tracking down hardy understock.

Thanks, Dave.
I may check them out.. or I'll go dig some up from my yard.

-Sam

If you dig them out of the yard they won't be pot-bound.

What a success story!

Way to go, Dave.

Mike

Very cool! Nice follow-up on the outcome of the original broom hunt. Was Edwin the only one to get his grafts to take or did you or others have success as well? Pretty impressive that there were any takes at all, when the scions were collected at 7°f.. Based on what I have read, I thought that type of cold would guarantee failure.

How did your other grafts do, any updates on those? Especially Pseudotsuga menziesii 'DuPont Dynamite', that would looks awesome! Also, is there any advantages or reasons for doing double or triple grafts, or is that just out of necessity? This was my first year doing double & triple grafts, but my main reason was because I had more scions then I did understock and I didn't want to waste them, so I figured this was a way to "preserve" them for later years when I want to propagate more clones.

I always assumed that the main reason for graft failure is a result of the understock failing, but I suppose the actual graft could have a bad connection and fail as well. I wonder how often a double graft has 1 success & 1 failure, same for triples.

I was thinking about this plant within the past 5-7, Dave. EXCELLENT!
Dax

Thanks for the update, Dave. I have wondered if anyone had gotten them to take. Looks like quite a nice ball of needles.

tj

Hello, sc77, I believe that Edwin was the only one in the world to successfully propagate this one in 2012. I'm heading back out to Elko in a couple weeks. If the original broom is still alive, I'll give it another go. Weather there has been 50s daytime and 20s at night, perfect for scions.

Attached is a picture of a 4-year old 'DuPont Dynamite' in my garden. It's a triple graft that's filling in nicely. I double and triple graft dwarf and miniature coniferss all the time. I seem to always have more scionwood than understock and more grafts makes a fuller plant quicker. Sometimes they all take, sometimes I'll lose one or two. These things often have a mind of their own.

Keep me in mind Dave, for a few 3-4 Elko Run scions, Dave.

Thank you,

Dax

Thanks Dave! Nice grafting on 'DuPont Dynamite', looks great

glacier_end (Dave); safe travel, weather forecast should also be better to collect. Sorry to hear that none of your Elk Run took; all that hard work at Coenosium at least paid off for "DuPont Dynamite", I feel you will be successful with the second try for "Elk Run". I too love Pinus aristrata; picked up a #5 from West Seattle Nursery (Bill Hibler) two years ago, up potted and haven't found a place until this past winter for it to be happy -- will put in ground this week (seeing new growth from placing in pot to site for happiness of condition. I'll take 2 scion if you can spare it from this trip. Cheers, p.s.: please message me and I'll e-mail you back.

Someone was just recently telling me that you'll have a better chance of success with aristata if you graft it onto Pinus armandii, though it's not likely you've got any armandii on hand. Maybe that's why there seem to be a lot of aristata brooms around in Europe which we don't have here in their native home, since many grafters there will use armandii as their understock. Of course, that speaks to grafting success and not to other difficulties in keeping them alive down the road, as Will alluded to above back in 2012.

I always thought of double/triple grafting as a way to improve the odds of success. Some clones just intrinsically have a lower chance of grafting success than others, even when everything else is properly controlled. In these cases if you do two, you're twice as likely to have a successful graft. In the case when both succeed, you can use the top graft as scion source in future years, or just cut it off with the rest of the understock. I had never thought of leaving it on for a fuller plant, but I will in the future. That DuPont Dynamite looks awesome!! Too bad it's variety menziesii (which I can't grow).

As you suggested to me dave (glacier_end); maybe you should start new thread from this second trip, with new pics and grafting for "Elk Run". Thanks; too much scrolling (LOL). Cheers,

. . . not 'Elk Run,' it's 'Elko Run' named for the remote little town in Nevada where the original broom was found . . .

Dax, I'll definitely hook you up if possible.

Midnight, are you set up to graft your own conifers?

Alex, armandii is not available anywhere in the U.S. I keep bugging the seedling growers in Oregon that they should start producing it for 5-needle understock. Jason Hupp claims to have success grafting aristata into sylvestris even though that doesn't seem right.

If that broom's still alive is probably I'll likely graft some onto strobus and sylvestris and we'll see how it goes.

Thank you, Dave.

Dax

thanks Dave (glaciers_end); for got the "o" for "Elko Run", even noticed that I dropped the "s" for glaciers_end" of earlier comments (LOL) -- my bad, sorry. Yes I am set up for grafting; one of the first thing of buying this property within the first year 25 years ago, I built a green house to do seeding, rooting, and grafting. Full working green house for all this purpose. Mainly to produce for charity fun raising of different organizations and churches. Thanks Dave. Cheers, p.s.: bon voyage

Stephen Grubb (a name we don't see anymore) used to graft parviflora's on sylvestris.

Dax

Alas, there won't be a part two for the 'Elko Run' saga. The original broom was found in a tree in front of this building. Now only stumps remain.

sheesh. what a jip! Dax

That is very sad. Thanks for letting us know, Dave.

tj

Oh Man, too sad... What a luck, that a few has been successfully propagated! Sometimes it is that close to save a rare finding...

Just as my yellow- white variegated Norway Spruce... First found in 2010 as a over 120 yrs old forestry plant at an old iron mine, and no opportunity to graft, so i tried the found twigs as cuttings- no success. Moved 2011 to the place where i found the motherplant, no fallen twigs that winter. Then in 2012 a new try and two out of three graftings proceed. In 2013 some cat or marten stumbled trough my bed of propagatings- one of the two broken of... Again no fitting twigs fallen of the tree in winter 2013/14, and then, in the late fall of 2014, they cut the whole part of forest down, including the variegated motherplant. Rescue grafts in october doesn't succeed either... So this very single little grafting from a second class side twig (the, on an old tree, weeping ones) is the only chance of this mega- rare mutation.

120 Years of existence, and less than four tiny years decides it all... Just as in your 'Elko Run', whose motherplant surely was 40- 60 Years in age either, wasn't it?

I hope Edwin's specimen thrived and you can get one back some day :)!

Regards, Andreas