I would definitely clip the scions off of the first one. It's very tight and desireable. Looks to be fewer than 15 pieces

The second one doesn't seem all that special.

Just my 2-cents.

~Dave

Picea abies brooms are a glut on the market. However, I think anyone who finds one should go ahead and propagate it for their own satisfaction. Share the resulting plants with family and friends. Who cares if it has any commercial value when you actually have something unique that you found. Put a special name on it and know that it is your discovery.

There is also the slight chance that it will demonstrate some valuable attribute as a plant that did not show in the broom.

Go ahead to propagate them, those are your finds to which you can be proud of...

Your second one does have a blueish cast.
I've seen this several times before that green Picea abies species produces blueish witches' brooms.
Isn't that strange...?

I was wondering that too...the green mother plant but the bluish broom. Is that a different species next to the norway that has blueish needles?

Bob - I fully intend to try propagating the second broom for my own satisfaction. However, I am a novice grafter and do not have a temperature controlled area for allowing the grafts time to callus together. I tried grafting some doug fir scions last year from a broom I found. I set up a humidity tent in a large fish tank in my unheated garage. Things were going well until we had a week in March where temps were a little over 70 degrees for 5-6 days straight. My unheated garage became an oven and cooked the little guys.

coniferjoy - I also find that interesting that many all green P. abies trees will produce blue-tinted brooms. That is the case with a broom I found and had propagate a couple years ago. Here's P. abies 'Mopo':
{{gwi:638327}}

For the first broom - is anyone intersted in trying to graft the remaining live scions? As a novice grafter with one failed attempt under my belt, I don't want to take a chance on the few surviving scions. I can call Gary Gee as well since he and I have worked together in the past to propagate some brooms. He has a couple of my past broom finds for sale in his catalog :)

Whaas - the neighboring tree is a P. pungens.

You can send a few scions my way. Hit me with a private message to my email and I'll send you my address.

~Dave

Pretty. If you are then you should sow seeds...

Mirek - I tried sowing the seed from 'Mopo'. No luck getting any to germinate, which I was surprised at. A few of the seeds looked viable.

Dave - I sent you a PM.

Treeguy,
some statistics to your new brooms.
The conifertreasury.org documented till now about 3000 cultivars of Picea abes. Brooms are over 70-80% of this 3000. Most of them are discovered in Cesko, Austria and Poland.

Generally the Picea abies brooms are green with all possible habits. There is a newly respected 5-10 %, which are blue anyhow - partly or full. Some of them are similar to other picea species. Blue Picea abies brooms are mostly discovered in Cesko, Jiri Balatka has a great collection of them. The States are empty of blue Picea abies brooms, so I think yours - as Mopo, or the newly captured - may have possibilities beyond surprising your friends.
Bob is right, slowly we have so many conifers on the world, that no nurseries are able to follow the big numbers of selections. Therefore all nursery must select and take the bests - based on their own initials.

I also think, that successful breeders may start new nurseries, where their own finds are offered, serving for collectors. I guess 50-100 brooms may serve as a basement of nurseries, which are very specialized, one-men units. If 10000 people are collecting conifers in the States, many specialized small nurseries may get light for their finds.

I guess this game will never end. Year to year thousands of conifers are discovered. No one may think that all cultivars will be available in a nursery.

Finally a bad news for all broom hunters. They cant stop, as I expect to have in the world about 1 million brooms out in the never detected boreal forests. Everybody may hunt and nurseries may choose some of them to propagate.

Please, dont stop documentation or news on Gardenweb, which site developed to a "middle of the world" situation in the last years for conifer affairs.

Zsolt
conifertreasury.org

Hi, nice brooms. I fully agree with Bob.
Jan wbgarden

Here is a link that might be useful: wbgarden

Thanks Jan. I have sent scions from the smaller broom to Dave to see if they are viable enough to graft. I would like to get scions from the larger broom as well, but the property owner is in Florida for the winter! Perhaps next year.