hi barb.. often wondered about all your propagation attempts.. years ago ... havent seen much of you ...

it will give pine nuts when it cones..

it will cone ... when it hits sexual maturity..

its an age thing..

so why would a graft make a difference ??? are you thinking ... that you can cut years to maturity by grafting??? ... dont you do grapes??.. is that something that is possible?????

after 10 years.. my P. armandii finally coned.. but i cant figure out how to get the extremely hard shell off the pine nut short of obliterating it with a sledgehammer ... whats the point.. lol.. not big enough for a nut cracker ... lost interest at that point ... as i didnt feel like traipsing to the vice to try that ...

and what do you mean.. the pic is of rootstock.. it still has all its buds on it???? .. thats convenient.. if it does ... or did you link the wrong pic??/

ken

Hey Ken,

Perhaps it will cone sooner because the scion is from a plant which already has age and maturity to it.
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
No

Another photo of the rootstock:

This post was edited by barbaraincalif on Tue, Mar 19, 13 at 11:12

That's sylvestris rootstock, and it should perform adequately in San Fran area..

-Sam

well.. that was an in depth reply.. lol ...

yes?????

ken

ps: sam didnt answer your ??? about cutting years to maturity.. no ????

Pinus monophylla, perhaps the toughest tree I've ever seen, growing in the alkaline NV desert just east of Tahoe.

No experience w/it, but I'd assume it would need absolute drainage, like pure sand.

Hmm, after thinking, the sylvestris rootstock might change its requirements somewhat. Perhaps more tolerant of "standard" soils than an ungrafted monophylla? Maybe something even I could try? Doubt it, tho, needlecast would prb'ly get it eventually here.

This post was edited by beng on Tue, Mar 19, 13 at 11:54

Okay, here's a more in-depth reply:
It may cone sooner because the cuttings was likely taken from a more mature tree.. Essentially, it's a clone of a fully-developed tree if this is the case.

I would remove the understock this fall, once the plant has gotten established in its new planting site.

-Sam

Agree with Scots Pine - probably not the best rootstock for the SF area, as it is more of a cold climate tree.

Resin

Oh, yes, definitely "not the best," but will it not survive, Resin?

-Sam

Hi Barbara,

Good find. What cultivar of monophylla?

Nate

We actually live in the hot summered Central Valley of California with frequent drying winds. Like many of us I have to travel in order to find larger plants...and this one was found in the SF area.

It is the straight Pinus monophylla species, which is why the graft surprised me. After reading beng's information about required drainage for the species it may be that the rootstock will make it more "garden friendly", though it also sounds like P. sylvestris isn't ideal for our area either.

As a side note, I received Pinus monophylla 'Whoopie' and Pinus monophylla 'Blue Jazz'' from High Country Gardens last fall. Believe they are grafted onto monophylla rootstock so I'll need to watch my watering on those.

Thanks for the information!

Barbara

Requested to post this by Ron Lanner (he can't post due to computer problems):

"I would tell the lady she will never see a nut crop without cross-pollination from other trees, and that is if she is lucky enough to ever get normal cone maturity in the mild wet Bay weather"

via Resin

Thank you to resin for passing on Ron Lanner's information. They are both conifer gods and I value their input.

It's a surprised to me that conifers are not self-pollinating...I need more info on this one!

Barbara

PS Just remembered hearing Ron on an episode of Radiolab, my favorite show on Public Radio. I wonder if he got to meet Jab and Robert.....

This post was edited by barbaraincalif on Mon, Mar 25, 13 at 9:44

Barbara, if I'm not mistaken, conifers are capable of self-pollinating..
However, the development of mature, fertile seeds is largely influenced by the amount of pollen donors in that locale. It is easier for cones to get pollinated with 10 trees than just one...
Resin?

-Sam

Not quite so simple - with most conifers, the ovules reject selfed pollen and the seed won't, or only very rarely, develops (or if it does, the resulting seedlings are malformed).

There are a few exceptions (e.g. Pinus resinosa, which has been through a population 'bottleneck' and has minimal genetic variation), but it applies in the vast majority of species.

Resin

Good grief Barbara! Not a god here, though I don't know about Resin as I have only met him once. Couple of things --- Embryos resulting from self-pollination are highly homozygous ("pure") for the genes of a gene pair -- they lack the diversity that imparts so-called hybrid vigor. This includes having genes that are deleterious in many ways, some of which are lethal. So many fewer of them develop to maturity, and they instead develop into hollow seeds. In crosses of monophylla and edulis I got about 15% of filled seed, and that is fairly typical in pines. An isolated tree of its species will be largely self-pollinated. I believe also (not much evidence) that if too few seeds develop in a cone, the cone may not mature at full size. Maybe Resin has observations on this.

Yep - there's an isolated Pinus orizabensis (Orizaba Pinyon) at Kew (the only one in the whole of Europe), and when I collected several cones, it only had less than 10% filled seed, and of those that were filled, quite a few produced deformed seedlings that didn't survive. The cones were a mix of stunted specimens with just 2 or 3 empty seeds in, to full size with 20-30 seeds of which 2 or 3 viable.

Resin

In the fall I collected cones from a solitary Pinus thunbergii 'Thunderhead' . The resulting seeds are mostly empty, but some do appear viable. Applying this information on pollination, one can expect high seedling mortality (if the seeds sprout at all).

If I understand correctly, this is the expected consequence of any isolated species of Pinus? And since named Pinus cultivars are genetically identical (or even two grafted species from the same mother plant as in my Pinus monophylla), then two or more of the same cultivar would have the same result?

Many thanks,
Barbara

Barbara, you could get yourself several monophyllas (not the same clones of course) for cross-pollination. They don't grow fast & won't take up much room...

"The resulting seeds are mostly empty, but some do appear viable. Applying this information on pollination, one can expect high seedling mortality"

Yep. I can count 4 seeds there that look viable (dark grey; ringed below); the 'empties' are pale.

"If I understand correctly, this is the expected consequence of any isolated species of Pinus? And since named Pinus cultivars are genetically identical (or even two grafted species from the same mother plant as in my Pinus monophylla), then two or more of the same cultivar would have the same result?"

Yes, to both (and applies to almost all conifers, not just pines).

Resin

Great info, which leads to more questions....

We have a group of twenty-year-old Sequoia sempervirens 'Aptos Blue' that have never coned. Are they not old enough, is this a trait of the cultivar, or is it because of the monoculture planting?

Barbara

Probably not old enough, but they should start coning any year now. They don't know they're in a monoculture, so that won't affect cone initiation and production, it only affects seed fertilisation.

Remember too, pollen can blow a long way - I'd suspect in most parts of California west of the Sierra Nevada and north of LA, there'll be at least some Sequoia sempervirens pollen blowing around from the native forests, so you should get viable seed from them.

Resin

Thanks again resin. There are definitely male cones this year.

Sequoia sempervirens is a popular landscape tree here so the closest is within 0.5 mile / 0.8 km.

Barbara

The recent post: Pinus monophylla: what rootstock is this? has prompted me to ask where someone living in Oregon may purchase a dozen or so seedlings of Pinus strobus, or sylvestris, and others? Seems the State of Oregon prohibits or restricts the importation of such agricultural items.

Thanks, Larry

ps. I'm getting too old to raise my own plants from seed, every year counts.