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How can I determine Sea Buckthorn sex without looking at flowers?
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Posted by oosa Chicago, IL (My Page) on Thu, Jun 29, 06 at 12:33
I have ten mature(5 years old) Sea Buckthorn bushes that I just got from a not very professional nursery. The bushes are 5 feet tall. The nursery knew nothing about the sex of the bushes. They ordered them bareroot 5 years ago and had them growing in their pots ever since. A couple of bushes have very few berries and berries had no seeds inside. So my guess is they are female but haven't been polinated properly. I am afraid to plant all of them in the ground and later find out that I have no male plants among my 10 bushes. I would hate to order an immature male and wait 4 years for him to develop enough to polinate the females.
Can I tell the sex of the Sea Berry plant without knowing what the flowers look like? |
Follow-Up Postings:
RE: How can I determine Sea Buckthorn sex without looking at flow
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- Posted by bboy z8 WA USA (My Page) on
Wed, Jul 12, 06 at 13:49
RE: How can I determine Sea Buckthorn sex without looking at flow
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| Perhaps expensive genetic testing |
RE: How can I determine Sea Buckthorn sex without looking at flow
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| My one grafted female had just a few berries the last couple years too. I thought one of my 2 seedlings had to be a male but perhaps not? I hadn't heard of berries forming without pollination. I would explain why it is not loaded with fruit like it is supposed to be. |
RE: How can I determine Sea Buckthorn sex without looking at flow
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| The seaberry blooms require a close look but once you know what to look for the male and female blooms are very obvious. If all your plants have blooms that look like tiny green worms, they are all female. Male blooms look like tiny coin purses, they open up like a clam shell to release pollen. I had 10 seedling plants from Oregon Exotics in 1992. For 4 years the whole group produced only a few berries. There is no shortcut: Buy a known male pollinator or try to get very lucky. I just harvested 30 pounds of fruit from 2 named cultivar plants, I have sawed them all down to stumps for removal. Next year I will start with newer varieties. The juice in the freezer will tide me over for the next 2 or 3 years. |
RE: How can I determine Sea Buckthorn sex without looking at flow
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- Posted by murky z8f pnw Portlan (My Page) on
Wed, Sep 20, 06 at 19:24
| Larry, what qualities are you expecting in the new varieties to warrant wholesale removal of your existing ones? |
RE: How can I determine Sea Buckthorn sex without looking at flow
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| Newer varieties are touted as being more compact with sweeter berries requiring less sugar to sweeten. The recently removed plants had already been pruned back to a stump once and were 15 feet tall again after only 3 years. One was leaning on the neighbor's house. A recent tour of the actual One Green World's seaberry acreage showed plants in a similar condition, heavy pruning and massive regrowth of the older varieties. The plant spacing of 6 to 8 feet had completely grown in, forming a continuous hedge. Mine need to be shoehorned in at 3-foot spacing. |
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