Planting Avocado Seeds Upside Down.

Saw an article on this "method" to create seeds with multiple shoots plant the seed upside down. Just for fun, I planted some seeds upside down, side ways and mostly the natural right way up.

As I'm potting the sees to the poly bags, I examined the seeds. This seeds was planted upside down. It has 3 shoots. The roots tap tried to grow up, but terminated. Side roots then grew down. The shoots grew down but turned up.

Another upside down seed, but only 1 shoot.

The root grew out from the side then turned down.

 A nature right way up with 3 shoots.

 Another nature right way up with 2 shoots.

Seed planted side way.

The way I see it, planting the seeds upside down doesn't guarantee multiple shoot. If multiple shoot is required, I feel the a better way shall be when the seed germinate, cut off the shoot closest to the seed.

At this moment I have no interest on multiple shoot as I germinate the seeds to graft and the only variety I have at the moment is Borneo Avocado. These are for planting in our farm. So I require seeds to grow single stem, big, fast and strong so that I can reduce "nursery" time.

In the future, I may look into this again as I do see a potential on Multiple stems seedlings. When I have other Avocado varieties, I shall try to graft a different variety to each stem. This shall be suitable for home growers, where land is limited. By planting 1 tree with different varieties (different fruiting time), hopefuly the owner can have fruits almost all year round.

Grafting Scissor.

Bought a Professional  Grafting Scissor. Had wanted to buy this but had been putting it off for a while.

Simple packaging.

It comes with 3 blades, Omega, V & U blade. The blade can be used on both ends making an effective of 6 blades.

Instruction is pretty simple,

Instruction given on the rear.

 Hold grafting stock in the grafting tool and squeezes the handle to make the cut, repeat this to cut the stem o the donor plant.
Slide the donor plant stem into the stock plant, matching the cut surfaces as closely as possible. If the stock and donor is of different size, match 1 side only.
Place sterilizing material around the join and bind with tape. The sterilizing material shall protect against bacterial & weather.
There is also a top scissor to use for pruning.

Blade sliding down onto the orange catch.

 This professional grafting scissor is effective for soft / green wood. It can not be used with hardwood. Effective grafting diameter is about 15mm.

It is designed to have a vertical sliding down cut.

Sturdy handle.

It is light weight as it's mostly plastic. The handle looks sturdy and comes with a lock. Looking forward to test this on the Jackfruit, Avocado, Mangoes & Figs. Wondering if this shall helps in my grafting.

Australian Avocado.

Since I've not been able to source overseas avocado planting material, I've decided to try some out of seeds. Managed to get some seeds of Avocado from a friend. These were kept in the fridge. I collected them, had them skinned and dipped them in water. Shall try to bring these back to my nursery and have them germinated as soon as possible.

These seeds do look different from our Borneo Avocado.

Hopefully they can germinate.

I now have about 26 seeds of unknown varieties but of Australia origin. Am only guessing that these could be Hass. Hope to germinate as much of them as possible, plant them and make them grow fast.

Some of the seeds had cracked and roots growing.

Didn't expect these small seeds to sprout so soon.

Some seeds cracked into 2.

Had been away from our farm lately. Looking forward to my next trip as I've got many things in my head that I want to do at the farm.
 Just got in a second batch last night. Had them skinned and soak in water. Guess there are about 50 seeds.

Another batch of 50 Australian seeds.

 The more the merrier.

Avocado Cuttings Trial 2.

Did a second trial for the Avocado cuttings.

This batch was bigger and more. I didn't pay to much attention on cutting selection as it's of no cost to me, but I do discard those that I feel that do not stand a chance, like section where there are no buds or new growth especially tip.

Started to use the rooting hormone liquid from Thailand, unfortunately has used up and have to use back the local available powder type. Should had bought more in Thailand.

I started off just sealing the top. I then apply more liberally on the tree dressing to seal up more of the cutting especially the side.

The other thing that I did was to increase the density.

 While I'm at it, I tried some mango cuttings too. Shall check back on these middle of May. I was figuring if this works, then I may have an alternative to propagate more planting materials.

Avocado Cuttings.

Previously from Propagating Avocado Cuttings.

Six weeks has passed, since I started the Avocado cuttings.

 Comparison

I guess more than half died.

Made a quick count, 60% died. More are dying but some is definitely growing.

I would say that this is encouraging and warrant further trial / study. My check on the internet says that successful rate is less than 20%. Am expecting more to died off. The weather at the present is super hot, plus no rain. Irrigation is also erratic.

Planning for a 2nd test before I go off end of this month. Am thinking of more ways to control and improve success.

Kindly do comment and share ideas to improve success rate. Or if there is another method of cutting propagation that you may want to test. Am open to all suggestion.

Progress Of Avocado & Jackfruit February 2014.

February, being the shortest month, leave much to be done. I had only about 16 days in our farm for this month. The weather is also bringing heavy rain with super hot afternoon and very cold nights, which disrupted our schedule.

Bagged all the previously germinated seeds from December / January.

Prepared Avocado seedling and transfer all of them into poly bags. Managed to collect more quality seeds. Preparing to germinate them to create more rootstock.

Managed to collect these seeds when I was about to give up. The scions are for grafting the 10 plants.

 Organize the grafted Avocados. Shutting down my ICU as shall be away for a month. Shifting back all my patients to the nursery for logistic reason. Shall have to make more drainage holes on the bags.

"Amulance" awaiting.

These grafts had 'taken' but the scions are dying from the top.

Snipped off the died parts and re-seal with wax.

Didn't do a good job, a small edge was not sealed properly, causing the scion to dry further. It's a goner.

Thank you, at least I got 1.

Was thinking there may be other methods of cloning. Considering air layering and cuttings. As the fruiting trees is large, I feel that it's rather difficult to do air layering. Also my previous experience wasn't good. Fear of heights and falling (ladder on soft ground) is also another factor. Only found a handful of article on propagation Avocado through cuttings. Successful rate are pretty low, but I think may be worthwhile to try. As at the moment after grafting 10 plants, I don't have anymore graft-able rootstock. Shall try to slot in after all my schedule, if not then on April.

Harvested a Jackfruit from our mother tree of J31, estimated to be about 10 ~ 12 kg. Feed back is that the fruit doesn't taste good. Fibrous, not crunchy and not sweet enough. Even though am using it to practice, am deciding to stop cloning it. Have about 50 trees of J31 and J29.

The 4 J33 Tekam Yellow is still too young to contribute scion. So far only managed to clone 2. I feel the scion is too young and do not process the reserve to 'take'. Shall let them grow for the time being and access them again in April. The surviving CJ3 and  J35 Mastura (made a mistake of labeling this as J37) is struggling but after patience care I think they shall survive.

CJ3 and Mastura, shall be transferring back to the nursery.

Manage to graft some Jackfruit using scions from a neighbor's tree.

Grafted Artocarpus.

On the Mango, there was this plant that refuse to bud even though it had 'took'. Gave it a bend to force it to bud. Yes, it bud 3 days later.

Force a bend, to force a bud.

Bud begin to grow 3 days later. New leafs has appeared by now.

Another 7 days latter.

Mango, scions were taken from our plantation, We have 2 fruiting trees, 1 Apple Mango and a Philippine Mango, Manila Super Sweet.

Manila Super Sweet, size of this unripe fruit is about 7 ~ 8 inches. 

Sent in 50 Soursop, 13 Mango, 9 Avocado and 12 non grafted Jackfruit from CML and 18 grafted Jackfruit for field planting.

On Transit, awaiting field planting.

Managed to organize the nursery before I go. My prized procession, Jackfruit.

Artocarpus Cultivar CJ3, Mastura & Tekam Yellow.

I had left the best spot in the nursery for the Pomegranate, and S. Avocados. This spot has 70% shaded morning sun and 90% shaded afternoon sun.

Pomegranate, #Avocado Anna, Betty & Cat.

 Prepared some seedling of Soursop.

Soursop Seedlings.

Rootstock for Mango & Jackfruit.

 More seeds to germinate #Avocado.

Avocado rootstock, waiting for it to grow to graft-able size.

It's a pretty exhaustive trip, as after the long Chinese New Year holodays, I came back and started on a relax pace. As my leaving date draw nearer, I need to do more to complete my nursery. Did all I could for this trip and thank you for the progress made. Leaving for home in the morning, then off to vacation in Turkey with my lovely wife.