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applestar
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Re: My potted avocado is going to bloom! ...now what?

Update on the two grafted avocados. I removed the tight rubber band tie from the definitely Day graft -- I was intrigued to see these callous-like growths along the graft. I later re-wrapped with a new strip of paraffin-M to keep the graft joint secure without strangling.
image.jpg
The other unID'd scion was tightly tied with a length of air pump tubing which had stiffened, so I removed that as well. Still not sure about the T-bud graft....

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applestar
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My grafted commercial avocado "Day" is not as florific this year and is suffering from something. It lost an entire branch which had a couple of flower bud clusters.

Here is the last of the clusters to bloom -- so far none has set -- and I'm not sure if it will be able to support any fruits even if some would set fruits. A couple of members of the Lady Patrol are enjoying the nectar though. :D
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image.jpg

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Francesco Delvillani
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My Avocado started flowering only after 3-4 year by seed....but fruit did not ripen

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applestar
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Did any of the blossoms set fruit (Tiny avocado started growing after the blossom faded)? I thought they looked a bit like lemons.

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applestar
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Here's a progress collage of the successfully grafted avos :-()
image.jpg
Top-left -- cluster of new leaves of Day avocado scion that grew out after it finished blooming.
Right -- probably not Day but either Avo#1 or Avo#2
Bottom-left - the bud graft is only half successfully joined, but it did grow a tiny bit more, so I'm just letting it go and see what happens. It's above the successful graft shown in the right photo, so if it doesn't recover by the time they go outside in spring, I'll trim this portion off.

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applestar
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Found this -- making a note here for future reference ;)

Budding and Grafting Citrus and Avocados in the Home Garden
https://homeorchard.ucdavis.edu/8001.pdf
BUDDING

Budding is the standard method used to propagate citrus. Aside from being the eas- iest method, it allows a large number of plants to be propagated from a small amount of scion wood and is suitable for trees, rootstocks, or branches from 1⁄4 to 1 inch (0.6 to 2.5 cm) in diameter.

Budwood should be taken only from high-producing, disease-free trees (see sidebar). The best citrus budwood is located just below the most recent flush of new growth; the best avocado budwood is located near the terminal end of shoots that have fully matured, leathery leaves.

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applestar
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I needed to review how to hand pollinate the avocado, and specifically learn from other folks who are hand pollinating the 'Day' variety.

First a refresher on avocado blossom anatomy :wink:

Avocado male and female phase flowers

Image
https://ucavo.ucr.edu/Images/Flowering/Image03.jpg


Avocado, Alligator Pear 'Day' (Persea americana)
Image
Flower in male phase. This variety is B-type, meaning it's male in the morning and female in the evening.
by victorengel Mar 20, 2011 12:32 PM
https://pics.davesgarden.com/pics/2011/0 ... b2528a.jpg

^^^ This appears to be **incorrect** ^^^

My observations didn't seem to match up with male/female phase of Type B so I went and asked in Logee's Customer Service chat room just now:

Logee's Customer Service
I'm here to help!
Chat started

You — Please update your info
Is the 'Day' avocado Type A or Type B?

Logee's Customer Service
Hello. It is a type A

You — Please update your info
Thank you. is it same variety as 'Holiday'?

Logee's Customer Service
That I do not know unfortunately. The one we carry is a day avocado grafted onto a hos [haas?] avocado.

You — Please update your info
OK. Thank you for your help. Bye. :)

Logee's Customer Service
You are welcome!



Image
https://ucavo.ucr.edu/Images/Flowering/Image02.jpg


Image
https://ucavo.ucr.edu/Images/Flowering/Image04.jpg
https://www.agric.wa.gov.au/avocados/cr ... page=0%2C2

*Once the temperature increased closer to 25/15°C maximum/minimum, the flowering cycle started to behave more as expected with some overlap period in the middle of the day (Figure 7).*
Image Figure 7 Flowering stages of Hass in Manjimup/Pemberton for three days during warm conditions, where the maximum temperature is for the actual date and minimum temperature for the previous night in degrees Celsius. The labelled times are actual recorded stages.

Image
https://www.avopro.org/images/site/avoca ... vogrow.gif

***

So, mid-day hours on sufficiently warm days are when the magic happens. :D

Today's Day blossoms photographed around 11-12PM

#1,2,3
image.jpg
#4,5,6

...what do you see? Wouldn't you say #4 looks like it's in female phase? What about #3?


Took a few more photos, this time with time stamp :wink:

#7,8,9
image.jpg
#10,11,12
Last edited by applestar on Mon Feb 01, 2016 8:40 pm, edited 2 times in total.
Reason: Found out 'Day' is actually Type A which matches Australian & New Zealand website finding that A can be self fertile.

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applestar
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I took a series of time-stamped close-up photos of the Day avocado blossoms today and placed a thermometer on the Day avocado branch at approximately the same level. (67°F/19.4°C, 68°F/20°C)

Anyone else intrigued by the results? :D

Almost 9AM
image.jpg
11:30AM
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2:30PM
image.jpg
By 5PM most of the blossoms were closed. (67°F)
image.jpg

...and yeah, did you notice the ants? I wonder if they might help to pollinate the blossoms and help set fruits.... ?

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applestar
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I'm bummed. I was going to take a series of photos again yesterday, but a 2-hr errand ran into 5 hours, and I missed the chance. I'm running out of blossoms in this cluster. Maybe I'll get more chances later though....

-----

Here is my avo jungle in the Green Room. Day is to the bottom left, Avo#1 on the right in white 5-gal and Avo#2 in the back left and Mango#1 in the back right. Avo#1 and #2 are my oldest seed grown avos. I do have others but they are elsewhere. There are also some seed grown citruses here, as well as the tea and dormant stevia, and a couple of other plants.

Avo#1 and #2 have reached a phase with what seems like a completely different branch tip growth pattern -- very close leaf internodes with multitudes of buds but in the nodes as well as unexpectedly along the branches. But so far, none of the growths are beginning of floral clusters. :? I've included a photo of an emerging floral cluster on Day at bottom right of the collage.
image.jpg

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applestar
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OK, today series, though the number of blossoms are a bit sparse....
image.jpg
image.jpg
image.jpg
...I discovered that the other grafted scion that I thought wasn't 'Day' but either Avo#1 or Avo#2 had been struggling to push a floral stalk out of the Parafilm-M and had managed to get a couple of blossoms to open today -- so this must actually be 'Day' :-()
image.jpg
image.jpg
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applestar
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So, no luck on getting the Day avocados to set fruits again. :?
-- based on this year's specific male/female blossom observations, I think it's because the bloom timing = COLDEST period of deep freeze in winter. It's just not quite warm enough downstairs for the blossoms to open according to the "normal" schedule when the overlap of male and female blossoms would occur.

Next winter, I will lug that tree upstairs where it will be about 5°F warmer on the average.

All of the avos and mango are waking up to the longer daylight hours. Here are Avo #1 and #2 and Mango #1:
image.jpg

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applestar
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...and I have a new baby growing :>

Trying the water method in response to recent inquiries here -- just to review what happens. As you can see, the seed has split at the bottom and a root is starting to emerge. (Yes, that is a K-cup with the bottom cut off.) :-()
image.jpeg
Started on 2/13, so within my usual experience of 3-4 weeks

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applestar
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The original large Day avocado tree continued to deteriorate and died. So I am extra happy that two of my attempts to graft Day cuttings/scions to seed-grown avos (probably Haas) rootstock were successful. :D

I put one upstairs where it is warmer, and the other downstairs in the Green Room but further in the corner where it would be a bit more insulated from the back door drafts. And the upstairs one is starting to swell flower buds -- they will probably open within the next week? The downstairs one is slightly behind. So here we go again! :-()

Image

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applestar
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This morning, I was VERY excited to discover this very first blossom EVER on my AVO.1 -- oldest seed grown avocado
Image

Image

The other two successfully grafted 'Day' avo's (on the right) are blooming as expected, but I'm not going to push them to set fruits by trying to hand pollinate this year. Once the AVO.1 begins to bloom with fuller inflorescence, I think their opportunities for cross pollinization will increase significantly. ...maybe even next spring?

Image

This spring and during the growing season, I will fertilize them more while concentrate on pruning and shaping these so I will be able to situate them optimally next fall when they are brought back inside. I'll also try grafting the pruned upper branches from AVO.1 to some of the younger seed-grown avos Image



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