Willus' Indoor Fall-Winter-Spring Grow Log (Season 2012-13)

[z_willus_d]

Life and Times in the Hospital -- Day 2

[Mlm1]

So far so good, but still some perilous days ahead. Great to see the pictures.
Marla

[z_willus_d]

Life and Times in the Hospital -- Day 3

I'll be pulling the hood on the container lid tonight to see how they handle a little air.
-n

[z_willus_d]

I pulled the hood this morning and let the root-graft initiates "breath" open air for a little over an hour before capturing these pics. It's beginning to smell a touch of mildew in the hospital. I think I'll start to expose the seedlings to a bit of light over the next couple days.
-naysen

[z_willus_d]

This is what happens to some of the grafts after they're left exposed to the open air for an hour or so.

[z_willus_d]

I've got two or three GS (grafted seedlings) permanently housed extra-hospital under the LED light. They seem to be surviving well enough for now. Several other GS didn't fare so well, so back to the hospital they went. I'll continue to cycle them out when I feel their potential is there.

[Mlm1]

Naysen
Everything looks as expected. It always amazes me when the "droopers" pop back up as soon as they get back in the higher humidity. Although, I would expect some losses. I usually lose about 20% and it was much higher than that on my first attempts.

It is great you already have a couple out of the "hospital". I don't think you should have any more trouble once they are out of the box. I think you will start to see new growth on those in the next week or two.

Great job on this interesting project. I am sure curious to see how the dwarfs perform on the rootstock.
Marla

[rnewste]

Great stuff, folks!!

You guys are really pushing the envelope....

Raybo

[z_willus_d]

Day 6 was a busy day, so I missed the update. Unfortunately, Day 7 hasn't brought much good news. It seems I've lost all three of my Iditarod grafts. These never seemed healthy enough to remove from their hospital container, so perhaps I just didn't make clean grafting joints on them. I think, more likely, the problem has to do with the original scion source seedlings, which weren't as vigorous as the Perth's Pride seedlings. One of the 6" Iditarod pots seemed to have gotten infected with a mold (it's very moist in the hospital). It concerns me that spores could have invaded what should have been an inert grow medium.

The first couple pics show my healthiest looking grafts, both Perth's Pride scions.

The 3rd pic shows what an unmolested, own-rooted seedling (Perth's) looks like from the same generation.

The 4th and 5th pic is one of a 2nd generation Maxifort root-stock.

You can see my attempt at a close up of the graft union on one of my so so seedlings in pic #6.

Pics 7 and 8 show two of the deceased Iditarod failures.

Pics 9 and 10 depict some of the new growth I've seen on a couple of the seedlings, sadly sourcing from the RS side of the union. I amputate these unwanted additions.

We'll see what tomorrow and the next week brings. I expect I'll be seeing much greater than 20% loss this round, but it is my first try and using dwarfs, which makes matching up stock diameter difficult. I should get at least one or two for the experiment. I'll probably attempt a second round here in a week or two also. I really only need around 6 grafted plants to compare against another 6 ungrafted for the full experiment this Winter.

Wish me luck,
Naysen

[z_willus_d]

Having lost the three Iditarod grafts and a Perth's, I'm left with three decent looking grafts, three on the edge, and four that look like they've already purchased farms and are ready to move in. I hoping for success with the best three, and I need to see some new growth in the next couple days. You can see all the remaining grafts in the back row of pic #1. Pic #2 shows a closer view.
-naysen

[z_willus_d]

It's been about a week since my last update, and the grafted seedlings have kind of settled into their various modes: alive and dead. It looks like I'll have six survivor candidates for the Indoor Winter project -- 2 Iditarod, 2 Yukon Quest, and 2 Perth's Pride. A couple of them still seem questionable, but I think they'll all pull through. They are very slow to put on new growth at this stage, but I hope that's going to change as they pull out of their convalescing cycles and into something more vigorous. I also posted one of the 2nd wave of Maxifort RS as well as a couple snaps of the unmolested Yukon Quest seedling. Quite a start difference in the grafted and ungrafted seedlings. It even has a flower budding in the midst of all that green foliage.
-naysen

[Heritage]

Congratulations, Naysen! It looks like your winter project is off to a promising start. It will be interesting to see if/when the grafts surpass the non-grafts and how fruit set, size, and flavor are affected.

btw... if you get 6 successful grafts on your first attempt then that is 6 more than I got on my first try

Steve

[z_willus_d]

Thanks Steve, although I'm not certain I can take credit for the six. Chances are those were the first ones that Marla mated when she instructed me. Let's hope these work out.
-naysen

[Mlm1]

Naysen, I didn't see your post (we have been busy adopting a new dog from the shelter) and didn't get the email notification for some reason so Steve just told me you had 6 healthy grafts. Congratulations. They look great. They could not have all been mine since I only did two total. Great job. I do think it takes a while for the grafts to catch up to the "unmolested" siblings but they can make up for their slow start by being much stronger the last half of the growing season. It really will be so interesting to see how these do in your winter project.
Marla

[jmarconnet]

Have you had any problems with Spider Mites? If not, to what do you attribute your preparedness or good luck?