The making of a Butiagrus

Steve, My garden is on a reclaimed water irrigation system, making lack of rain no problem. Yes same time line of the flowers reaching anthesis in 5 days. I would think temps around 90f and longer daylight may come into factor. Best guess for the naturally opening of the spathe would have been 2-3 days away. Here is a pic of the next spathe, looks to be same size as the cut spathe at time of cutting. Lets see how long it takes to open and reach anthesis.
 

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Update 5/14/11: Seed from #1 cross and seed #2 cross both with Butiagrus as pollen donor. I hope not to many will be solid wood.
 

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5/12/11 The 2 Butias have reached anthesis. The Allogoptera pollen is going to placed on the female flowers for the next few days.

Tools used: small paintbrush to paint the collected Allogoptera pollen on the Butia girls. Now we wait a few weeks.
 

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Update 5/21/11 The fruit of the #1 cross are now starting to ripe.
 

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UPDATE 5/22/11 Caged the BxA seeds today.
 

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Update 5/24/11 (day 77) A early morning coffee walk in the garden reveals the first of the ripe fruits have fallen to the bottom of the cage.
 

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Had to check out the 2 fallen fruits this evening. After cleaning the seed, I did the float test and the 2 seed sank. Next test was the opening test 1 seed solid wood, 1 seed with endosperm.
 
And here is a little something I noticed yesterday. This Butia normally produces round seed, but this cross the seed are more football shaped. Did a search in the old boots of the Butia and found a reg seed to compare. The Butia X Butiagrus hybrid seed is on the left in pic.
 

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Had to check out the 2 fallen fruits this evening. After cleaning the seed, I did the float test and the 2 seed sank. Next test was the opening test 1 seed solid wood, 1 seed with endosperm.

Scott,

Any chance of posting a pic of the difference between the two cross-sections (solid wood vs. endosperm)?

Would really appreciate it.

How's the B x A seed set coming along?

Thanks,

Rich
 
Had to check out the 2 fallen fruits this evening. After cleaning the seed, I did the float test and the 2 seed sank. Next test was the opening test 1 seed solid wood, 1 seed with endosperm.

Scott,

Any chance of posting a pic of the difference between the two cross-sections (solid wood vs. endosperm)?

Would really appreciate it.

How's the B x A seed set coming along?

Thanks,

Rich
 
Rich, I took this picture this morning of the B x A fruit set. Looks good after 2 wks. No drop noted at this time.
 

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Rich, Good S.rom seed on right, solid wood Butia x Butiagrus on left. Opened 6 more of the Butia x Butiagrus seed all 6 solid wood. The solid wood is no shock, as this cross has produced only a very few good seed.
 

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Update 5/29/11 81 ripe fruit fell into the bottom of the cage today. With temps in mid 90s the rest will fall in the next few days.
 

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Looking good Scott :cool: Do you have any favorite technique for removing the seed coats prior to germinating? Looks like I'm a good 2-3 weeks behind you in the process - but will have oodles and oodles of ripening seed.

Thanks,

Rich
 
Looking good Scott :cool: Do you have any favorite technique for removing the seed coats prior to germinating? Looks like I'm a good 2-3 weeks behind you in the process - but will have oodles and oodles of ripening seed.

Thanks,

Rich

Rich, Butia seed are easy to remove from the fruit. I use my fingers or if you are one that likes the taste of Butia fruit wash and eat the fruit from the seed. I have planted the seed a few times without removing at all.
 
Update 6/5/2011 BxA continue to grow and no fruit drop in the 3 weeks. :)
 

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I have not given up just yet. I have only cracked the small fruits so far. This one was a little larger of the small and shows a little hope.
 

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Patience is a virtue and necessary when it comes to palms, and especially palm seeds. My Mad Fox seeds have started popping after 7 months - right about the time I started to lose hope.
 
I have not given up just yet. I have only cracked the small fruits so far. This one was a little larger of the small and shows a little hope.

Scott, I'm surprised how quickly these BXA seeds came to near maturity. Does the average time diminish once temps rise toward summer levels? I'd have to find the exact post, but I think your BxButyagrus cross took something like 77 days to fully ripen. Out west (CA) I understand it takes four or more months on the tree.

Steve
St. Augustine, FL
 
Steve, I have never recorded the reaching of anthesis to the ripening fruit time line before. I am working on that this year. I believe temps do come in to play. Cross #1 time frame was around 72 days. Cross #2 was around 53 days. That shows a 3 week shorter time frame between #1 and #2 crosses. The BxA cross was made a week after cross #2. With the time frame recorded on cross #2 the BxA may ripen next week as the pollination was started 7 days later. But did the first 2 ripen early because the seed may not be good? For my records I have allowed a normal Butia seed set to form on the Butia. The flowers on the reg Butia set reached anthesis on June 17. I have a home weather station that records the weather info. at my location. I will be taking the avg. recorded temps in these time lines to see how the temps come in to play.
 
Thanks for the feedback Scott -- you're really helping establish some key facts. At some point I hope you also summarize what you know about xbutyagrus fertility. It seems your a 'myth buster' when it comes to the "mule" palm. Low fertility is different than no fertility. The three settings of course are:

1. Self-fertility
2. Female fertility (despite self-sterility). E.g. will accept butia or queen pollen but not its own.
3. Male fertility (pollen donor).

I still have some confusion about what's possible, and of course the answers vary tree to tree.

Steve
St. Augustine FL
 
Steve, I believe the fertility is dependant on the individual plant. I have no proof of self fertility so I can not answer that question. Here are off spring from Hybrid #1 (S.romXB), these plants were produced using the pollen back to its father Butia. Cont. on to next post.
 

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Here are offspring hybrids from my Hybrid #2 (BXS) These plants were produced using pollen from hybrid#2 to a Butia. These offspring at this time only have leaflets on top 1/3 of leaf stem. These are full sun grown plants. Hybrid #2 has produced good results as pollen donor. The # 2 hybrid palm produces copious amounts of fruit with 2 plants from the seed to date. Cont. on to next post...
 

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Hybrid #2's offspring (L) comparing to Butiagrus (R) These 2 palms are of same age. Butiagrus is 2x taller than the Butiagrus offspring. The gowth rate is slower in leaf production than I have seen on Butiagrus. This lets me tend to believe that the offspring was fathered by a close by Butia. Cont to next post...
 

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Trunk sizes of the 2 palms in the prev. post. Butiagrus offspring 46" around (L) Butiagrus 59" around (R). Trunks measured 3" from ground on both palms.
 

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So if I interpret your posts correctly (please correct me if I'm wrong), while you haven't observed self-pollenation in xbutyagrus, you have plants that support settings #2 & #3. Interesting. Rarely xButyagrus appears to be capable of limited self-pollenation too (e.g. the Huntington Gardens CA xButyagrus). It looks like xButyagrus has the most potency when used as pollen donor.

Steve
St. Augustine, FL
 
So if I interpret your posts correctly (please correct me if I'm wrong), while you haven't observed self-pollenation in xbutyagrus, you have plants that support settings #2 & #3. Interesting. Rarely xButyagrus appears to be capable of limited self-pollenation too (e.g. the Huntington Gardens CA xButyagrus). It looks like xButyagrus has the most potency when used as pollen donor.

Steve
St. Augustine, FL

Steve, That is how I see it.
 
Opened 3 of the BxA unripe seeds and it is not looking good.

6/5/11 Last update! ButiaXAllagoptera is a no go on this attempt. I was told the first flowering of the Allagoptera maybe a lost cause. Maybe the saving of the pollen failed. I opened 40 seed in the last few days. Looks as the endosperm failed and died. Oh well maybe next time.
 
Scott:

And here is a little something I noticed yesterday. This Butia normally produces round seed, but this cross the seed are more football shaped. Did a search in the old boots of the Butia and found a reg seed to compare. The Butia X Butiagrus hybrid seed is on the left in pic.


My observations have shown you will get both shapes of seed. The syagrus has football shaped seed as most butias have round. So by introducing the syagrus pollen to the butia you will get both traits. Some more then others. I am not familiar with the Butia X butyagrus seed however I have found this the case with the butyagrus.
 
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