|
| Hi folks,
I've lived pretty intimately with trees for a little over 60 years now and used to even graft trees when I was a kid just for the challenge of it. But I've never quite figured out the rules for which cultivars grow out true from cuttings and/or air layering and which ones must be grafted. I know species will always grow as species, and I understand about grafting to get, say, four different colors of azalea blossoms on one trunk. But what about hybrids? Here's what brought up my question: My sister has a lace leaf maple. My understanding is that I'll need to graft a cutting onto the root stock of another maple to get a lace leaf. But why won't a cutting just stuck in the ground or a rooting mix produce a lace leaf? And why do hybrids of some other plant species grow out true without grafting? (I know that with African violets, a rooted leaf might or might yield plantlets with the same genetic makeup as the parent, but it probably will. Suckers and bloom stalks will reliably produce offspring like the parent.) Would somebody clue me in on these rules of grafting? Thank you! Betty in Arkansas with golden sunshine causing the multicolored Bradford pear trees outside my office window to glow as if they're afire |
Follow-Up Postings:
|
| If your question had an easy answer (fix) a lot of people would be very happy! I don't know why maples or other trees are hard to reproduce from cuttings (some are easier than others), aside from 'genetics', or why some plants only will grow if e.g. a leaf is laid on the soil vs the stem being stuck in a water glass, but I suppose it's what makes life interesting. There is probably a highy technical answer somewhere, and maybe someone else can tell you what it is. I would guess that hybrids that come true may be ones in which the dominant genes were passed along in the hybridization, but other than that??? |
|
- Posted by gessiegirl z7AR (bettygf@aol.com) on Fri, Nov 30, 07 at 9:51
| Thanks, Lucy. I'll cross post to the tree forum. Somebody out there in cyberspace should be able to give me generalities even if there are not hard rules. Betty |
|
| Generally speaking, everything that we would reproduce vegetatively, from cuttings, layerings ..., will come true. They will be exact genetic duplicates of the plant material from which they came. Even when grafting to understock, the graft will be true to the material from which it came. In the case of the laceleaf maple - if you were able to reproduce it from cuttings (varyingly difficult by cultivar) or by layering, it would still be true to the parent material. It is grafted to rootstock for a number of reasons, two of which relate to hardiness issues and difficulty in clonal reproduction by cuttings. Hybridizing is the process of creating new varieties from already established plants by fertilizing one plant with pollen taken from another. This action is called a 'cross'. The resulting hybrid (cross) is the product of the seed produced in the seed-bearing (mother) plant and will contain varying degrees of the attributes of both parents, yet is recognizably different from each. Only seeds from cross pollination of developed pure strains of plants will come true from seed, and only for that generation. Al |
Please Note: Only registered members are able to post messages to this forum. If you are a member, please log in. If you aren't yet a member, join now!
Return to the Bonsai Forum
Instructions
- You must be a registered member and logged in to post messages on our forums.
- Posting is a two-step process. Once you have composed your message, you will be taken to the preview page. You will then have a chance to review the contents and make changes.
- After posting your message, you may need to refresh the forum page in order to see it.
- It is illegal to post copyrighted material without the owner's consent.
- HTML codes are allowed in the message field only.
- No advertising is allowed in any of the forums.
- If you would like to practice posting or uploading photos, please visit our Test forum.
- If you need assistance, please Contact Us and we will be happy to help.