Spring is rapidly approaching. Buds are pushing on most everything, except on my 'Grimal' jaboticaba, which is almost completely refoliated. It's looking really good, and it inspired me to work on a cocktail jaboticaba for myself. I've seen them online and they're beautiful trees aside from having delicious fruit. I bought a 5' P. cauliflora to be the rootstock. Everyone uses 'Sabara', but I was feeling impulsive and just went for it. Then I picked up a bunch of scions from Flying Fox Fruits, and spent a whole day grafting them on to the tree. I also decided to lop off a lower branch on my 'Grimal' and graft that on as well. This is a first attempt at grafting Plinia, but being hardwood, I think it should be relatively successful. I have about 3 or 4 chances at each of the types below.
- P. coronata
- P. coronata var. 'Restinga'
- P. 'Grimal'
- P. phitrantha (possibly ESALQ)
- P. spiritosantensis
Update: I added three more types to the top of the rootstock, and picked up P. cauliflora 'Polpa Roxa' and P. phitrantha 'Rosa de Pescoço' seedlings and a small grafted Plinia sp. 'Escalarte'.
- P. trunciflora
- P. edulis (aka Cambuca)
- P. cauliflora var. 'Paulista'
Additionally, I picked up some types that were unlikely to be successfully grafted, and I'm giving rooting a shot. This could be low success, but it's worth a shot. I'm using some CD spindle covers as the outer pot/water reservoir, a clear solo cup as the pot. I filled the latter with 50/50 peat moss and coarse sand, and then drenched the whole thing with a 5.0 pH water. The cuttings I prepared by shaving off the lower centimeter of bark to expose the cambium just below a node and chopping all the leaves in half to reduce transpiration. Then I taped a gallon bag on top to keep the humidity around. We'll see if it works for these two.
These posts are neat, do you have any updates on your jabuticaba? How many of them have taken? Have any of the seedlings that you picked up grown large enough to extract scions for your cocktail tree?
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ReplyDeleteThanks for leaving a note! Check my most recent posts from June for a interim update, but since you inquired, I'm going to write a new post about their progress right now.
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