PERMABREED

 Mirabelle plum. I grew 200 mirabelle plum seedlings from one single tree in germany that was actually cut down now. I planted three rows 20 meters long with 3 meters between the rows. The first row on the left has 100 trees one every 15cm and the other two rows have 50 trees each at 30cm distance. The initial 50 trees of the first row were nibbled down by deer, that's why there is 100 in the first row cause i topped it back up. The difference in leaf colour and general growth is quite amazing. My idea is to have three mirabelle hedges that will be for plant breeding, selection, fruit production and experimentation of companion planting of shade loving plants under the mirabelle hedge.

 Feijoa. I have planted a hedge of 93 feijoa seedlings. They all survived frostwise but there is big differences in growth. Some are very strong growing, a lot of others normally and some very poorly. I suppose fruit size and quality is not linked to plant vigour but i don't know really. The healthiest vigourous ones will be the ones that will best fill out the hedge anyway. Maybe next year there might be the first flower somewhere. I doubt they will flower this year. Here is an example of a rather less well performing individual. And even worse.

 The sorbopyrus mystery. I recently became aware of someone saying he thought shipova and tatarka were the same. I have grafted both the same year on quince c rootstock. At first glance they look like two eggs layed by the same hen but closer inspection reveals differences. One of the two is much more vigourous and the leaf shape between the two is not the same. Only when they will flower and fruit will i know for sure if they are different or not.  Here is a picture of the two grafted plants. The one on the right is much bigger than the one on the left. All other leaves and branches lower down all belong to the plant on the right. Look for older posts on my blog about sorbopyrus and you will also see that one plant is much bigger. Hard to see here but the stem of the left one is much thicker. 50% thicker. At least. And pulling away more straw reveals another branch with a bud that was covered. The diameter of the larger plant on the left is 27mm and the diameter of the smalle...

 Avocado. Now in mid april all the avocadoes start to grow again. This is the fantastic seedling. Nicely shooting back out. I decided to tie all the other del rio seedlings down because then their branches can grow more horizontal and end up being much longer. I was told that avocado seedlings can flower at about 4 meters height. My polytunnel is only 2,5 meters high but 20 meters long so seeing that they survived the winter so well i could get flowering in 3 to 4 years maybe if i force the branches to grow horizontally. And i managed to get the outdoor fantastic well over the winter. That had bubblewrap and plastic over it.

 Avocado. My avocado trees survived the winter quite well. Varying degrees of frost damage to the leaves from quite a lot to nearly nothing. This is the fantastic seedling after the winter. Leaves quite damaged but not totally. All four remaining seedlings are del rio seedlings. This one has less damage. This next one a bit more on the upper leaves. Even less damage on this one. And this one with bird droppings on the leaves practically no frost damage at all. Remains to be seen if that will be the same next winter. All these seedlings were in a polytunnel with one open door and the other gable end open all winter. The polytunnel is 20 meters long.  And finally this is the other fantastic seedling after winter outdoors under protection.

 I am growing sesame for the first time this year. It's a beautiful and very useful plant. I never grew it before so i made lots of mistakes. I planted them into the ground while they were still very small and then i lost 15 out of 20 seedlings to slugs and snails in the polytunnel. This one is about to flower soon and the next one too. I have only 5 plants from 4 different varieties (one variety i have two plants left) whereas i planted 20 plants 4 each of 5 different varieties With a bit of luck i might get some seeds of all remaining plants i hope.