PERMABREED

 I planted a grape in my polytunnel after having seen these massive fruit in a friend's place. The variety is called Kyoho, was bred in japan and is very famous. It is the most widely grown variety in the world. I was worried that the plant might not grow but now the buds are swelling and leaves are pushing out, so i am very happy that it pulled through. I will try and let it rank up and along the upper part of the tunnel. I have another seedless breton grape that i am trying to grow outside and a grape bred by michurin for which i am still looking for a place to plant it. The michurin grape is very tough and very cold-hardy. little kyoho grape starting to grow

 I grafted true service trees with a friend last year. We received scions of about 20 different varieties from a conservation orchard in Bavaria. One variety called "Christophs Apfel" flowered that same year. My friend gave me the tree. It is now growing in a large pot in my polytunnel and it's flowering again. I am very excited about this because it's the first time that i have a sorbus domestica tree getting ready to make fruit. The fruit of this variety is apple-shaped and it is a variety that flowers and fruits at a very young age. It was developed as part of a german breeding program to make true service trees more suitable to fruit orchards. The trees stay smaller and produce fruit quicker. It's very useful for breeding since you can go from seed to seed in much less time. Also a small flowering tree of this variety might be a great tree to graft other varieties into and get to see their fruit quicker. Two flower buds on my young "Christophs Apfel"...

 I grafted an irish apple onto dwarf rootstock last year and it's starting to flower now. That's really fast. The variety is called "Sheepsnout" and is a self-rooting apple with a curious shape. I am not sure if such a small tree can ripen an apple and i guess it would be a good idea to wait until next year before letting the tree make fruit, but it's tempting to let it make an apple to see what they look like. Sheepsnout apple getting ready to flower for the first time.

My mexicola avocado tree is looking very poorly now. If i hadn't seen this before i would think it's dead. But if you look closely you can see tiny green shoots (not in this picture) along some of the stems. I think it will grow back but this is probably the worst damage it ever had. Worse than last year and the year before. I can't wait for the end of may when danger of frost is past and when it should start to grow back.

Malus sieversii. I got a grafted malus sieversii that supposedly makes really nice fruit so i planted it recently. I made an effort to protect it really well since i get a lot of damage from deer. Malus sieversii was found to be the ancestor of all modern apples. Trees were found in kazakhstan that were estimated to be 4 to 5 hundred years old. Trees of 30 meters height! (98 feet) were also discovered. When the apple made its way to the modern world a lot of genetic diversity was lost in the process and nowadays malus sieversii is being used widely in apple breeding to reintroduce disease resistance and other useful traits into modern varieties.

 Potato onions. My little seedlings are growing now. Some varieties germinated better than others. If all goes well i should get some seedlings of each of the 28 different varieties. I want to wait to let them get a bit bigger before planting them out. I will try and keep the varieties separate to attempt to breed at least one potato onion of each variety for genetic diversity. 

 Sorbus domestica. After years and years of waiting for fruit i decided last year to tie down one of the branches of my "sossenheimer riese" cormier in order to induce flowering. This grafted tree is 8 to 9 years old and has never flowered yet. This branch is not affected by the disease yet and someone told me that if you tie branches of fruit trees downwards they flower and fruit quicker. I tied some rope to a heavy stone and bent the branch down so the flow of the sap will cause it to flower. I will see soon if it will work.

 Potato onions. The salad onion i planted in the midst of potato onions is growing well now. I am hoping that it will flower together with the surrounding potato onions and that i will be able to pollinate the potato onion flowers with its pollen. That way i might be able to increase the size of the potato onions. Last year i left some potato onions to flower in my tunnel but they didn't set fertile seed. So by using the salad onion pollen i might be able to cross them. I hope that they will flower at the same time, more or less.  I think my chances of breeding a larger potato onion are better if i pollinate the potato onion flowers with the salad onion, but i might try and do it the other way round also.

 Sorbus domestica. One of my trees, a grafted "Sossenheimer Riese" true sevice tree,  is sick and has been for a while. I don't know what disease it is. It causes the branches and buds to dry off and die. It also leaves black, ugly marks on the bark. I cut off the top of the tree this winter and i put a heavy BRF mulch (bits of branches) around it and i am hoping that it will recover or at least continue to grow. It is very difficult for me to grow any sorbus trees here as they all seem to get diseases. An exception seems to be the service tree ( sorbus torminalis) that is growing fine for now. But rowan (sorbus aucuparia), sorbus domestica and also different intergeneric sorbus hybrids (sorbomespilus, sorbaronia) all suffer and don't grow well for me. I don't know what else to do to help the tree. I cut off the upper part and i gave it loads of mulch. I don't think cutting off all the affected parts will solve the problem, so for now i just wait and hope tha...