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This week I received three more trees: Kalamata, Sevellano and Boutillian. Finally, at long last, my Olive Arborium is complete.
The trees are being fed on a regular schedule and the results have been fantastic. Trees that have recently arrived from nurseries, as well as all of the other trees, have added thick new growth.
I would like to have them in the best possible condition to cope with the long winter ahead, so hopefully next spring they will produce some fruit.
While visiting a plant nursery in Vermont late in July I came across a Bouganvillea plant. The plant was beautiful, but rather expensive, so I thought why not grow one from seed and place it in the greenhouse with the olives.
Finding Bouganvillea seeds turned out to be a challenge, but I finally managed to purchase some seeds for a plant with garnet colored flowers.
Some seeds were placed on moist paper towels to germinate and some were placed in vitro. I finally gave up on the seeds in paper towels after a few weeks. The seeds in vitro began swelling and produced radicles within about two weeks. Then, they seemed to grind to a halt.
Knowing that the seeds "need to see light" to germinate, I decided to give one vessel light 24/7 for several days to see what the effect would be.
The above video is a record of the experiment and this seed is far ahead of seeds started on the same day.
About this time of year I start thinking about providing supplemental light for the olive trees, which are more or less tropical.
This year I have taken a different approach, in that the lights are not on a timer, but are being turned on and off remotely.
As the temperature cools, our mornings tend to be cloudy, with little sun until just before noon. The lights are turned when I arise and they are turned off when the sun appears. If the day is completely cloudy, or rainy, I leave them on all day. If it was clear, I turn them on again for a few hours before civil sunset locally.
The lights in the photo may appear to be heavy on electrical consumption, however, as they are all LED grow lights, the total wattage is probably around 100 watts. In essence, the cost to operate the lights is really pennies a day.
The new soil mix has been a blessing, as the plants are responding nicely with new growth, and, they require much much less maintenance than the coir and perlite mix. If a stretch of nice weather is forecast, I move several of the trees outdoors and let Mother Nature care for them.
The Chemlali olive that arrived recently had a long lateral branch with developing nodes that were ideal for micro-propagation. I cut an eight inch length from the branch, which yielded five single node sections that were surface sterilized with bleach and alcohol prior to being placed in vitro.
For sometime I have wanted to try to tweak the olive protocol, so this should allow me to do so. The protocol in each vessel is slightly different in composition; in terms of more nutrients, or the addition of rooting hormones. The second vessel from the left contains woody plant media, which I have intended to try, but never quite got around to it.
Today I moved the olives back into the greenhouse from the deck, as we have had two major thunder storms this week that unloaded quite a lot of rain on the plants. The soil in the containers drains well, and I have drilled holes in the bottom of each container to allow excess water to flow through, however, I was just not comfortable with the plants being so wet. I tried to rationalize that several of the plants came from Florida, where it rains pretty much every day in some areas, but I was still not comfortable. As a test I am leaving two small olive plants on the deck to see if they survive all summer long with no intervention.
The weird looking plant above is a Drosera sessilifolia grown in vitro. It started from a single seed planted about five months ago. This plant should be flat, like a pizza, and consist of a single layer of traps; instead it is layer upon layer of traps, which are now beginning to flower.
It makes me think of the old margarine commercial that stated:"It's not nice to fool Mother Nature."
This week I have added several new varieties to my olive orchard; sticking with my criteria they have all been dual purpose olives, suitable for table or oil. The photo above shows three Empeltre cuttings placed in virto today. The Empeltre is a Spanish variety, the majority of which are planted in Aragon southwest of the Ebro river. The Ebro river was known to the Romans as Oleum Flumen, which would translated as Oil River.
Also, I got buy on a very nice Manzanillo tree from a guy on eBay at a very reasonable price. In addition to the Manzanillo, I purchased a Chamlali and a Oueslati, both of which are grown in Tunisia. Soon I expect to have cuttings from those trees in vitro also.
The trees have been struggling in the greenhouse with the summer heat, so I decided to give them the summer outdoors, moving most of them to small deck behind the greenhouse.
In addition to moving them outdoors, I repotted each tree into a new soil mixture consisting of equal parts of builder's sand, perlite, peat moss and compost. Both changes have brought about a tremendous change in the health of the trees.
At this point I am regretting that I did not make the changes before I moved them into the greenhouse in the spring.
On June 7, 2014 I cut a single leaf from a miniature rose plant that Ava had given her grandmother last Mother's Day. The leaf was cut into several sections, which were then placed in vitro.
This is the very first time I have attempted a leaf cutting, so I really don't know what to expect. That said, one month later callus cells are beginning to form on the leaf sections, so I am hoping that soon new plants will begin to grow from the callus.
Above is one of the Picholine olive explants placed in vitro on June 13, 2014. At that time I had placed three explants in the same vessel, however, they began to grow so quickly that I have decided to separate them so each can have enough room, and media, to grow.
This is a photo taken on 7/4/14 of a single node Taggiasca olive explant that was placed in vitro on 6/15/14. I am finding that different varietals seem to respond differently. Then again, it could also be what the plant was doing at the time the explant was taken. It seems that the larger the immature nodes is, the faster the explant responds.
As a test, an explant was taken from a Manzanillo olive and placed in vitro. When the explant was taken, the node was very immature; it has been at least two weeks since the test began and the explant is still alive, however no growth is evident.
Contrary to what one might expect, the olives in the greenhouse are hardly growing at all with all of the summer sun and heat. They seem to put on spurts of growth in the late winter, early spring and fall. They certainly are a challenge to grow.
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