Hello; I am trying to find some vigorous Japanese maple (Acer palmatum) cultivars or their seedlings that may have the potential to be used as Japanese maple homogenatic rootstocks to be propagated by cuttings. I try to get two different rootstocks: one is green one is red that have the potential to replace the current Acer palmatum seedling rootstock. Do you have any idea which cultivar or seedling has the potential? If you have any target tree we would like to have a try. Any ideas or comments are welcome. Thanks Ping
Very interesting! If you don't mind, who is the "we" that will be doing this experiement? Are you specifically interested in Acer or do you do work with rootstocks for the propagation of other plants? There is already some good information in this forum on the topic if you are willing to dig it out. http://www.botanicalgarden.ubc.ca/forums/showthread.php?t=4557&highlight=Lack+vigor http://www.botanicalgarden.ubc.ca/forums/showthread.php?t=7127&highlight=understock I suspect by the questions you have asked in your two posts that you have already searched the forum. But I thought I would link the threads anyway. Currently, the standard understock is a green palmatum raised from a Korean seed. Very few growers show consideration for red understock and many simply graft red scion wood to green understock. The seed is primarily used because it is economical and has a good yield. The problem seems to be that demand is so great for grafted plants that often the underperforming seedlings are not sorted out, but used for rootstock also. I suspect that much of the rootstock derived from the current standard seed line is quite adequate, but a lack of attention to selecting the best seedlings and to quality throughout the entire process is what is translating into the overall quality issues we are seeing. MJH