Experience is always welcome! Enjoy your stay.

hell Joe, what do you know?

how do you distinguish which of the shoots is true t type on a polyembryonic mango seedling?

Welcome to the forum Joe. This is indeed a great place to share your experience and knowledge.

Mango_Kush: There are a couple ways to tell. From the technical end, DNA markers and certain proteins have definitively proved the contrasts between nucellar and zygotic embryos, but this can take time and money. Unless mangoes are being grown for specific, controlled studies, it shouldn't be that important. If they are it's better to do the DNA marking because nucellar and zygotic embrios can morphologically be similar.

More traditionally and without the use of expensive means to attain proper identification, (this technique is used all over the world in developing nations) about 30 - 45 days after a poly-embryonic seed germinates, the 3 - 8 seedlings are reviewed. Zygotic seedlings tend to grow with less vigor and seem to be less healthy looking on first appearance than the nucellar seedlings. At this time, the farmers will remove the seedlings who appear to be weaker and "pot-up" the stronger looking ones to later plant in the field or less commonly for rootstock. The success rate of this is amazing, especially in Asia where the greatest abundance of poly-embryonic mangoes are grown.

Joe

mangojoe,
Welcome. How large is the germplasm repository? Are you focusing on certain species, fruits native to Guatemala, or all tropical fruits that can be grown in Guatemala? Will the germplasm in the repository be available to the locals only or will there be a way to trade or possibly sell to people in other countries?

Murahilin: This particular plot of land is about 10 acres (4 manzanas). I am focusing on certain cultivars for the limited space that we have. I think it will be impossible to attain all that I would like because I know some things are just not available, (eg: Red Durian). I don't want to focus on what exists here because I think it's better to bring in new varieties to explore. This is in the very early stages. Eventually, what will exist in the station will be available to farmers. There will be a way to trade and sell to other countries, we just have to get the project going. What are you looking for?

Good Luck Joe, if you need help trying to source things just start a thread.

im really interested in seeing rare types of Autocarpus like Marang and Pedalai, and Garcinias especially Mangosteen

Joe you sound familiar, do you have a website or something i may have read about your mission on?

Mango_kush: I have access to Marang (Artocarpus odoratissimus), and Mangosteen (Garcinia mangostana). I haven't seen Pedalai here, but I'm going to visit a friend who has an enormous collection in a few days and I will ask him. Anything else? You should come on down for a visit. You would go crazy.

Joe, i may definitely take you up on your offer one day, right now i have my work cut out for me with my career, night classes and my houses never ending project list.

who is your friend with the property? have you ever contacted Sadhu from Govardhan gardens or Brian from Montoso in Puerto Rico?

heres a list of ultra tropical things i dont dare grow here.

mangosteen, button mangosteen, madrono, imbe, bacapurri, achcha, achachairu.
marang
pedalai
rambutan
pulasan
durians Durio graveolens, Durio testudinarium, Durio oxleyanus, Durio dulcis
chempendak

Welcome,
glad to have you on the board. Sounds like you have a long but exciting road ahead of you building a repsitory.

best wishes,
-Ethan

I grew Imbe in St. Pete. You can grow it where you live. The guy's name is Dwight Carter. Rambutan is touchy, I grew it, but under greenhouse conditions.

The Marang trees I have seen here are about 50 feet tall. They have the craziest leaves.

Also climbed up a 50 foot Durian to take a pic of the flowers. Awesome!!!

Welcome Joe! We'd love to see pics of your tropical paradise, especially the Marang or any other tropical fruits.
I've been a bit obsessed with Marang! Now, I just have to locate one but this is a bit challenging and difficult. Does anyone know of a company that ships fresh Marang?

Thanks,

Bo

mango joe,
Pretty cool what you're doing. Are you looking for the durian with the red flesh or skin? The only thing i'm currently looking for is nutmeg seeds. Know any sources?

Hi Joe,

where in Guatemala are you building the repository up? For how long is this project? Is there a possibility for volunteering?

Regards,

Felipe

Welcome, Joe. Yes, pictures please!!! Seems like you have the dream job. We would love to see pictures.

MangoJoe-Welcome to the forum! It is always good to have people with experience to help us.
Yes, pictures please- we LOVE pictures!

murahilin: I have used Plant It Hawaii http://www.plantithawaii.com as a young plant resource (1 gallon) for years and they are absolutely impeccable. I love, love ,love them!!! you will have to pay for a phyto but they will ship the plants next day or 2 days air. They have a lot of other great things too. I recommend them above all others. I am looking for Red Durian. But I it's not at the top of the list.

Filipe: I believe there is possibility for volunteering. This is still in the very early stages though. Also, the finca is near Esquintla, near the El Salvador border and near in the Pacific coast.

As for pics...I don't know how to load them here. Any help?

Mango Joe:

To post pictures, use a free service like Photobucket or Flickr and then follow these intructions in attached link.

Harry

Here is a link that might be useful: How to Post Pictures

hmhausman: Too confusing for me. I don't get it.

I use Photobucket.....you upload your pictures there and then when you place your cursor over any of your uploaded pictures, they give you options for sharing the picture. If you click on the HTML option and copy the code they give you, you just paste that into your post and the pictures appears. It looks harder than it is.....but there is some tedium in the process. Good luck.....we've all been in your position once upon a time scratching our heads. But you'll learn quickly that without pictures, your posts will be less effective and not nearly as well enjoyed by the community.

Harry

Once you've mastered the posting pics part, here's another link that you might find helpful in posting thumbnails. It's especially good for people who still have dial up. Because when you post a lot of pics it takes forever for their pc to download. With thumbnails it doesn't take as long and you just click on the pics to enlarge it.

Posting Thumbnails

easiest way to post pictures.

save pictures to your computer

click here www.imageshack.us (it will open in a new tab)

upload pictures to this site to host them from the folder or desktop you saved them in on your computer

it will show you the picture and give you a few codes

click on the code labled HTML, it will highlight it for you, RIGHT click on the highlighted text and COPY

then RIGHT click in this forums text box and PASTE

should look like this before submitting
{{gwi:1315104}}

Uploaded with ImageShack.us

heres how that code displays
{{gwi:1315104}}

Uploaded with ImageShack.us

if you want to save your pictures in an online account you can go to http://www.photobucket.com and create an account so you can easily repost them

I have some questions:
First, is thing just a collection of varieties, or are you doing any breeding and development as well? And do you think any work being done could eventually bring any of the fruits you work with into economic significance?

Also, I'm a college student, planning on doing a dual major in horticulture and finance, and I'm looking at a couple of different career paths, one of them being dropping the business end of things entirely and just going into a pure horticultural position, like becoming a professor of pomology at a university (or something like that). My main interest is in the (molecular) breeding and genetic engineering of underutilized potential crops, particularly fruits, tropical or otherwise, with the goal of bringing diverse crops to commercial significance. Do you have any particular tidbits of advice about going into the field of underdeveloped fruit species that you wish you would've known at my point that you could impart? Thanks.

Wouldn't the nuclear one be the sexual reproduction, and the others be asexual reproduced, therefore you'd want to pot the weaker (true to type) offspring (unless you wanted to try the new type)?

Gary

mangojoe,
I was asking whether you were looking for the red durian with the red flesh or the red skin. Plantithawaii only has trees. I am only looking for the seeds since I already have a nutmeg tree. Thanks though.

gliese - That is a fantastic career path. I envy your vision to change humanity for the better. Best of luck.

dghays: You said, "Wouldn't the nuclear one be the sexual reproduction, and the others be asexual reproduced, therefore you'd want to pot the weaker (true to type) offspring (unless you wanted to try the new type)?"

No, nucellar would be an exact genetic reproduction of the maternal parent, a natural clone if you will. You would want that for grafting purposes because, genetically it would be stronger than it's zygotic counterpart and would display the name strength and disease resistance as the mother.
The only ways one would prefer the zygotic seedling is if it was for the purpose of either documenting genetic variation in polyembryonic seedling of a particular variety or if a new variety was being experimented with. If deliberate pollination of two separate varieties was conducted, then the zygotic seedling would be be of more interest because that would ultimately produce a new "variety."

murahilin: Anything red in the Durian is good. I'd take anything.

I once purchased nutmeg seeds as well as Clove from a company in India, but I cannot remember their name. The seeds were viable too. I'm sorry I can't help further.

joe