WITCHES BROOM

Shogun610

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I appreciate your explanation. So what are you saying here...just burn the broom and not take advantage of what is happening naturally and develop a dwarf tree that could be very cool? There are a whole lot of dwarfs out there that have been developed just this way.
Yiu asked what was genetic and I explained
 

Shogun610

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Boo Hiss. You are using the word parasite wrong in this case. All chimeras are parasitic only because they have no roots of their own, and they are where a high percentage of interesting cultivars come from.
Boo hiss to your booo hissing
 

August44

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Not really. The question will be whether the genetic aberration is stable. If you get grafts to take, and all the grafts maintain the favorable characteristics of the broom, and you take grafts off those trees, and they remain stable... and you do that about five times, you probably have a good argument that you have discovered a stable new cultivar.

I know a nursery about an hour from my house that currently has about six different 'experiments' in the works involving material from witches' brooms brought in from the wild. They've got a special raised garden bed in the nursery where all they are doing is trying to discover new cultivars.
So, with this being a conifer, when can it become an un-grafted cultivar that would be acceptable as a bonsai?
 
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Others will know more than I do, but I believe that's only possible if the witches broom produces seeds in which these genetics are passed on. I think I remember hearing that it doesn't always happen.
 

August44

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Others will know more than I do, but I believe that's only possible if the witches broom produces seeds in which these genetics are passed on. I think I remember hearing that it doesn't always happen.
Seeds...like cones?
 

hemmy

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Primer on witches’ brooms


It sounds like the majority are only propagated and stable from cuttings.

Also, on Douglas Fir in Oregon they tend to be induced by a mistletoe infection.
 

Leo in N E Illinois

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@August44 - if the cause of the witches broom is genetic, then there's a better chance that it may be stable. Still not 100% , but somewhat better. The only way to know is to test it by propagating and growing it out.

Maybe your friends at the nursery will be interested. They could pay for the lift, and do the grafting. They could give you a grafted tree or two as a finder's fee. The nursery will have the time and space to test the broom for stability.

I don't think Douglas fir can be rooted from cuttings. I also don't know if they can be ait layered. A grafted tree is not necessarily disqualified from becoming bonsai. Well done grafts are allowed. 90% of all Japanese white pine in the USA are grafted. For some cultivars, grafting is the only propagation option.

See what your friends at the nursery say. Maybe they will be interested.
 

August44

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@August44 - if the cause of the witches broom is genetic, then there's a better chance that it may be stable. Still not 100% , but somewhat better. The only way to know is to test it by propagating and growing it out.

Maybe your friends at the nursery will be interested. They could pay for the lift, and do the grafting. They could give you a grafted tree or two as a finder's fee. The nursery will have the time and space to test the broom for stability.

I don't think Douglas fir can be rooted from cuttings. I also don't know if they can be ait layered. A grafted tree is not necessarily disqualified from becoming bonsai. Well done grafts are allowed. 90% of all Japanese white pine in the USA are grafted. For some cultivars, grafting is the only propagation option.

See what your friends at the nursery say. Maybe they will be interested.
The broom is attached to a White Fir. My friends at the nursery are not only interested, they are excited about doing it. They do this all the time down there and are the ones that told me to keep my eyes open for brooms just recently. I agree with you about using them for bonsai if graft is done well.
 

Wires_Guy_wires

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Cytokinins are hormones (protein) that influence growth and stimulate cell division. Auxin is a hormone that causes elongation of cells and regulates cytokinin influence to where plant growth / cell division should occur. That’s why we pinch… in a normally functional tree , the auxin is at the apex or dominant tips.. when you remove that auxin , cytokinin is less regulated thus which is why back budding occurs.
Cytokinins and auxins rarely have a protein structure. They're mostly carbon based. The proteins that produce them and their precursors from other materials do find their origin in DNA and RNA. But most plant hormones are the result of a cascade of proteins and their products, rather than a direct result of the proteins themselves.
Increase or deacrese their production or productive capacity, and growth will respond
 

Shogun610

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Cytokinins and auxins rarely have a protein structure. They're mostly carbon based. The proteins that produce them and their precursors from other materials do find their origin in DNA and RNA. But most plant hormones are the result of a cascade of proteins and their products, rather than a direct result of the proteins themselves.
Increase or deacrese their production or productive capacity, and growth will respond
Ok so what is your point. My remark was not incorrect, it’s still a product of unregulated transcription , and thus as a direct result when there is no binding capacity for growth regulation.
 

Forsoothe!

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There's lots of ways to induce DNA changes including applying herbicides at trace levels to seedlings in early stages of development.
 

Wires_Guy_wires

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Ok so what is your point. My remark was not incorrect, it’s still a product of unregulated transcription , and thus as a direct result when there is no binding capacity for growth regulation.
All transcription is regulated, sometimes by methylation, sometimes by presence or lack of coenzymes, minerals, copy numbers, mutations or environmental factors. Truly unregulated growth doesn't exist, not even in prions; if the amino acids aren't there, they can't replicate.

It could very well be a reaction to light that induces relative cytokinin excesses by inactivating auxins. Something on the far end of an auxin cascade can be influenced by something like a fault in cuticle formation due to a lack of a certain precursor chemical. Meaning it doesn't have to be genetic or protein related at all.
We don't have to pinch to backbud if we blast a tree with sunlight to get similar results to pinching.
My point is that plant hormones are rarely proteins, and don't require DNA, transcription or folding changes to become differently expressed. A plant can produce all the auxins it wants, if sunlight pounds them to dust, they stop working.
A bacterium can simply take a step from a cascade, block it, and the entire cascade stops working. It's not always as simple as it looks.
 

August44

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Well the time has come to go up and collect scions from the broom from the white fir. I want to send a bunch over to my friends at the nursery in the Portland, Or area for grafting, but would also like to try and shoot grow some myself. If anyone has experience with this, please kick in with any and all advice as to how I can be successful...correct way to do it and best rooting hormones etc. The lady at the nursery uses "Dip and Grow" rooting hormone. Has anyone used "raw honey" or "willow water" as a hormone for this type of thing? All help appreciated.
 

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Pitoon

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Well the time has come to go up and collect scions from the broom from the white fir. I want to send a bunch over to my friends at the nursery in the Portland, Or area for grafting, but would also like to try and shoot grow some myself. If anyone has experience with this, please kick in with any and all advice as to how I can be successful...correct way to do it and best rooting hormones etc. The lady at the nursery uses "Dip and Grow" rooting hormone. Has anyone used "raw honey" or "willow water" as a hormone for this type of thing? All help appreciated.
If you plan on grafting, no rooting hormone is needed.
 
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