I can't seem to find anything on the internet about this, and I find it interesting.
Jack's mother is really good at growing things, and one of the things she's always had in her sub-tropical zone backyard is papaya trees. She has a few tricks she uses to have success in their bearing fruit, it seems...
Her advice to Jack, after being consulted about our non-bearing papaya trees goes like this:
1. Stick a sharp nail well into the trunk, then remove it.
2. Take a portion of a papaya leaf and bind it over the nail hole so that it won't get infected.
She said if we do that, that some of the trees should "change" reproductively, and we'll find that it/they will begin producing fruit.
Will it work? What is the science behind this?
I can't find anything on the internet, but I'm putting it here on this post. Let's see what happens!
(I don't even particularly LIKE papaya fruits, but Jack loves them, and they are great chicken feed...for when we have chickens. Plus they're great marinades for tenderizing meats, and I imagine there are salsas, etc they'd be good in. They're good for me, so I'll likely eat some anyway. They seem to grow like crazy down here without too much fuss, so who can pass up an easy-to-grow fruit?) :)
3 comments:
I did a little research. I'm sure I can't come up with anything you haven't already looked into. But I'll see if I can find your email to send you what little I did find.
Brenda
Genetic transformation and regeneration of mature tissues of woody fruit plants bypassing the juvenile stage
Magdalena Cervera1, Jose Juarez1, Antonio Navarro1, Jose A. Pina1, Nuria Duran-Vila1, Luis Navarro1 and Leandro Pena1
(1) Dpto Proteccion Vegetal y Biotecnologia, Instituto Valenciano de Investigaciones Agrarias (IVIA), Apartado Oficial, 46113- Moncada Valencia, Spain
Abstract Regeneration and transformation systems from mature plant material of woody fruit species have to be achieved as a necessary requirement for the introduction of useful genes into specific cultivars and the rapid evaluation of resulting horticultural traits. We report here, for the first time, a procedure for genetic transformation and regeneration of mature tissues of woody plants that overcomes the long juvenile periods and high heterozygosity that are characteristic of most of these species. An improved regeneration frequency from mature explants was obtained by invigoration of the plant material through grafting of mature buds on juvenile seedlings. Co-cultivation of the explants in feederplates after inoculation with Agrobacterium tumefaciens resulted in enhanced transformation frequencies. Furthermore, in vitro shoot-tip grafting of the regenerated mature shoots on seedling rootstocks provided a rapid and efficient system for plant production. Citrus is the most extensivel y grown fruit crop worldwide and sweet orange (Citrus sinensis L. Osbeck) accounts for approximately 70% of the Citrus total production. Mature transgenic sweet orange plants have been obtained, which flowered and bore fruit in 14 months
Brenda
You'll have to keep us informed on how that works. I wonder if it works on other types of trees as well?
Happy Independence Day!
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