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Originally Posted by TheASTrader
Hmm... That's certainly a speculation, however, not what Post #1 or the order page on his website advertised and that's a problem.
From James:
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The variety I get asked about more than any other is Black Madeira, which was the #1 most ordered tree, so I'll use it as an example to demonstrate. My potted Black Madeiras started waking up a couple of weeks ago, and my in-ground ones just started waking up a couple of days ago. My current Black Madeira inventory is as follows: 5 in-ground in greenhouses, 5 in 7gal pots, 10 in 3gal pots, 18 well-rooted young trees that need up-potted, and 11 more that are rooting in humidity bins and are looking good. Combined, that's 38 trees with a good shot at up to 49 very shortly (let's conservatively estimate 45). That total is far short of what is needed to satisfy all of the Black Madeira orders to date, but that is about to change drastically in the next few months.
Since the growing season for these Black Madeiras has already begun, and since I should get 30+ cuttings per potted plant and 50-100 cuttings per in-ground tree over the next 4 months, I'm on pace to have enough Black Madeira wood to provide around 1,500 cuttings by the last day of spring. I won't put all of that wood toward cuttings, since some of it will be air-layered off along the way to help create more trees as quickly as possible, but the point is clear: very soon we're going to cross a threshold and have more than enough material to fill all orders for trees and cuttings. That's the power of exponential growth.
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Cuttings season was further complicated by the fact that our trees slipped into dormancy at many different times due to having about 6 or 8 different types of environments (outdoor versus indoor; heated tunnels versus unheated tunnels; pit greenhouses versus above-ground greenhouses). Since all cuttings have to be ready at the same time for them to be shipped out together in orders, and since I want all cuttings to be fresh when they're shipped, the options were to either leave them all on the trees (where they could be damaged, depending on the environment), to prune and refrigerate them (which contradicts my desire for freshness), or to prune them and plow them back into the propagation operation. I decided on the last option because it seemed like a good way to save and create more wood while still preserving the original cutting; that is, once the green top of the resulting rooted tree is air-layered off, the original lignified cutting (now a baby tree trunk) can be reclaimed.
Not sure which part you say is speculation, but if you read the above quotes from James in this thread, you can see he has some BM inventory. He's not shipping it. And he's air-layering the ones he has and not sending out any cuttings.