These guy's look a week or two away.Placed 3.19.17.

 
 
I've taken to placing one clear container on each tree,one week after the others are placed,just to get some visibility.

 
You can kind of tell when they're ready because you'll get some leaf curling when the roots are well established and the pot media is dry.I just watered them today for the first time since they were hung.

 
 

Those look like some serious Air Layers!  wow.  BTW, the cuttings you sold me have really done well. The have become root bound in 10 gallon pots in just a year.  Time to move them to a new home.  How cold hard have you found your Preto to be?  

Hi Mario,

Glad to hear the cuttings did well.As far as cold hardiness of the Preto the worst I
took was 6-7 hours @ 26F one night,no damage..Both Sas and DonCentralTexas reported extensive
damage to structure @ 17F.Don said he lost half his structure and I think Sas's came back from the
crown.Don't know how many hours they took but anything at or below that would be problematic.

Well life just isn't fair. I placed 3 on my little Unk Pastiliere tree a day before you did yours and none showed any roots when I checked yesterday.

Paul, do you remove a bark ring and/or use rooting hormone? I only scratched the bark a little on mine.

Hi Conrad,

I girdle everything,1/2 inch.As you can see most of these are on 2nd-3rd year wood.
There are a myriad of opinions on girdling,but the science is clear.
Clonex was used on everything as well.

In the last photo you can see some smaller air layers that were girdled that
could have failed if not supported.

You got it down Paul. Great job and thanks for spreading Preto throughout the world since the mother tree here is gone.

Wow! Awesome trees and amazing looking air layers!

Those AL will hit the ground running. Nice job Paul. This is how my Preto looks like today. Despite the loss of the initial structure, which I totally cut out, I have about three new branches from beneath the soil.
Don't see any fruit yet. But it's a long summer over here. To be continued...







post a picture

Thanks Brian and Tony.These are all designated to a CRFG auction,around the time I have
some fruits to display and taste.Although they could have been taken and potted I've
left them hang and  begun structuring them in place.This is what photo 4 looks like today.

 

 
Sas,glad to hear the Preto came back for you.Do you have any data in terms of how many hours
you took at 20-17F?

incredible!  This is what I need to do to some trees in NC.  Thanks for the pictures, it's always cool to see how people go about propagation.

I pulled the air layer in photo 3 today,no sense in leaving it hang in as the
structure was fine.In the photo below you can see the difference a week makes
in root development.There was little root in this area in the above photo.