The Fascinating Behavior of Avocado Flowers: Synchronous Dichogamy
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- Опубліковано 7 бер 2023
- Avocado flowers employ a clever technique to ensure genetic diversity in their offspring. Synchronous Dichogamy minimizes the occurrence of self pollination in avocado trees. Join me as I show you avocado flowers in both their male and female phases. I also explain how sometimes avocado trees can and do self pollinate.
Get your Sleepy Lizard avocados at: www.guacfarm.com
Tom, I just wanted to say that this video might be one of my favorites. Your thoroughness and enthusiasm are so engaging, and it's so refreshing to watch a video that covers all angles. Ironically the very thing that created synchronous dichogamy in avocados and helped them survive "the deadly game of evolution", was evolution itself!
Liam thank you for your thoughtful comment and yes, I love thinking about evolution as a philosophical exercise.
Hello good spirit from the avocado plantation. 🙃👍👍👍
yes indeed!
Beautiful Macro shots on Flowers , i had feel it. An amazing plants life on Earth. Thank you for your Video indeed. ♥🙏
they are so pretty to look at especially in the female phase. little works of art.
@@SleepyLizard 🙏👌❤
The farthest thing from my mind when I woke up today was that I would be watching avocado porn on UA-cam at the office. Thank you for yet another insightful, engaging lesson. Keep posting, brother!
funny. but yeah them flowers were getting busy out there 🤣
Tom: You are the most incredible "Story Teller" i have encountered. You make talking about a mundane subject such as Avocado reproduction the most captivating lesson ever! Masterful presentation! I am definitely jealous! Hope to see you soon!
Doug, I was thinking about you today. I must have missed one of the sections of sugarcane you gave me and I found it dry on my kitchen counter under a pile of other stuff. Can't wait to see you guys again.
Tom, I couldn't stop watching!! So informative, concise and engaging!! Thank you so much for all the effort you put in for your viewers!!!
thank you, I'm glad you enjoyed
That lonely avocado you described sounds like my life.
Stay close to the channel and we'll try and help cheer you up. Lot's of great subscribers here. hopefully they'll give you some love too!
Awesome stuff, Tom. Thanks!
you're welcome Don.
Love this.
it's really cool isn't it?
Great video mate.Many thanks for sharing aTop video
You're welcome. I hope it helped with your question about two vs one tree for fruiting.
Thank you learning everyday 😁 God Bless 🙏
you're welcome Frozen.
Too funny!!! My nephew and I were just discussing this very topic yesterday. Good to know. Thanks Tom💞
that's really cool. great timing
Thanks for sharing Tom and Noe. 🙏 😎🏖🏝
🥰
My mom's avocado tree can't hold it's baby avocados, and I was told it could be due to improper pollination. Your video was not only very informative, but very engaging. Thank you for the great content!
thank you wolfpupp
Great stuff
thanks
Always informative. I've been hoping to get a better idea of what these different blooms look like. Great explanations as always
Than you so much I appreciate your comment
Thank you.
Hey Charles, you're welcome.
Thank you
you are welcome
This video was supe informative
thank you
Tom, me encanta la forma en la que explicas lo que sabes, eres muy buen comunicador
Gracias Ramiro. Trato de ponerme el la mente de mis subscribers y comunicó en una manera interesante y con ritmo 🥁
Tom ,
thanks for the great video. It would be great to do a similar video on mango flowers and pollination. I think we would all appreciate that information. Thanks again
here you go!! ua-cam.com/video/fxbXmpOzJ1k/v-deo.html
Awesome information Tom Very nice 👍 well done bro 👌✌️👍
There’s my buddy Heera. How you doing?
I'm fine bro I hope you do the same actually today I hud visited a mango farm near me there are fully of flowers and there is so many varieties of mango trees I Loved it feeling was awesome and outstanding
My passionate boss farmer well said
indeed
Hello I purchased from you and the Avocado were awesome. Yes you bust my Hubble. Lol I have two seedling plant. Do you sell the cutting to graft to my plants?
Thanks
Hi dolyclaire, I do not sell the cuttings, sorry about that. I see them available online sometimes.
Now this is one amazing video. Thank you for this amazing video. I was wondering why I see these avo trees that are isolated, they all carry fruit. Just the other day I went to pick avacados on a tree thats sitting on a property that is vacant. The house is empty. So the fruit are just dropping. Lol I jumped the little picket fence and got many fruits. Only one tree there.
yep they can self pollinate.
Hi Tom, I was just watching some of your older videos, e.g. the one why you won't get a hass fruit from the tree of a seed. Thanks for all the great info you give!!!
I had a question which I'll also post here, since I don't know if you read the comments on older videos:
If you are grafting, does the tree grown from seed and the graft need to be from the same variety? Or maybe even from the same tree? Or could you use them interchangeably? E.g. graft a hass scion to a bacon seedling?
Only Love!!!
Juicy Smoothie, great question and the answer is: it doesn't matter, you can graft any cutting to any seedling. As long as its avocado to avocado
Yes, yes! Good
I wanted to ask you a question Tom:
I've wanted to plant a few avocado trees when I have my own property in the future and wanted to ask, if I were to attempt planting like two or three trees but keep them near eachother, how far apart should they be planted?
Hi Mysterie, I space mine by 16' and grow them to a heigh of 18' to 22'. you get enough room for the trees to grow wide but also close enough that the branches overlap which is good for pollination. As you learned in the video you'd want to plant a type A and a Type B
Mr Tom, thanks for ur info, which variety would u say is opposite to pollock for fertilization, l am in zone 11, thank you
Hi Veronica, Pollock is type B so a type A such as Hass, Choquette, Simmonds or Donnie would be opposite.
That was a great video, thanks so much for your channel and for sharing so much knowledge. It's a minor point, but in the future you might want to clarify that it's generally not the exact same flowers opening in the opposite phase in the afternoon. Generally I think a flower opens first as female, and then the next day as male. Each flower only opens once in each phase. But, there are many flowers and on each day some will be opening in the male or female phase. There are weird exceptions with individual flowers, as you mentioned, but that is the norm as I understand it.
Shadowslip, you are correct. As with most of my vids I often seem to discover a few things I could have done better during recording and editing. Instead of saying "reopen" I should have said "other flowers on the panicle".
It's always a challenge to find the right level of detail. I appreciate your clarification.
Always happy to see an intelligent video from you my friend. I can learn something new rom you every time. I didn't know anything could self pollinate. So you can teach an old dog tricks.. haha..
Thank you Nena. Glad I could provide a few minutes of enjoyment to your day!
@@SleepyLizard don't forget the many smiles your channel has brought me.. and those delicious choquette.
Thanks for another informative video! Is this the primary reason why avocados do not grow true to type from seed? If so, does that include flowering type as well, i.e. could a seed from a type A parent yield either an A or B tree?
Seahawks, yes both reasons are why avocados don't grow true, primarily it's because they are heterozygous but secondarily even if they were not synchronous dichogamy makes it so they share DNA from two parent trees. Excellent observation!
One of my trees from seeds is going to bloom. And it is loaded with buds I was wondering if I can find a. Avocado three that is the opposite. Have you ever heard of grafting another tree? Like an A to B. Or vice versa. Do you think that's Practical. Or even possible?
yes, it's practical, and possible. it's a good idea
Excellent video. You, sir, are a great story teller. Thanks for the great explanation. If I may suggest, I think we could have heard you better had you used a wireless microphone. Regardless, thank you so much.
Marcus, Thank you for the feedback. I did use a wireless mic but a cheap one. Over the past month I got myself a new camera with way better audio but the wind still messes it up a bit. my next purchase is going to be a high quality wireless mic.
You the best bro I brought some grafted ones here call podlock type to sell an plant in my backyard name them after you smile
fantastic
Thank you
For the knowlege
Im very appreciated
And i hope someday
i can meet you
If you came to thailand
Black ice tea
From thailand
I love iced tea! thank you
With each video, Uncle Tom looks more and more like a pirate.
I should get a parrot for my shoulder
My bacon is beginning to flower again and I've started seeing last season's avocados on the ground. Does the tree shed old fruit or do I have a pest coming and helping themselves?
Thank you for all your educational videos! They've been very helpful in getting great yields out of my tree!
yes they will shed the old fruit. It's best to pick it clean and prune the tree prior to flowering. Try that next year.
@@SleepyLizard will do thanks!
Scion you call it.
THANK YOU
yes, scion.
Unfortunately, our delicious PR avocado will be taken down in a few weeks. We're in the middle of flowering and have some avocados growing already. How can I clone/take cuttings and root, etc to save the wonderful delicious fruit of this very old tree. We're thinking we might even do some guerrilla planting in the area to keep as many growing as possible. I have a few small plants from seed we'll try to graft too. But only three or four have survived.
Ronda, you might try to root the cuttings directly in soil. it's not the best time of year for it because of the flowering but if you could take a few cuttings and scrape the bark and apply rooting hormone and put directly in potting soil you might get some to take and you'll have a clone. good luck!
Tom, does a graft dictate if the tree is type A or B? Meaning if you grafted one of each onto the same tree, would it self pollinate between branches?
Yes it’s up to the graft so you are correct. You can graft a type A and a type B to the same tree and they will pollinate each other on same tree
@@SleepyLizard Thank you Tom, I greatly appreciate the wealth of knowledge you provide to this community.
It's a great day when the giant land sloth makes an appearance in a story of my favorite fruits. Ps can we get the long sleeve t-shirt in black?
thank you for your comments and yes, next time I order shirts I'll do them in black. it won't be until fruit season begins because this time of year I broke 🤣. I'm upside-down till I start selling fruit again.
@@SleepyLizard speaking of selling things... When do you start selling grafting stock?
I won't be selling any "plant material". I've chosen to focus on fruit sales. I'm too small to jump through all the administrative hoops each state requires for ag importation.
I know this is an older video but one question I can’t find the answer to is. If I want to cover 2 seasons, do I need a minimum of 4 trees? 2 A’s and 2 B’s? I assume the different season trees flower at different times and I’d need a typeA and type B to cover each season? I’m in Orlando area btw. Thank you! Great video!
Hi Mrs Jenny, they all flower at the same time so you have all the Bs and all the As flowering in the spring no matter if late season or early. So you'll be good.
@@SleepyLizard Thank you so much for answering. And what a great answer for my urban backyard! 👏
It's been so long since I waited for my oldest avocado tree to start growing. But unfortunately, the root rot got a lot worse. My tree is in critical condition. Especially after I didn't water the tree for 46 days, which stressed it completely. The stem is starting to die back. The buds have all died. The trunk looks wrinkly and extremely dehydrated. The soil smells weird in a bad way. There are lots of roots missing. I don't know if I'll be able to save the tree. I think I have a solution for that.
I realised that 90-95% of the problems are because of soil. So I'll search for Decomposed Granite, DG for short and repot the tree into that to try to save it. But it's Monday and since I have school, I can't go and look until the weekend, I'll have to try to keep the stem alive.
I also looked closely at the lower stem of my beloved tree and found numerous brown dots and orange specs as well.
The tree looks absolutely abysmal. Do you think that DG will save my tree from root rot and pests? It makes me sad to see the tree deteriorate day by day. Sorry for the bad news, my other avocados are doing great, but my main tree is the most important one.
I've also figured out something great about cloning.
did you change your UA-cam name?
Thanks for the video. I have some questions. The first is: Is simultaneous cross-pollination more efficient between two different verieties of avocado trees in the same field? Or can it also be done efficiently between trees of the same verieties? Which one is better? . Second: If it were better for simultaneous cross-pollination between two different verieties of avocado trees, which veriety would you prefer as the veriety that blooms simultaneously as a male and the Haas veriety as a female? Third: If we have a field with 100 trees totally, what is the appropriate number of male trees that correspond to the appropriate number of female trees or rather what is the ratio between them? What is the optimal distribution map for the distribution of those 100 trees in the field? Thank you very much in advance.
more efficient across two varieties of different flowering types
it's not efficient within variety because all the flowers are either male or female at the same time. their system pretty much forces pollination across variety
the variety mix doesn't matter as long as its As with Bs
they say you should mix flowering type every 7th tree or so...and intermix don't do sections.
Tom hope all is well I wanted to give you a laugh for the day and also a rhetorical dumb question… I ended up grafting an avocado onto a mango I guess it got in my mango Graft mix somehow but after 2 weeks it’s still green… what’re the odds it can survive !!? Haha thx
Meh, I don't think it will survive too much longer. I've never tried it but from everything I've read avocados have to be grafted to other avocados.
@@SleepyLizard thx tom yea I assumed but I was in a hurry I guess and didn’t make sure I was actually grafting avo to avo lol have a good day
So the flowers that opened as male.... Do the same piece flower open again as female or does it mean the male closes and another flower opens as female?
Type a open as female in the morning, then the same flower opens as make the next afternoon. Type V open as female in the afternoon then the same flower reopens as male the next morning.
Hi. So after 8 long years, my avocado tree finally flowered this month in Orlando but didn’t set any fruit. I have no idea what type it is to be able to buy a companion tree. Any suggestions? Is there a self-pollinating type? So depressing to wait and get nada. 😢
Desiree, congratulations on the flowering and it's not unusual to wait 10 years for a seed grown avocado tree to bear fruit. All avocados are self pollinating but it's better if you combine a type A with a type B. In order to determine if your tree is type A or B you can go out in the morning (before noon) and look at the open flowers. If they are female your tree is type A, if male your tree is type B. you can use google images to see what a female vs male avocado flower looks like
Thanks for the information. After watching this video, I decided to try hand pollinating a few flowers and I got 1 baby. Lol
@@desireeugarte9575 congratulations!
What is the spacing?
16' by 16'
How to identify flower bud and leaf bud
I don't know how to tell early on like in the first day or two but time of year is a good clue. If its late March through December its almost certainly a leave bud. If during Jan/Feb I suppose it could be either but it's most likely to be flower...and you'll know in a day or two when it either progresses to flower or pushes out leaves.
So how does a single avocado tree in the backyard makes fruit?
they are capable of self pollination. you likely wrote you comment before you got to that part of the vid. I explain the process.
If one variety mated with another, wouldn’t you get a third variety?
yes. we call that a seedling variety. This vid explains it better: ua-cam.com/video/yWAR_DotvZs/v-deo.html
Couldn't ya collect pollen on Q-Tips and pollenate the flowers yourself?
Hi Rut Roh, yes people hand pollinate all the time especially those who grow indoors where there are no insects to spread pollen.
you remind me of my father but he grew only tomatoes
I hope I'm triggering good memories for you.
So it's not the female flower doing a magic trick - it's 2 flowers opening alternately. Whoa. Here I was thinking they somehow transformed when shut. How embarrassment 😂💖🥑
nah, nah, you have it right. It's the same flower that closes and reopens as the opposite sex. In this vid we were just looking at flowers where some were like an hour ahead of the others. the one opening as male would have already been open as female then closed within an hour of my recording.
@@SleepyLizard wait what?? How? Do the bits fold up or something?
@@KerriEverlasting yep and sometimes they don't fold up all the way and that's how we get self pollination.
Getting an F in Biology is good thing....
I think I said “D” 🤣
Good stuff, Tom. Love it!
Yeah … but Tom … you’re on thin ice saying females can’t pollinate females in 2023 🤦🏼♂️🤦🏼♂️🤦🏼♂️😂😂😂
At least everybody agrees that avocados taste amazing!
@@SleepyLizard nice save! 😂
Make'n babies again
that time of year. yep. did I see you put out a new vid today?
oh wait, it was like a week ago.
@@SleepyLizard yep made a new video on growing Joshua Trees
yes, that's the one. came up on my feed!
I don't know if I believe you in this video cause "science" these days says men can get pregnant, haha.
One must be discriminating in one’s choice of advisors.
those Avocado tree Flowers are Gay 😅
quite the opposite in fact. Synchronous Dichogamy only works because the flowers prefer to only mate with members of the opposite sex. 😝
@@SleepyLizard that still mens Gay Flower's bro