39 replies to this topic

[Torsten]

I have found, in my limited experience that the green strikes well and grows well in W.A. Got ~%50 from yanking up suckers from the base.

big difference between suckers and cuttings. we have no problem with suckers either.

[naja naja]

off topic, but didn't want to start another thread for this little bit of info. Found this while perusing today.

Four different cultivars of Catha edulis are known, and the Yemenis recognize these by shades of colour difference: 'abvad' (white), 'ahmar' (red), 'aswad' (black), and 'azraq' (blue).

[naja naja]

just thinking outloud. If we try categorize our aussie varieties amongst these (although I have another document that says there's over 16 varieties) we have green, narrow, red, white and ph hybrid. IMO, our red could easily be called black or blue at times, where as the others I'd call white. except maybe narrow which might be a red, just depends on how they classify them. Now the PH backcrosses, I have no experience with, so unsure where they'd fall. prob all over the place.

I also found an erroneous documentthat stated that C edulis was infact a sterile triploid and that only the diploid C spinosa had fertile seeds. Based uppn DNA testing and sum Darwin law. Concluding that spinosa was the ancestor of edulis. I don't buy this at all, unless all our khat ion oz is actually spinosa or hybrid spinosa with fertile seeds sumhow?

[planthelper]

hope this will help, to identify different strains of catha edulis.
i added a new selection, and called it ph red, it features, a plant with quite big, red semi narrow leaves, which displays good virgor.
note, the young small young caramelised leaves!
 SAM_1013catha strains.JPG   1.22MB   64 downloads

[planthelper]

we had some disscussion about the "black" cathas, so here is a pic of a black broad leaved and a black narrow leaved,
but note, "black" is just a seasonal colorchange of the red varieties!  black catha edulis.JPG   327.26K   16 downloads

[planthelper]

big difference between suckers and cuttings. we have no problem with suckers either.

not, if the cuttings are made out of juvenile growth!!!
i explained that a few times, here already, but obviously to no avail.
one time incog asked me, how do you do it, and i answered.

here it is again, in a very short version:

suckers of the nl are easy to root, we all agree.

but all growth of a narrow leaved catha, which displays juvenile growth pattern is aswell an easy cutting.
juvenile growth pattern is characterized, by a spiral formation of the leaves (alternate leave formation http://en.wikipedia....iki/Phyllotaxis)
the problem is, the narrow leaved cathas, change very fast from alternate, to bipinnate.
bipinnate and aswell leave displays very close to this cenario, will make very difficult cuttings to strike, but they do strike at times.

we got a few possibileties, to overcome this issues:
1, prunning the the plant strongly and hope, it will re grow with spiral leaves.
2, prunning the plant, and let the suckers grow for a bit, and take cuttings of them, as long as the show spiral growth.
3, grow a nl from seed, and take often cuttings, so the plant stays in juvenile form for longer.
in other words, seedlings of narrow leaved plants will display juvenile growth pattern for quite a while ( up to ~ 18months) and all cuttings taken during this time will be easy.

i just had a look at my plants and found a wat to explain it, even easier:
if the narrow leaved plant has not formed branches yet, the material will be an easy cutting.
once it branches with bipinnate leaves, it turns into a difficult cutting.
one probagator working once for wanjina gardens, always took cuttings of material which, just started branching, and as such got some success.

Edited by planthelper, 31 July 2012 - 04:27 PM.

[planthelper]

pic of a red narrow leaved catha edulis, which displays juvenile features (almost no branches, and hardly any bipinnate leaves)!!
easy cuttings, can be optained, from this plant.  red_narrowleaved_catha.JPG   644.16K   56 downloads

pic of a red narrow leaved catha, which already reached maturety (lot's of branches, and lot's of pibinnate leaves)
once a plant reaches this stage, any cutting above the first branch will be difficult!!!
note you can still get good cutting material from all the stems underneath the branching, because they are still displaying juvenile form. but once this juvenile growth dropped it's leaves and only looks like a stick, naturaly you cant take cuttings either, because the tissue is now to old....  red_narrowleaved_catha_bipinnate.JPG   753.2K   53 downloads

edit:
i made an exeption and disscussed propagation here, in the hope to use this as future reference, and because, i got tired of people raising this issue again and again, although i often told the solution.

Edited by planthelper, 31 July 2012 - 04:48 PM.

[Illustro]

Fascinating work PH! I'm usually not one for breeding oddities, but the NL red is really quite cool.

Sometime ago, I came across somebody on the internets posting about growing some of your plain NL's from seed, at a year old they had all caramel/pink tips and branches - I was wondering, is this common in your NL juveniles? Any idea what the mature plants will grow to be like?

[planthelper]

Fascinating work PH! I'm usually not one for breeding oddities, but the NL red is really quite cool.

Sometime ago, I came across somebody on the internets posting about growing some of your plain NL's from seed, at a year old they had all caramel/pink tips and branches - I was wondering, is this common in your NL juveniles? Any idea what the mature plants will grow to be like?

i haven't grown any NL's from my seed for quite a while so i can't give you a definite answere but,
1, the way the juvenile looks the adult will be the same, i'd say 10cm tall seedlings would already give you a good idea how the adult will look like.
2, pink caramel tips are a normal feature of the NL.
3, at some stages, my NL seed might have been open pollinated, by other catha's aswell, so everything is possible, you might even end up with a broad leaved catha, sowing out my NL seeds.

i agree the narrow leaved red, is awsome, i'm proud of it.

[planthelper]

Catha edulis caramel tips.

[Peter_out]

I'm not sure if anyone is still reading this thread but the botanical pedant in me just can't help pointing out that there are no
bipinnate or even pinnate leaves in any of these pictures. The leaves of Catha seem to be serrulate to serrated & either alternate or opposite depending on maturity or growth phase.. A quick search for these terms will clarify this for those not familiar with botanical terminology. ;-)

[planthelper]

acknowledged!

[jarmon]

So the deal is take cuttings when they are alternate not opposite? I have a few taking root at the moment, most of them are alternate but a few are opposite. Will see how it goes.

From the red ones I am growing it seems that one is a deep red and the other seems to be more pink and curled. I got the seeds from the two trees at UWA which apparently have been felled now. One was a really tall upright growing thing whereas the other was very branchy bushy and short. I'm guessing only the original gardener could answer whether this is a genetic or environmental difference.

[planthelper]

So the deal is take cuttings when they are alternate not opposite? I have a few taking root at the moment, most of them are alternate but a few are opposite. Will see how it goes.

From the red ones I am growing it seems that one is a deep red and the other seems to be more pink and curled. I got the seeds from the two trees at UWA which apparently have been felled now. One was a really tall upright growing thing whereas the other was very branchy bushy and short. I'm guessing only the original gardener could answer whether this is a genetic or environmental difference.

 

many people who grow catha from seed, know that if you grow the red from seed, there can be slight variations, and a common one is exactly what you describe, a more pinkish, than deep red leaf collor.

[planthelper]

they, like the early winter...

 catha_edulis_red.JPG   94.42K   10 downloads

and the flowers...

 red_catha_edulis_flowers.JPG   61.08K   9 downloads