the drymifolia collectiveThe #greenhouse #avocado trees have been very slow to wake up this year, more than a month behind their flowering stage last year. Here's "#Duke" this year:
INVISV@drymifolia I'm curious if you've found your Duke rootstock to be slower growing in general than others. I found Duke to generally be more hardy than other cold-tolerant rootstocks (I didn't compare with Aravaipa, though) but also quite slow growing.
@invisv I have not found Duke seedlings to be particularly slow-growing, though I've never grown the "Duke 7" rootstock. Is that what you're growing, or are yours from the Oroville train station version of Duke like ours are?
I have noticed that they sometimes have tight node spacing, so often they form slightly more stocky trees than other #avocado seedlings, but they grow vigorously and their trunk diameter is at least as wide as most others.
@invisv here's a pretty typical #Duke seedling (#No151), a little over one year from when it sprouted:
@drymifolia Mine were from a farm on the outskirts of Oroville (the name escapes me at the moment) -- it was classic Duke rather than Duke #7. I saw the short internode spacing as you are seeing, but compared to Zutano or West Indies rootstock it was slow. (Probably half as tall after a year, and consistently thereafter.) It is however more cold tolerant, so still worth it.
@invisv I would agree if you're talking about height, but it probably has more total nodes and the girth of the trunk is at least equal, so I don't think of it as being slow growing even though it's shorter