Post date: Apr 10, 2013 4:1:42 PM
The 2012 nursery season was busy with lots of progress in our goal to produce good rooting, productive aspens. below is a summary of the year's progress:
The 2012 Bell Nursery consisted of over 94 clones and over 2000 6" cuttings planted in 10 count sets of 1 to 3 replications.
Sixteen clones have been selected representing 10 different families. A "Vigor Survival" metric was used as the primary selection model. It consisted of multiplying the survival rate by the median diameter (mm) from each clone set. The speculation is that this model may select clones that root well and grow more vigorously in the first year of a field planting.
The top 13 selections had a rooting average of 84% via 24 replications with a total of 240 6" dormant cuttings.
Thirteen clones had at least 2 years of propagation testing.
Three clones are from the 1xCAGW family (CAG204 x Open Pollinated) and have P. grandidentata and P. tremula characteristics.
There were 150+ seedlings grown from the family 2xCAG12 (AG15 x C173). The parents of this cross have performed well in Michigan's Upper Peninsula.
The 2013-02-02-B WASP Test Observations: A 16 day WASP test of the 16 2012 aspen selections. It compared each clone's dormant 4" tip cutting rooting potential with test parameters: no-soak and 4, 4" tip cuttings/clone using the WASP protocol. The average rooting was 89% which compares to 79% average rooting for the 16 2012 nursery selections. Nine of the 16 clones rooted 100%, however only 1 of the 9 rooted via ASP shoot after 11 days.
The 2013-02-02-C 2xCAG12 WASP Test Observations: A 16 day WASP test of 2xCAG12 aspen ortet cuttings to compare tip rooting results with a potential rooting percent metric. The average tray (1 clone/tray) rooting was 65%. The average tray score was 20.05 (max is 60). The CAG204 control may have been compromised but it rooted 25% and scored at 13. I replanted the best 9 clones and may ramp 5 of them for a potential 2014 test... There were 33 test ortets 24% (8/33) and 8 ortets that had a "perfect" score of 60. I expect perhaps 4 of these "perfect" rooters to show good rooting in the 2013 nursery and perhaps a few that had low scores as well...