Native Plants

Q. Who is Mr. Smarty Plants?

A: There are those who suspect Wildflower Center volunteers are the culpable and capable culprits. Yet, others think staff members play some, albeit small, role. You can torture us with your plant questions, but we will never reveal the Green Guru's secret identity.

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Thursday - April 02, 2009

From: Harlingen, TX
Region: Southwest
Topic: General Botany, Non-Natives, Trees
Title: Grafting stone fruit
Answered by: Barbara Medford

QUESTION:

Do you know of anyone grafting the new low chill stone fruit trees to the Mexican plum to minimize cotton rot? Or would it even work?

ANSWER:

Sorry, this is way out of our range of expertise. In the first place, most stone fruits are non-native to North America. In the second place, we don't know anything about grafting. At the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center, we deal with plants native to North America as well as to the area in which they are being grown. Anything grafted or hybridized falls out of our comfort zone. You might contact the Cameron County Extension Office; this is a function of the AgriLIFE Extension of Texas A&M System, and they could very well be doing experiments on this kind of problem.

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Thursday - April 02, 2009

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