My dioon edule

[Stan]

Yes.The label was in there for a decade..I pretty much have that memorized!

[Meangreen94z]

Any updated photos of your Rio Verde/ Jacala Hidalgo? I have 2 Rio Verde and 2 Queretaro Blue.

[Agave_fan]

I am only 5 years late with the update MeanGreen but better late than never?

I have been doing the wintering I mentioned back in 2017 and all made it through the couple bad winters we have had since then where temps dipped below freezing for consecutive days and even into the single digits. Now that they are bigger, I think I am doing more harm than good by covering the leaves so I might just wrap the base this winter when temps are predicted to go below freezing for more than a few hours.

For the first time, I had several of them produce seed this year- two of the angustifolium and one of the Jacala. I will try to remember how to attach a couple photos without posting them upside down and getting on Gee's bad side.

[Meangreen94z]

I am only 5 years late with the update MeanGreen but better late than never?

I have been doing the wintering I mentioned back in 2017 and all made it through the couple bad winters we have had since then where temps dipped below freezing for consecutive days and even into the single digits. Now that they are bigger, I think I am doing more harm than good by covering the leaves so I might just wrap the base this winter when temps are predicted to go below freezing for more than a few hours.

For the first time, I had several of them produce seed this year- two of the angustifolium and one of the Jacala. I will try to remember how to attach a couple photos without posting them upside down and getting on Gee's bad side.

Thank you for the update, those have done extremely well. I have angustfolium, edule in several forms, merolae,califanoi, holmgrenii, and vovidisii in ground in my new yard. I also have planifolium and caputoi still in containers. They’ve been a bit finicky .

Dioon edule ‘Queretaro Blue’

IMG_2858.jpeg (842.63 KiB) Viewed 420 times

[Agave_fan]

Very nice!

You mentioned a new yard, how many winters has this landscape setup seen?

[Meangreen94z]

Very nice!

You mentioned a new yard, how many winters has this landscape setup seen?

Thank you

This will be the first winter in ground at this location. I brought 90% of it inside in 2021 but most of it has been outside the last 2 winters either in ground or in containers. The Dioon were either on my porch under a tarp or in the garage depending on the year and the species. The Yucca linearifolia in the picture were on my porch for 2021 and did fine

[Agave_fan]

Thank you

This will be the first winter in ground at this location. I brought 90% of it inside in 2021 but most of it has been outside the last 2 winters either in ground or in containers. The Dioon were either on my porch under a tarp or in the garage depending on the year and the species. The Yucca linearifolia in the picture were on my porch for 2021 and did fine

I look forward to hearing how they do this year. We had a pretty mild winter last year so fingers crossed for the same this year.

[Agave_fan]

Today was a beautiful day with temperatures only getting to 87 so I spent the day repotting some neglected cacti.

I noticed that when I walked through a specific area, I kept getting a whiff of something that smelled like a cross between a rotted cactus and a nasty chemical smell. I checked everything in the area and all plants were solid so I ignored it until I was done with all my repotting for the day and then took time to fully investigate.

I learned something new today, my dioon edule cones STINK!

I confirmed it with all three cones which had varying degrees of the same putrid scent. The largest cone was the strongest so I am speculating that as the cone matures and gets closer to pollination time, it starts sending out a horrible smell to attract insects to help with pollination? Or, perhaps it starts putting off an offensive odor to prevent anything from getting near it? Just speculation of course.

With these stinky cones around, I have a strong urge to do another agave snout weevil treatment around my house as this seems like an odor they might be attracted to and gravitate toward.

[Meangreen94z]

Nice, something to look forward to. I’m sure it’s an adaptation for attracting beetles to cross pollinate.

[Agave_fan]

CONGRATS IT’S A BOY!!!!

I have not looked at my Dioons for a while and noticed today that the smaller white strobilus (cone) on the angustifolium which was almost identical in appearance to the edule jacala strobilus on the other side of the house, had almost doubled in height and looked like a pinecone with all its little sporophylls (leaves/scales) spread open. I have no idea when this happened, but the entire strobilus was open and there was pollen dust all around.

NOTE: I should mention that I am a bit confused on the correct terminology for the large flat scales that cover the exterior of the strobilus on cycads. There are so many terms used (some interchangeably ) in the papers I have read (sporophylls, megasporophylls, microsporophylls) that I am not 100% clear on the correct terminology. I do not feel comfortable calling them leaves or scales so I will just generically refer to the flat overlaying exterior of strobili as sporophylls for this post. I think that microsporophylls might refer to male while megasporophylls might be the correct term on female strobilus but as I am not certain gender on some of these, I will just use the term sporophylls. Correction/clarification by someone with educated knowledge is not only welcome, it is greatly appreciated.

I took a look at the fuzzy angustifolium strobilus that I suspect is female that sits about 10’ from the male and I ‘think’ I am starting to see a little activity. Although I was expecting to see the sporophylls at the bottom open first on this fuzzy one, I am starting to see slight gapping of the sporophylls in the middle of the strobilus.

As it is a bit breezy here today and the male nearby would likely not have much pollen left by the time the suspected female was ready and I do not have the beetle suspected of being the main pollinator where I live, I decided to extract the male strobilus to save some pollen and learn a bit more about the reproduction of these plants. Surprisingly, I got quite a bit of pollen from this already fully open male! I attached some photos of the storage area of this pollen which is at the base (or is it top? ) of each of the sporophylls to give an idea of why this plant produces so much pollen. The interior of the cone is filled with these pollen sacks and they do not all open at once. Even though my strobilus was fully open and removed from the plant, new sacks appear to be releasing more pollen as the day goes on. One second no pollen under it even with a gentle shaking, an hour later, new layer of pollen under it. I have seen pictures where the sporophylls are spread even further apart so perhaps I am not late but right on time and pollen will continue to drop for a few days.

For sh&ts and giggles, I did sprinkle some pollen over the top and opening areas of the one I suspect might be female and also on the edule jacala that is starting to open that I keep changing my gender guess on.

The edule jacala strobilus is not fuzzy and looked almost identical to the angustifolium male except it was shorter and wider which is why I was thinking it might be female. I noticed today that it has gained a little height (not near as much as the male that just opened) with what appears to be a loss of girth (could be deceptive due to height gain) and is starting to open up in a zig-zag pattern looking like the angustifolium male sporophylls that opened, so I am now back to thinking it is male again. I see no pollen yet but I am not certain of the timing on when the sporophylls spread open and when the little pollen storage sacks at the base open and release pollen so I guess time will tell and that time seems very close.

I do not plan to do any drastic pollination methods like slicing off the top of what I suspect is a female strobilus and doubt I will even use a wet method. I will likely just use the pollen I collected today in less invasive ways such as sprinkling and brushing into the sporophylls, coupled with a little air with a straw or other apparatus to get it in a bit deeper.

I realize that this is less likely to produce results (will do a bit daily as it opens) but so be it, this is my first experience with attempting to pollinate and I plan to be conservative with the first go-around.

I did see a couple fire ants on the opening edule jacala today and fire ants were mentioned in a study done a decade ago in Mexico on edule pollination as one of the insects present on sporophylls of male strobili at the time of pollen release. They felt that pollination from fire ants would be rare but could not rule it out.

Attaching a few photos from today’s surgery.

[Agave_fan]

The edule jacala strobilus had an overnight growth spurt so I think I will be seeing some pollen from this one soon, likely today.

For accuracy on growth, I placed a marker on top of the very tip for balance and consistency and rotated it in a semi-circle to mark the leaves around it. The pink arrows represent the markings I did at 4pm last night. There was so much growth, the strobilus covers the 4pm center marking directly behind it. I had to actually take photo from above looking down rather than straight across to see the markings!

At 7am this morning, I did the same rotating marking at the same spot and this marking is represented with the teal arrows. The growth spurt from 4pm to 7am was 1 3/8"!

You can see the unopened pollen sacks in the second photo.

[Meangreen94z]

Very cool. Keep up with the documentation.

[Agave_fan]

Very cool. Keep up with the documentation.

Sadly, the female seems to be getting smaller so I think I actually missed my window and there will not be much more to document. I should have paid closer attention to these but was distracted with guests in town for the last couple of weeks so I really haven't looked at them.

It is likely the female had that bottom layer of sporophylls open up and close and I missed it. The activity that I thought I saw around the middle (which I mentioned was unusual) could be just a bit of gapping due to the tomentose covering shrinking a bit due to loss of weight/size?

In any event, the jacala strobilus started releasing pollen so I clipped it off. I have some some more dessicant arriving tomorrow and will freeze as much as I can after removing moisture and hope for another female sometime in the future.

Attaching a photo of the second male right before snipping it.