do the named varieties you want..... come true from seed?????

ken

No, their appearance is all over the place. Many have usefull levels of DED resistance though, and that's what I'm looking for. I would like to spike our woods with them and let them pollinate the existing elms to spread the resistance genes. It's actually their offspring that might be so good, chance gene combinations might be even better than the named varieties.

They grow fast too, I have two on the home place from 2012 seed and they are already as tall as a school bus. I can take a picture when the snow goes, if you like. We had a lot of snow this winter, so they are only twigs sticking out of the snow right now.

Sure do hope you achieve success, jocelyn. What a great thing it would be to have Am/ elm reappear on the landscape!

+oM

Yes, it would. It will be a fun project. So, if anybody has any resistant cultivars this spring that set seed, would you save me a couple of spoonfulls?

By the same token, when mine are old enough to set seed, I will be happy to mail seeds away too.

Good luck locating some seeds, sounds like a very cool project!

If you are unable to locate the seeds and don't mind paying a little more, here is a link that sells 3 different true American elm cloans that you could plant out at your location and let them "mix" over time, they appear to be reasonably priced seedlings. I'm not sure but it looks like they may ship to Canada also.

http://jlpnliners.com/plant-catalog

Is there a nursery in Canada that sells resistant bare root Elms? One place told me you could only get them potted in larger sizes at $150 and up, which sounds now like a line to get an expensive sale from me.

I haven't been able to find one that sells struck, rooted cuttings. I can get huge plants, 300 pounds worth of really heavy plants, locally. These are too big to carry over rough ground to the stream at the back of our own woods where the existing elms are. I did look at jlpnliners, and at only 12 dollars for a permit to import, that's not bad. They are certainly small enough to carry back to the stream in our woods...but it will be about 15 years till they can make seed with what we have. I'm 63 now, grin.

It's the genetic recombinations I'm looking for, therefore, seed. If I have to, I'll order struck cuttings, but seed would save a lot of time, 15 years or so of time.

Jocelyn

Hi Alex, yup, it's you. I didn't want to be a bother. Yes, the school bus high seedlings are your 2012 seedlot. I didn't get any pollinated seed for the 2014 seedlot, but if you are willing to send more, I'd love some more. I would go with slight shade the first year, then transplant them later. PEI is getting a real big loss of elms to the DED the last few years. Beetles are really plentiful and Charlottetown has cut down half its elms...died. I'm east of there, but my neighbour has lost both hers. DED. I have quite a few elms in our woods, but no resistance that I can see. I am hoping your seedlings will change that. There needs to be seed reproduction to breed it into locally adapted stock. I was talking to a federal forestry researcher in New Brunswick, and he says only 2 or 3 major genes and a few minor ones...............doesn't seem that hard. Plant lots, let them reproduce by seed and let mass selection take care of breeding for resistance. If it works, I'll have seed to give away just about the time I dodder around with my walker, grin.

I forgot to mention that pollination beyond anybody's control. It can be dead calm, so that the pollen doesn't blow around. It can be so rainy that the pollen just washes to the ground...all things that prevent viable seed.

Elm seeds are flat at the best of times, and the seed wing keeps growing even if it's a blank sed. You get a slightly smaller, flatter seed...it looks like it might be good. When in doubt, plant it anyway. If you are wrong, and even one comes up, it's a bonus, grin. Sometimes none come up the year you plant them, but a few come up the following year....don't weed too much the second spring..... just in case those two tiny seed leaves turn out to be elms.