Have you checked out all the Trades and Exchanges forums here? Dave

Resin... Do you ever spend much time in central Texas where bald cypress trees are? I'll take a closer look at them this summer... I just notice that they are distinctly different between central Texas BCs and eastern BCs when it comes to knees... Noki, Central Texas BCs CAN grow in alkaline soil unlike eastern ones. In fact, I've seen them growing directly into limestone bedrock along the springs or river. I've floated down Guadalupe river there many times and I don't remember seeing those kind of knees like in the east... Here is a link that might be useful:

My seedling care technique isn't the most scientific or exact but once I acquired some GOOD Metasequoia seed I had no problem germinating them. My preferred seed source is F.W. Schumacher and their 80% expected germination seed. The best results I received were from one of them $6 plastic seed germination kits with a lid from a big box store filled with just cheap sanitized top soil and placed on a bottom heater. Maybe 70% sprouted from the soil. I did almost as good with the "cut a 2 liter bottle in 1/2, fill the bottom with similar baked sanitary top soil and use clear tape to put it back together" method. Just putting them in a zip lock container on a damp towel was kinda neat. Once again maybe 70% of them sprouted something. It's really neat watching the little fella grow but there is the added step of having to use tweezers to plant the little fellas in some dirt. Someplace on here Ken posted excellent directions on sanitizing dirt.....er potting mix or whatever. Here is a link that might be useful: Schumacher

@lou_midlothian_tx: I took a casual look into the work you introduced that SFA is doing with Cypress hybrids. A theory mentioned on at least one of the related websites is that the differences between central Texas Bald Cypress and those further east (alkaline tolerance, fewer knees, etc) can be explained by natural (and ancient) cross-breeding in the Bald/Montezuma border region... Texas BC have more MC-like characteristics. Interesting stuff - thanks for mentioning it. Webworms/bagworms show up in the local fruitless mulberry and pecans every few years. Imagine they'd be in the BC too if there were any planted nearby. Fortunately we seem to have predators (birds, wasps, fire ants,...?) that take care of them if the bags are torn open with a pole saw early enough. What I've learned is that I'm looking for Texas BC or BC/MC hybrid with a mature crown spread of ~25ft or less... in other words, a cultivar that does not yet exist. Though photos of a mature Nanjing Beauty hybrid in China show a pretty narrow spread that MBG specs at 20-30ft. The space is tight, but may be able to adjust location if I can remove a large stump to get an additional 5ft or so - besides, any eventual crowding is unlikely to become an issue during my lifetime :-) Losing the early fall color seems like a fair trade for better alkaline tolerance, no risk of knees in the lawn, and faster growth rate. Thanks again for all the advice on this. Here is a link that might be useful: Taxodium 'Zhongshansa' NANJING BEAUTY