Are mule palms on the verge of becoming common?

[southlatropical]

On another thread someone here found one at Wal Mart. They are available on craigslist in New Orleans. On another thread I see that a small local nursery right here in Baton Rouge has them. And I have come across mention of some suppliers in Florida with thousands available wholesale. Could the Mule Palm finally become more affordable and readily available? I hope so.

[Alberto]

On another thread someone here found one at Wal Mart.

I think that that one at WalMart was probably an´´accidental´´ cross ...... It was mixed with Butias, wasn´t it?

[PalmGuyWC]

A lot of people are crossing Butia X Syagrus, but I don't think they will ever be "common." It's not like you are planting 10,000 seeds of a vetchia or a foxtail. It does take some effort to get the hybrid and they will always be in demand. I don't even think they are in the general trade yet. Does anyone know of any city streets that are being lined with mules?

There are lots of other exotic cocoid hybrids becoming available too, such as Butia X Parajubaea, Butia X Jubaea, Bujubaea X Syagrus, etc. They will always be in demand because there aren't that many of them and they are not easy to do.

Dick

[galveston1602]

anytime a flunky like me can buy them by the 25 for way less than 200$ you know they are becoming more common, although I would say they will never be common like a queen as you just cant grab 10000 seeds from your neighbors tree. now, if we could get them that arent mostly sterile, I think youd see f2's lining streets....

which reminds me, what are the odds that a cross will eventually produce viable seeds, I know some produce viable seeds occasionally, im talking about reliably viable. when that happens, its over for the hybridizers of regular mules

[gyuseppe]

the butyagrus in europe and very rare, the price is still very high,I'm looking for the seeds but did not find.

[PalmGuyWC]

It should be pointed out that the F1 seed are not all that reliable. Usually only a percentage of the seed germinate. Another reason they are so expensive. When you get to the exotic crosses, the percentage is even less.

Dick

[loc29]

hello

what do you think of this announcement appeared on ebay ireland,

which is the probability that seeds germinate?

''DesertQueenPalms.com is proud to announce our first crop of Butyagrus Seeds.

We have patiently waited for two years for one of our Pindo palms to produce an inflorescence and it finally happened the spring of 2008. Our site is located at 4000 feet in the Mojave and the mother of the seeds you are bidding on has flourished in this environment which ranges in temperature from 10 to 110 degrees F. ( See the Weather History at DesertQueenPalms.com)

We took great care to remove the male flower of the Pindo well before the females became receptive. We then hand pollenated them with pollen we harvested from nearby Queen palms. These seeds are guaranteed to be hybrid Pindo/Queen. The seeds have been removed from their hard shells to insure quality and greatly improve germination. Since the seeds are fragile there is some additional shipping cost for a small plastic container.''

[Mark Heath]

anytime a flunky like me can buy them by the 25 for way less than 200$ you know they are becoming more common, although I would say they will never be common like a queen as you just cant grab 10000 seeds from your neighbors tree. now, if we could get them that arent mostly sterile, I think youd see f2's lining streets....

which reminds me, what are the odds that a cross will eventually produce viable seeds, I know some produce viable seeds occasionally, im talking about reliably viable. when that happens, its over for the hybridizers of regular mules

Two things that will never happen; 1=F2 Butyagrus seeds becoming viable other than the "occasional one".

2= "Being over" for the XButyagrus growers! Some Xbutyagrus growers charge a small fortune for their product

and that will subside as the palm becomes more common. Example; Queen palms are produced by the hundreds of thousands here in Florida and yet they still sell, so it will never "be over"!!

Many people complain about how expensive the XButyagrus is, but yet they don't know how to produce the cross!

They have no idea how time consuming it is to produce the Mule palm.

I plan on selling when my stock are specimen size. Wholesale only. The only time i sell is to friends at this time.

Here is a pic of my "grove". The pic is only half of a row because it is very hilly on the Lake Wales ridge. I'll take a better pic sometime soon.

[Nigel]

which reminds me, what are the odds that a cross will eventually produce viable seeds, I know some produce viable seeds occasionally, im talking about reliably viable. when that happens, its over for the hybridizers of regular mules

Two things that will never happen; 1=F2 Butyagrus seeds becoming viable other than the "occasional one".

2= "Being over" for the XButyagrus growers! Some Xbutyagrus growers charge a small fortune for their product

and that will subside as the palm becomes more common. Example; Queen palms are produced by the hundreds of thousands here in Florida and yet they still sell, so it will never "be over"!!

Many people complain about how expensive the XButyagrus is, but yet they don't know how to produce the cross!

They have no idea how time consuming it is to produce the Mule palm.

Also....... an F2 will be almost certainly a back cross with Butia and 75% Butia, and never have the same beauty or grace as an F1.

[southlatropical]

I should clarify that I did not mean to imply that mules may become just as common as queens, but rather that they could become much more readily available and cheaper.

Here is a link to a thread on Gardenweb.com in which there is mention of thousands of Mule Palms available in Florida.

http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/load/pa...1163923062.html

Here are some excerpts from the thread.

Hopefully the prices will go down a little in time. There are at least 3 places in Florida now that have mules palms in numbers. My friend in Lakeland has about 1000 of them now and a place in Brooksville has a few 1000. The later, deals more wholesale instead of retail like the guy in St. Augustine and my friend who has the 1000, doesn't even have a computer, so he is hard for non local people to deal with. As people get more educated in the supply of these plants, the suppliers will have to go down a little, which should be better foir all of us.

Thanks for the heads up fruitof76. I am the owner of www.mulepalm.com It is still a work in progress. Still trying to figure out how to post pictures on here. Once I do I will posts pics of our Mules. Up to 65 gallons. At the moment we have 5000 potted up, and 20,000 we have sold to a private Nursery.

Richards number for Brooksville farms is 352-799-0676.

Here is his price list, for xbutyagrus. He had over 10,000 mule palms.

3 gallon 3ft $50.00

7 gallon 4ft $85.00

15 gallon 5-6ft $135.00

30 gallon 6-7ft $225.00

45 gallon 7-8ft $300.00

8-10 ft $500.00

10-12ft $600.00

12-14ft $700.00

14-16ft $800.00

Mule palm nursery has supplied him for over 10 years. He is willing to sell singles latley so if anyone is looking I would call. Like I said in an earlier thread. Mule palms are now affordable. You just need to go to the right place

[ErikSJI]

Mule palm nursery has been under private contract for over 10 years with Brooksville farms, and have sold them over 10,000 xbutyagrus. We have over 5,000 potted up now, and we average around 15,000 a year. Now that we are not under a private contract you will see the prices of them drop. We have just recently gone through new inspections and can ship to all 50 states, and to all european nations. Brooksville farms who we have been supplying has 3 gallon all the way to 65 gallons, already specimen sizes. We will start sending overseas next month and already have several large orders for the Holland, Ireland, Spain, and several other orders in the U.K.

With that being said. It still is a hand pollinated tree, and availability and pricing depends on how many everyone makes. Our prices have been the same for 10 years. Even if we doubled our production to 30,000 it is still just a drop in the bucket for the palm world.

Here are some photos of Mule palm nursery, and our partner brooksville farms.

[ErikSJI]

Mule palm nursery has been under private contract for over 10 years with Brooksville farms, and have sold them over 10,000 xbutyagrus. We have over 5,000 potted up now, and we average around 15,000 a year. Now that we are not under a private contract you will see the prices of them drop. We have just recently gone through new inspections and can ship to all 50 states, and to all european nations. Brooksville farms who we have been supplying has 3 gallon all the way to 65 gallons, already specimen sizes. We will start sending overseas next month and already have several large orders for the Holland, Ireland, Spain, and several other orders in the U.K.

With that being said. It still is a hand pollinated tree, and availability and pricing depends on how many everyone makes. Our prices have been the same for 10 years. Even if we doubled our production to 30,000 it is still just a drop in the bucket for the palm world.

Here are some photos of Mule palm nursery, and our partner brooksville farms.

I have 100s of photos of Mules but will only bore you with a few.

[ErikSJI]

another

[PalmGuyWC]

All of my mules were 5 gal. size when planted, maybe with 3 or 4 divided fronds. The first few years they grow incredably fast, and in 5 years they had woody trunk and made a statement in the garden. They grow to be a large palm so they need plenty of room. Mine were damaged in the '89 freeze when it went down to 14F and many nights in the upper teens to low 20's, but they recovered rapidly.

Dick

[PalmGuyWC]

Erik,

You posted while I was writing. I'm curious. Where are these palms going in such huge numbers? To nurserys or maybe the big box stores? That's a lot of mules. I'd sure like to see some streets lined with mules. In California they are only collector items, but I hope they will become more popular in the future.

Dick

[Mark Heath]

Mule palm nursery has been under private contract for over 10 years with Brooksville farms, and have sold them over 10,000 xbutyagrus. We have over 5,000 potted up now, and we average around 15,000 a year. Now that we are not under a private contract you will see the prices of them drop. We have just recently gone through new inspections and can ship to all 50 states, and to all european nations. Brooksville farms who we have been supplying has 3 gallon all the way to 65 gallons, already specimen sizes. We will start sending overseas next month and already have several large orders for the Holland, Ireland, Spain, and several other orders in the U.K.

With that being said. It still is a hand pollinated tree, and availability and pricing depends on how many everyone makes. Our prices have been the same for 10 years. Even if we doubled our production to 30,000 it is still just a drop in the bucket for the palm world.

Here are some photos of Mule palm nursery, and our partner brooksville farms.

Wow! Very nice! That has to be the largest quantity of XButyagrus's in the world!!!

[ErikSJI]

Erik,

You posted while I was writing. I'm curious. Where are these palms going in such huge numbers? To nurserys or maybe the big box stores? That's a lot of mules. I'd sure like to see some streets lined with mules. In California they are only collector items, but I hope they will become more popular in the future.

Dick

Before last year they were all under private contract. 50% went to Brooksville farms the other parties wish to remain private. This year we are going worldwide as we are not under private contract anymore. We are starting a new nursery in washington state where we will be sending 500 a year and growing them out, and supplying the westcoast with them. If demand is high enough we will send more, we are always looking for growers and partners in differnt states, and contries. Funny you should mention California, because we have had to jump through major hoops to be able to finally send to California. I will be making a trip there myself feb 15th. We have about 200 1 gallons we will be hitting from Washington, down to northern California. The trickle down affect may take a few years but they will soon be readily available. We have even bare rooted up to a 7 gallon and they have done great problem was it costs just as much in shipping as it did for the tree itself to ship to the westcoast.

With the new nursery starting in Washington, prices will drop drastically for shipping costs for the west coast, we are currently are in discussions with nurseries in California. Until something is set in stone I do not want to mention there names.

Erik

[ErikSJI]

Mule palm nursery has been under private contract for over 10 years with Brooksville farms, and have sold them over 10,000 xbutyagrus. We have over 5,000 potted up now, and we average around 15,000 a year. Now that we are not under a private contract you will see the prices of them drop. We have just recently gone through new inspections and can ship to all 50 states, and to all european nations. Brooksville farms who we have been supplying has 3 gallon all the way to 65 gallons, already specimen sizes. We will start sending overseas next month and already have several large orders for the Holland, Ireland, Spain, and several other orders in the U.K.

With that being said. It still is a hand pollinated tree, and availability and pricing depends on how many everyone makes. Our prices have been the same for 10 years. Even if we doubled our production to 30,000 it is still just a drop in the bucket for the palm world.

Here are some photos of Mule palm nursery, and our partner brooksville farms.

Wow! Very nice! That has to be the largest quantity of XButyagrus's in the world!!!

As far as I know it is.

[merrill]

Hi, Nigel:

Always very nice to hear from you:

QUOTE: Also....... an F2 will be almost certainly [be] a back cross with Butia and 75% Butia, and never have the same beauty or grace as an F1. END QUOTE of Nigel's post # 9 above.

In theory, your statement is INDISPUTABLE! The odd thing is that Mr. Levine from California seems to keep getting selfs among seedlings from the Huntington Butyagrus; this is VERY puzzling to me. I hope Mr Levine will correct me if needed. These selfs are oustanding in appearance.

I still have the Butia mother of the hybrid at Huntington BG. It is very difficult to work with because of the density of the fronds in the head of the palm. I'm hoping a more able bodied palm devotee in the area will work with this Butia and produce more of the these F2, which are particularly attractive.

A related but somewhat different problem is to produce backcrosses of Syagrus w/ Butyagrus in the hope that they will be the same plumose beauties as in the photo with the late Charles Raulerson in Figure 3 in this posting:

http://www.biologie.uni-hamburg.de/b-onlin...rticulture5.htm

Best Wishes,

merrill

[DoomsDave]

If the mule can be marketed well, and the time and trouble it takes to produce made financially worthwhile, they could become common.

The only problem is that they're really more of a novelty than anything, though they might sell well where queens are borderline but buteas do well, perhaps in the "mid south" of the U.S.?

I don't see them eding out queens here because, while they don't produce fertile seeds, they do produce seeds which make a mess, which people hate to clean up.

Someone correct me if I'm wrong . . . .

[ErikSJI]

If the mule can be marketed well, and the time and trouble it takes to produce made financially worthwhile, they could become common.

The only problem is that they're really more of a novelty than anything, though they might sell well where queens are borderline but buteas do well, perhaps in the "mid south" of the U.S.?

I don't see them eding out queens here because, while they don't produce fertile seeds, they do produce seeds which make a mess, which people hate to clean up.

Someone correct me if I'm wrong . . . .

We have been talking with some people about doing tissue cultures of xbutyagrus, and just start cloning them. With the problems that the queens are having, it may be a good replacement for them. Lethal yellowing really seems to be taking a toll on the queen in Florida. I think that them being sterile is a benefit for landscaping purposes, in the sense you wont have unwanted pups that you have to keep pulling out.

[gsn]

We have been talking with some people about doing tissue cultures of xbutyagrus, and just start cloning them. With the problems that the queens are having, it may be a good replacement for them. Lethal yellowing really seems to be taking a toll on the queen in Florida. I think that them being sterile is a benefit for landscaping purposes, in the sense you wont have unwanted pups that you have to keep pulling out.

I don't think it is lethal yellowing that is attacking queen palms in Florida,it is another disease issue.

Plus the fact that a mule still has queen genes, I think would make it suspectable to the same disease,so mules would not be a solution to this new problem most likely?

Edited February 8, 2009 by gsn

[Nigel]

Hi, Nigel:

Always very nice to hear from you:

QUOTE: Also....... an F2 will be almost certainly [be] a back cross with Butia and 75% Butia, and never have the same beauty or grace as an F1. END QUOTE of Nigel's post # 9 above.

In theory, your statement is INDISPUTABLE! The odd thing is that Mr. Levine from California seems to keep getting selfs among seedlings from the Huntington Butyagrus; this is VERY puzzling to me. I hope Mr Levine will correct me if needed. These selfs are oustanding in appearance.

I still have the Butia mother of the hybrid at Huntington BG. It is very difficult to work with because of the density of the fronds in the head of the palm. I'm hoping a more able bodied palm devotee in the area will work with this Butia and produce more of the these F2, which are particularly attractive.

A related but somewhat different problem is to produce backcrosses of Syagrus w/ Butyagrus in the hope that they will be the same plumose beauties as in the photo with the late Charles Raulerson in Figure 3 in this posting:

http://www.biologie.uni-hamburg.de/b-onlin...rticulture5.htm

Best Wishes,

merrill

Yes indeed I remember those photos Gary posted, it will be interesting to see how they appear now, the plants were still young, but to my eye the leaf bases appeared more closely packed. Rather like some odd Butyagrus I saw here of some naturally occurring butyagrus numbering around 5% of a wild butia population which I thought some of which could well be F2,s.

[ErikSJI]

We have been talking with some people about doing tissue cultures of xbutyagrus, and just start cloning them. With the problems that the queens are having, it may be a good replacement for them. Lethal yellowing really seems to be taking a toll on the queen in Florida. I think that them being sterile is a benefit for landscaping purposes, in the sense you wont have unwanted pups that you have to keep pulling out.

I don't think it is lethal yellowing that is attacking queen palms in Florida,it is another disease issue.

Plus the fact that a mule still has queen genes, I think would make it suspectable to the same disease,so mules would not be a solution to this new problem most likely?

It is definatley questionable, I have yet to loose any to disease but that definatley does not mean they are immune, or the cross could be the answer to the queens problems, making it stronger then its parents.

[_Keith]

I must say, at this point, my Mules do seem to be bullet proof. And although I did pay a hefty price for them, they appear to be well worth the money. I don't regret it for a moment.

[Davidl]

Queen palms (Syagrus romanzoffiana) suffer manganese deficiency in fl among other things but lethal yellowing I'm not sure.

[PalmGuyWC]

Erik,

I know its been attempted before to clone Butiagrus but without success. Is there some new technology that I don't know about? The reason I'm asking is because I have a super Butiagrus. It's twice as big as a "normal" butiagrus and the trunk is almost 2 feet in diamater. It's a super tree and would make a great cloneing subject. It is a sterile tree with fronds close to 20 feet long and the spathes are 8 feet long. It's a monster!

Dick

[Mark Heath]

Erik,

I know its been attempted before to clone Butiagrus but without success. Is there some new technology that I don't know about? The reason I'm asking is because I have a super Butiagrus. It's twice as big as a "normal" butiagrus and the trunk is almost 2 feet in diamater. It's a super tree and would make a great cloneing subject. It is a sterile tree with fronds close to 20 feet long and the spathes are 8 feet long. It's a monster!

Dick

I hear you Dick!

There is a XButyagrus down the street that is the same as the one you mentioned, but it is a double and has produced a little one underneath it! I have tried to get a pic of it but the homeowners are *#;*!!!!! Let's just say that they need a laxative!!! It is unbelievable!!!! A HUGE specimen and both was planted 2ft apart and grew together! Now a huge Live Oak has taken over in the last few years so a good pic would not be possable anyways!

I'll try one more time to get a pic!

[merrill]

A total of years of research has been completed by various gentlemen to reproduce Butyagrus and other cocosoid palms with tissue culture. Apparently this has been successful only with the African oil palm.

merrill

[_Keith]

A total of years of research has been completed by various gentlemen to reproduce Butyagrus and other cocosoid palms with tissue culture. Apparently this has been successful only with the African oil palm.

merrill

Merrill,

With the one successful candidate being the African Oil Palm, which is of immense commercial value around the world, I must wonder if the success was based on increased effort on that individual species, rather than a particular difficulty with the mules. Although Butyagrus are popular, that pales in comparison to the African Oil Palm whose value resides in the international food chain.

[Nigel]

A total of years of research has been completed by various gentlemen to reproduce Butyagrus and other cocosoid palms with tissue culture. Apparently this has been successful only with the African oil palm.

merrill

I researched this 2 or 3 years ago and was thinking to invest in this project, but the experts told me that whilst it is easy to clone new plants in the lab, it is almost impossible to `wean` them. Some palms seem to wean easily like phoenix and the oil palm, others simply refuse. Phoenix tissue culture is a huge industry as well as oil palms.

I was told that Jubaea had also been cloned, but the people in the industry told me that no scientific papers existed on this so did not believe it to be true.

Edited February 9, 2009 by Nigel

[PalmGuyWC]

I may not have my story straight, but as I recall, Dr. Richard Smith, Phd. who is a Palm Society member, and I believe was associated with Stanford Univ., helped develop the cloning of P. dactlifera. I remember he brought several clones to one of our Palm Society auctions.

He was also interested in cloning Xbutyagrus and tried for several years on his own, as he could get no financial help from whom ever it was that he worked for. Apparently it's a very expensive and complicated process, and large cooperations are only interested in the bottom line, and that is food producing palms. As I recall, Dr. Smith was using immature flower parts to develop the clones. Maybe if the meristem were used the chance for success would have been greater, but at the time, Xbutyagrus were to rare to destroy.

If they can clone a sheep and other higher animals, you would think just about any palm could be cloned. It will probably be done one of these years.

Dick

[gilles06]

Hi,

A few years ago, i brought one of my precious young butiagrus from Mark Heath to a laboratory to clone it. They used the meristeme and began the cloning process. But unfortunately it failed and i loose my plant and money!

But try again...

A bientôt.

Gilles06.

Edited February 9, 2009 by gilles06

[PalmGuyWC]

Gilles,

You are very brave to sacrafice one of your X Butyagrus for cloning. Now that they are becoming more plentiful, maybe there can be more experiments. If there is a will, there is a way......with some money.......and I'm sure it will eventually be done. I'm sure there are many other rare palms that could be cloned too.

Dick

[merrill]

Hi, Nigel:

Dr. Richard Smith, of ESCA genetics near Pasadena, who is an alma mater of U. F. Gainesville where I researched many years, did work on tissue culture of XButyagrus. Another scientist at a USDA fruit lab at Pasadena, CA also worked on tissue culture of XButyagrus. Altho these gentlemen did not succeed, I expect some one to succeed at this, but not immediately!

Best Wishes,

merrill

[Nigel]

Hi Merrill, do you know at what stage these guys failed at ? Did they succeed in growing new plants in the lab, but fail at weaning stage ? These may be the guys that the tissue culture guy here was referring to from reading scientific papers.

[merrill]

Hi, Nigel:

I don't have the answer to your question, but my impression is that neither got that far, and don't believe either published their experiences. Your comment increases my hope that someone succeed in tissue culture of XButyagrus.

Hi, Palmerati:

My impression is that tissue culture of Date palms is in fact much easier than with XButyagrus.

Best Wishes,

merrill

[PalmGuyWC]

Merrill, Nigel,

I think Dr. Smith got the tissue to callus stage, but never got beyond that. I believe Garrin Fullington excised a XButyagrus embryo and grew it in agar into a plant. If I'm not mistaken, it may be one of the Xbutyagrus growing in the Oakland palmatum.

Dick

[ErikSJI]

Merrill, Nigel,

I think Dr. Smith got the tissue to callus stage, but never got beyond that. I believe Garrin Fullington excised a XButyagrus embryo and grew it in agar into a plant. If I'm not mistaken, it may be one of the Xbutyagrus growing in the Oakland palmatum.

Dick

We are willing to donate xbutyagrus for tissue culture experimentation. If anyone is still in contact with prior people doing it there findings would be important to whomever may try it again, or maybe such mentioned people above would like to take another crack at it.

[PalmGuyWC]

I've touted Butia X Parajubaea cocoides in other threads, but I still think it wins the sweapstakes for Cocoid hybrids. The problem is, they are somewhat hard to produce, mainly because Parajubaea pollen is hard to come by, and there is a low precentage of viable seeds. The hybrid has a very destinctive apperance and they are easy to grow. They grow about as fast as a mule and they have proved to be quite cold hardy.......reports down to 18F and even 14F. Mine grows very fast in warmer weather.

I have a very chilly winter climate with lows in the 30's almost every night and the palm continues to grow, but slowly. They also have proven to grow well in warmer climates. Mark Harris has one growing in the Orlando area and it seems to do equally as well in a warmer, humid climate.

Dick