Sprouted Coco Seeds Transplant Shock?

[Matthew92]

Just got back from a trip to South FL (Homestead area). Was in my glory (: While I indulged in collecting various seeds of different palms around the area, I was able to get a couple of already sprouted coconut palm seeds from a tree (mentioned in this thread) on my relative's farm. They had sprouted in a pile of plant debris in the corner of the yard.

The two I got were the most recently sprouted of many others in the pile, but still there was a good amount of roots on one and the other had just a couple starting to come about. They were just pulled out of the ground. Left them next to a mist sprinkler for a couple days with some leaves mulched over the exposed roots. When traveling back home to NW FL, wrapped roots in bag with wet paper towels inside. It was like this for 1 and a half days on the way home and once it did sit in the car for about 3 hours where it didn't get baking in car but a little hot. 

They still look fully green. Unfortunately on the smaller one, one of the two roots coming out snapped off right at the base, and the other seems to be partially severed. Just now planted them in pots with good potting soil. Was careful to keep remaining roots well placed in soil. They sure do look nice now, but not sure if to expect a decline or death. 

Anyone have an idea if these could survive such trauma? Even if there is significant root trauma, I guess with both (and especially the smaller one) there is still some energy/nutrients stored in the seed itself for it to live off of. Or will it be enough to keep them going?

 

[Mr. Coconut Palm]

Matt,

They appear to be Green Malayan Dwarfs, which typically can have a lot of roots coming out of the nut even before the first leaf comes out of the top.  If this is the case, they should recover and be alright, but if they are Jamaican Talls, which they don't appear to be, then I am afraid they are toast, because Jamaican Talls don't like their roots disturbed at all when they are young.  I had a beautiful 3ft. tall Jamaican Tall that I was growing in a 7 gal. pot that I decided to plant in the ground in January since we had a very mild winter here (normally, I would have waited to plant a tropical palm till later Feb. or early Mar.), but within about 3 or 4 weeks of planting it, it was dead.  Even though we had a frost 10 days after planting it, I know it wasn't the frost that hurt it, since the 2 other young coconut palms I planted the same day weren't even phased by the frost, including a Golden Malayan that was only about 20" tall at the time.  I found out later from others here on Palmtalk that it was due to Jamaican Talls not liking their roots being disturbed when they are young.  It's ironic that a variety that can hold up to hurricanes just fine and is more cold hardy than the Malayan Dwarfs, can't handle it's roots being disturbed when its young.

John

[Mr. Coconut Palm]

By the way, usually Jamaican Talls have little if any roots coming out of the bottom of the husk even though the first leaves are starting to emerge out of the top.  And they have a very triangular shaped husk when you look at the end of it.  The Malayans usually send out a pretty good amount of roots, some pretty over a foot long before the sprout even emerges through the top of the husk, and their nuts are more round shaped when looking at the end of them, and they are usually shorter nuts too (smaller in overall size) than the Jamaican nuts.

[Matthew92]

5 minutes ago, Mr. Coconut Palm said:

By the way, usually Jamaican Talls have little if any roots coming out of the bottom of the husk even though the first leaves are starting to emerge out of the top.  And they have a very triangular shaped husk when you look at the end of it.  The Malayans usually send out a pretty good amount of roots, some pretty over a foot long before the sprout even emerges through the top of the husk, and their nuts are more round shaped when looking at the end of them, and they are usually shorter nuts too (smaller in overall size) than the Jamaican nuts.

Thanks for your response. Interesting with the tolerance for root disturbance between the two. From what you said I would agree and think it is not a tall. Hopefully this means it has a better chance. I need to ask my Uncle again if he remembers what variety it is.

For the smaller one, do you think it could sprout more roots from inside if the ones existing might have been partially severed?

Here are a couple pictures of the tree when I visited this past week. It had just been trimmed of at least a couple hundred green coconuts. In the third picture, you can see the base and how the trunk is not that swelled.

 

[Mr. Coconut Palm]

Matt,

You're welcome.  When you posted the first photos of the palm months ago, I originally thought it looked kind of like a Jamaican Tall, but without seeing the base of the trunk.  Based on what others said back then and seeing the base of the trunk now, I do think it is a very tall and robust looking Green Malayan.  A Jamaican Tall would probably have a trunk twice as wide all the way up, and even if it was one of the Jamaicans that didn't have the big swollen bole at the base, the base would still be twice as wide, so I am 90% sure the parent tree is a Green Malayan.  I would be happy if I could get mine to even get 1/3 that size here with just a few viable nuts on them, since they are marginal here in Corpus Christi. 

I think you have a pretty good chance of the smaller one recovering and regrowing its roots.  I have heard that in South Florida there are field grown ones that when sold and transplanted, they have most of their roots trimmed off of them and still recover over time when planted at the customer's site.

John

[Matthew92]

17 hours ago, Mr. Coconut Palm said:

Matt,

You're welcome.  When you posted the first photos of the palm months ago, I originally thought it looked kind of like a Jamaican Tall, but without seeing the base of the trunk.  Based on what others said back then and seeing the base of the trunk now, I do think it is a very tall and robust looking Green Malayan.  A Jamaican Tall would probably have a trunk twice as wide all the way up, and even if it was one of the Jamaicans that didn't have the big swollen bole at the base, the base would still be twice as wide, so I am 90% sure the parent tree is a Green Malayan.  I would be happy if I could get mine to even get 1/3 that size here with just a few viable nuts on them, since they are marginal here in Corpus Christi. 

I think you have a pretty good chance of the smaller one recovering and regrowing its roots.  I have heard that in South Florida there are field grown ones that when sold and transplanted, they have most of their roots trimmed off of them and still recover over time when planted at the customer's site.

John

Yes, the mother tree is a very nice Malayan. I sometimes find some of the non tall varieties to not be as impressive as talls- this one is an exception. Unfortunately, I couldn't begin to hope for a coconut to grow in ground up here, at least you can grow them somewhat! Hopefully these will survive: will post pictures as time goes on.

[Cape Garrett]

Malayans can be very nice.  I like the more curve of the trunks of talls and Maypans but if space is an issue, the dwarfs have smaller crowns than the others.  I find the dwarfs look better size wise in residential yards.  The others almost look out of scale.  Like planting a royal next to a one level home.  Nicer in a backyard where you can see the crown towering over the roof of the home.  Not so much in a front yard.  Just  my opinion:-).

[Cluster]

Do not underestimate the Malayan coconuts in their native region, they make up somehow with more leaves:

A green and a Red/golden:

source:https://www.flickr.com/photos/thienzieyung/5792193800/in/photostream/

[Matthew92]

Update: After about 2 months, my two cocos are starting to take off. The larger of the two especially is really pushing out leaves now. Just took some pictures. Glad they pulled through. For about the first month, we had very little rain and scorching temperatures, so I was hand watering them a lot. Although lately we've been having the rains and extremely high humidity which they seem to be loving.

The smaller one below: although not as noticeable, the little spear has pushed out considerably.

 

 

[Mr. Coconut Palm]

They are looking nice, Matt.  I will try to post a link to some updated photos of a few of mine in a couple of days, when I have a chance to take some new photos.

[GottmitAlex]

On 8/7/2016, 6:06:56, Opal92 said:

Update: After about 2 months, my two cocos are starting to take off. The larger of the two especially is really pushing out leaves now. Just took some pictures. Glad they pulled through. For about the first month, we had very little rain and scorching temperatures, so I was hand watering them a lot. Although lately we've been having the rains and extremely high humidity which they seem to be loving.

The smaller one below: although not as noticeable, the little spear has pushed out considerably.

 

 

Nice looking seedlings. That first month, how often did you water them? 

 

[Matthew92]

2 hours ago, GottmitAlex said:

Nice looking seedlings. That first month, how often did you water them? 

 

I tried to keep them moist, but was really busy off and on and they dried out a little more than I wanted to several times. Still chugged along just fine though!

[GottmitAlex]

1 hour ago, Opal92 said:

I tried to keep them moist, but was really busy off and on and they dried out a little more than I wanted to several times. Still chugged along just fine though!

Thank you Opal92.

 

[Matthew92]

Here's the larger one: really taking off.

 

[Matthew92]

Updated pictures in late October: still doing fine despite a few chilly nights a week ago that go into the 40's (warmed up very quickly the next day). Lows now are consistent in the 60's with mid 80's in the daytime.

 

 

 

[Matthew92]

Have some exciting news on the lineage of the mature tree I collected these two coconut sprouts from. My Uncle knew the guy who had part in bringing the green maypan variety to South FL originally (Dave Romney I think). Some of that first batch of pure maypans were planted on the grounds of a building in Hialeah where my Uncle worked. When they fruited, he collected nuts and grew them at his farm in Redland. This was sometime back in the 80's. There were originally several growing at his farm, but some succumbed to LY. His lone survivor has proven very hardy though. 

Having said all that though, it's very probable that the seeds my Uncle originally collected from the pure maypans did not come out true to the parent since pollen from other coconuts in the area may have crossed with it. This may explain why some of the offspring succumbed to LY. 

[Zeeth]

Neat. As you may know though, F₂ hybrids are highly variable, so not much can be said about any individual plant in that case. Some Maypan seedlings turn out to be good plants though. I grow an F3 Maypan that has so far turned out to be one of my more cold hardy coconuts.

 

Also good to note that the Romney farms still operate under Dave's daughter, Carol. They sell F₁ Maypans, Fiji Dwarf, Red Spicata dwarf, Panama tall, and all 3 color forms of Malayan.

[GottmitAlex]

Opal92, do you have any updated photos of your coconuts?

 

 

 

[Mr.SamuraiSword]

On 6/3/2016, 10:41:42, Cluster said:

Do not underestimate the Malayan coconuts in their native region, they make up somehow with more leaves:

A green and a Red/golden:

source:https://www.flickr.com/photos/thienzieyung/5792193800/in/photostream/

ive seen some like that in extreme south florida one in sanabelle island

[Matthew92]

On 1/12/2017, 3:15:22, GottmitAlex said:

Opal92, do you have any updated photos of your coconuts?

 

[GottmitAlex]

1 hour ago, Opal92 said:

Wonderful! Thank you.  

What has been the lowest temp the coco's been exposed to this winter? 

[Matthew92]

On 1/13/2017, 5:13:29, GottmitAlex said:

Wonderful! Thank you.  

What has been the lowest temp the coco's been exposed to this winter? 

I haven't protected them as well as I should have, leaving them out in the 40's overnight a few times. I'm trying to remember now, but there may have been one night back in November or something where it saw 38. Of course it would warm up considerably in the daytime. Although, when I was gone on a trip a couple weekends ago, it got colder than expected down to 22 deg and 24 the next night. I had put the two cocos in my plastic greenhouse. There was a strong spotlight in there that was on throughout the night. 

Unfortunately when I got back, there were signs of considerably cold in the greenhouse. A small hibiscus and annual sprout were wilted and withered. And the cocos after a day or two showed some very slight bronzing and leaf spotting. Of course, as you can see in the picture above, this is not enough to notice from a distance. 

In the last several days, the new frond on the big one seems to be noticeably pushing up. I think they will be fine. Can't wait for summer conditions where they should grow much faster again.

[Matthew92]

I really needed to use the pots my coconuts had been in, so I had to take them out. The transplant was not too good (they both became bare-rooted in the process). I was able to put the larger one in this pot, but the smaller one I didn't have a place for it at first, so I put it in the garden and covered the roots with soil. However, as time went it went to lower priority. I ended up chucking it. A lot of this was because these coconuts are not going to have a stellar future in this cold climate, and the care to keep them alive is quite cumbersome. It will be easier to care for just the one.

My remaining f2 green maypan coconut. I'm ashamed to say I let it see too much cold than I should have let it endure (mainly short duration late winter cold snaps) - I think it experienced freezing temps.  The transplant was around 2 months ago. As you can see though, it is still alive. There's even a new spear coming out that is firm in there.

BTW, I'm going to Homestead/Miami this week. So excited. I'll definitely see a lot of good coconuts there.