Butiagrus Seeds! F1 Hybrid Mule Palm Seeds. Rarely Ever Offered! Cold Hardy!

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Seller Store the_palm_hunter
(166) 100.0%,

Location: Gainesville, Florida
Ships to: US,
Item: 156408710846

All returns accepted:ReturnsNotAccepted
Climate:Humid Subtropical,Tropical Wet,Tropical Wet & Dry
Common Name:Mule Palm
Indoor/Outdoor:Outdoor
Soil Type:Clay,Loam,Sand,Silt
Unbranded:Unbranded
Season of Interest:Fall,Spring,Summer,Winter
Type:Tree Seeds
Watering:Medium
Life Cycle:Perennial
Genus:Butiagrus
Sunlight:Full Sun,Medium Sun
Features:Cold Resistant,Edible,Evergreen
Cultivating Difficulty:Easy

Butiagrus, or more accurately written as x Butiagrus nabonnandii, is commonly called the Mule Palm. Terrible name, but it refers to the fact that most of the palms created with this intergeneric cross are sterile (there are very few exceptions). It is a hybrid cross between Butia odorata and Syagrus romanzoffiana (written as Butia odorata x Syagrus romanzoffiana. The seed parent is always written first, which is the Butia odorata. Syagrus is the pollen parent). Both of these palms are native to Brazil and Argentina in South America, and sometimes their ranges overlap. Occasionally there are instances of natural hybridization occurring. The French horticulturist Paul Nabonnand was the first to create this hybrid by hand in the early 1900s in France. Forgotten about after his death and unknown in the USA, it was “rediscovered” in the early 1970s in Florida. Around this time, a professor at The University of Florida by the name of Dr. Merrill Wilcox became interested in creating this hybrid, and much of the popularity of this palm today is owed to his work in the field. Today, there are several hybridizers and nurseries in the state of Florida and elsewhere who specialize in creating this hybrid. Creating this hybrid palm, and really creating any hybrid palm, is a tedious task that involves many hours of painstaking, obsessive-compulsive work. It’s not as simple as dusting pollen from one palm to another. If it was that easy, Butiagrus would probably be a lot more plentiful! Without getting TOO deep into it, here’s a basic synopsis of what the process involves: A new inflorescence opens up on the Butia (seed parent). Thankfully, Mother Nature put separate male and female flowers on this palm, and they open at different times. The male flowers are much smaller and distinct from the females, and open first. All male flowers (many hundreds) are painstakingly removed by hand (a process known as emasculation)! This usually involves being up on a ladder, sometimes in an uncomfortable position, swatting away bees and other insects, dealing with the hot Florida sun, usually sandwiched in between giant leaves. After the males are all removed, the inflorescence is then covered with something that prevents pollen from getting inside. Once the female flowers are receptive to pollen, the cover is removed and the flowers are pollinated with Syagrus pollen. The inflorescence is then covered again to prevent any unwanted pollen from entering. After the female flowers are no longer receptive, the inflorescence can be uncovered and hopefully some seeds will start to develop! Then you need to worry about squirrels and other animals that might want to eat your precious seeds! The fruit is very tasty, and they think so too… There’s a good reason why seeds aren’t offered very often, and that’s because the hybridizer is also usually the grower, and wants to grow his product for sale at his/her own nursery. Also, the germination rate can sometimes be quite low compared with other palms. 35%-50% is the industry average, but individual results can vary widely depending on the palms used to create the seeds, environmental factors, and germination methods used. Many times, seeds created can look great from the outside, but if you cut them open, there is no endosperm or embryo. This is why it’s critically important to check seeds from every batch created! I cut open several, sometimes a lot, of seeds from every single batch that I create and check for endosperm AND embryo (it’s quite possible to have endosperm and NO embryo). The embryo can be quite small, so you have to check carefully. Most of the time, a Butiagrus seed will have 3 “eyes”. Each eye corresponds to a chamber in the seed. The hard brown seed is actually called the endocarp. The endocarp can contain up to 3 seeds, one per chamber. Each viable seed contains endosperm and an embryo. Sometimes you can get 3 sprouts from one endocarp! If you do get 2 or 3 sprouts coming from one endocarp, DO NOT SEPARATE THEM until they have several leaves! They are both getting their nutrition from the same source and should not be detached until they have at least a couple of leaves and the cotyledonary petiole (the thing that attaches the seedling palm to the seed) has dried up and obviously died. If I cut open several seeds and find no endosperm, that’s what we call a “stone”, and it’s a sign that the whole batch is bad. However, there are times when you can have a small percentage of stones in a batch and the rest of them are fine. The difference in seed size and shape becomes very obvious after you know what to look for. I spend a lot of time in quality control of these seeds, and can’t tell you how many potential future palms I have killed cutting into good seeds. This is necessary, however, to ensure that you are offering a quality product. I am sure that I AM offering a quality product, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t miss the occasional bad seed or 2. A little about me…I have a degree in horticulture and have been producing these hybrids for a couple of years now. I have experience with hybridization with other genera of plants as well, but have decided to focus on palms mainly. I’m a member of The International Palm Society (Bigfish). Plants have always been my passion ever since I was a very small boy, thanks to my mother and grandmother. I am a very quick study, and once I decide that I want to learn something, I learn everything about it. I am confident in my processes and procedures and methods, and am sure that these seeds will produce beautiful Butiagrus palms. That’s not to say that I’m perfect, because I am far from it. There are many things that could go wrong in the process, and the most obvious one is that the wrong pollen gets on the female flower and you end up with a regular Jelly Palm. This is called an outcross. It can happen if you get a tear in whatever material you are using to cover your receptive female flowers, or if you somehow miss a male flower during emasculation. Extra precautions need to be taken to ensure that any nearby male Butia flowers are covered up BEFORE you start pollinating. If I have to cover up a newly emerged inflorescence, before pollinating one that is ready for Syagrus pollen, I will take a shower and change into new clothes before pollinating! You will have pollen on your clothes, hair, etc from the male flowers on the new inflorescence that just emerged. That’s in addition to hosing everything down. So that’s a little of the OCD that is required to make good hybrid seeds! I will say that I have not noticed a single plain Butia sprout from my seeds yet. All of them have been Butiagrus. I have included in the pictures a couple of my Butia odorata palms that I use as seed parents, and one of the Queen palm parents that I have used in the past from here in Gainesville. There are others as well, but I don’t have pictures of them all. They should all produce some beautiful hybrid palms! I also included pictures of cut open seeds, revealing endosperm and embryo. One picture shows some newly emerged seedlings, including a variegated seedling that sadly didn’t make it (very rare mutation), and the second to last picture is of some seedlings that just germinated in April and are VERY fast-growing. One of the reasons for producing Butiagrus is because it’s faster-growing than a Butia, but more cold-hardy than a Syagrus. It resembles a Coconut Palm, and is the closest-looking palm to a Coconut that we can grow north of zone 10a. Mule Palms are cold-hardy down into the mid teens Fahrenheit, although you should expect damage at those temperatures. There are some in Gainesville, FL that took 10F and survived. Really, it should be considered a zone 9a palm that will do fine with an occasional quick dip down to the mid-high teens Fahrenheit, and possibly down into zone 8b with some protection on occasion. Germination can be difficult, as mentioned earlier. One key is to provide plenty of heat, have lots of patience, and give them plenty of time. I just saw a new sprout from some seeds that I sowed exactly one year prior. I will include some germination instructions in your packet! If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to send me a message. I might be a little slow in responding, but I will respond eventually! A note to friends NOT in the USA: I can’t ship internationally with eBay because I need to buy a phytosanitary certificate here, get the seeds inspected by an inspector, and each country is different with their requirements. Bigfish. I really wish that I could extend the offer to you, but there are simply too many barriers here. Sending seeds internationally PalmTalk requires a phytosanitary certificate in most countries (I don’t know of any country that doesn’t require it now). Another note: This could be the only time that I am able to offer seeds. I was generously given access to a grove of Butia palms this year, and will not have that access next year. So I will only be producing Butiagrus seeds with the 2 Butia on my property (in the pictures), and will probably be growing the seeds myself again.

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