in no way, case, shape, or form, will i be held liable or responsible if you go blind trying to read this phylogenetic tree. maybe it would be easier to look at the google slide. if anyone can extract a sharper image from the google slide please feel free to do so.
the source of the original phylogenetic tree is this paper... New insight into the phylogenetic and biogeographic history of genus Ficus - Vicariance played a relatively minor role compared with ecological opportunity and dispersal. i only copied half of the phylogenetic tree (PT), the relevant part, because it includes ficus johannis and palmata. then i went through and put squares to show graft compatibility with carica. in retrospect i should have included the legend on the picture itself, but too lazy to fix it.
red square - graft incompatible with carica
light red square - mostly graft incompatible with carica
yellow square - sycomorus (cocculifolia) is very graft compatible with carica, while sycomorus (gnaphalocarpa) is graft incompatible with carica
light green square - mostly graft compatible with carica
green square - graft compatible with carica
i penciled in a few species.
if i'm reading the PT correctly, ficus palmata and johannis split from each other 5 million years ago. 5 million years ago sounds like a long time to diverge, but obviously they haven't diverged that much, since they are graft and cross compatible, and they share the same pollinator.
ideally we should see a clear pattern, the species closer to carica's closest relatives should be green. the furthest should be red. but is this case? well, kinda. maybe mostly.
the researchers who made the PT did so based on dna testing. i guess they look for how much dna any two species have in common. whatever they do i'm sure it's very technical and involved. it's way over my head. but obviously what they don't do is try grafting a bunch of different species onto carica. this is what i've been doing.
my work is far from complete. it seems like there are relatively quite a few squares on the PT, but this is misleading. that PT is zoomed in. if it was correctly zoomed out, it would include around 400 species. that's around how many dioecious ficus species there are. so far i've only tried grafting around 20 dioecious species onto carica.
the job is way too big for me to handle on my own.
when a bee discovers a huge patch of flowers she thinks to herself "woohoo, that's a lot of pollen and nectar! this job is way too big for me to handle on my own." so she quickly flies back to the hive to try and recruit other bees. many hands make light work. or whatever the bee equivalent of hands are. the way she recruits other bees is by dancing. she dances long and hard. this sacrifices many of her precious calories. her big sacrifice proves to the onlooking bees that the flower patch she discovered is very big and she's going to need a lot of hands.
big flower patch - big sacrifice - big recruitment
small flower patch - small sacrifice - small recruitment
i'm sure most of you have heard me say that forum categories should be ranked by donations to this forum. how much would i donate for a grafting category? nobody knows. i don't even know. i could only know when given the actual opportunity to donate for a grafting category. since we don't know the size of the sacrifice that i, or anyone else, would be willing to make for a grafting category, recruitment is guaranteed to be suboptimal.
Charlie Dodgson said that my grafting and pollination skills far exceed his own. i wish that i could say that i've been grafting and pollinating all my life, but this is far from the case. it was only 2 years ago when i made my 1st grafts... cherimoya and mango. and it was shortly after when i did my very 1st ficus grafts. i lived for more than 40 years before learning how to graft. of course i wish that i learned to graft a long time ago.
it certainly isn't the case that grafting is for everybody. but optimal recruitment for grafting depends entirely on the demand for it, which we don't, but should, have the opportunity to clarify.
goodfriendmike said that there should be a caprifig category and voila, it was created. ask and ye shall receive. it sounds nice but in reality we miss out on seeing and knowing the demand for a caprifig category. and we miss out on raising money for his forum.
ktrain said that we shouldn't be insulting or condescending. on the permies forum the owner, paul wheaton, has a simple rule... be nice. but i have absolutely nothing nice to say about that guy. same with most of his minions. one lady in particular deletes my posts without even bothering to provide any explanation. how can anyone in their right mind possibly consider that type of behavior to be nice? for example...
here's the thread... Would you grow a "pocket forest"? which rule did i break? i'm pretty sure that i didn't break the rule about being nice. maybe i broke an unspoken rule about not discussing economics.
rules, just like categories, should be entirely determined by donations.
someone says that it's really important to be nice? fine, let them put their donation where their mouth is.
someone says it's really important to keep threads on topic? fine, let them put their donation where their mouth is.
someone says that we shouldn't talk about politics, sex or religion? fine, let them put their donation where their mouth is.
someone says that grafting classes should be mandatory for members? fine, let them put their donation where their mouth is.
with this system, where we have to use our pennies to prove our preferences, we will raise money for the forum and guarantee that nobody enforces rules that aren't truly important (ie $300 million was spent on enforcing prohibition).
whether it's a rule about being nice, or grafting, or pollinating, or caprifigs, the true importance of things can only be determined by sacrifice, not of calories like with bees, but of dollars. if members of this group know and understand what's truly important to each other, then we will beat all the other groups.
