In 2014, as part of our agave breeding program, we made a cross of two winter hardy century plants from Northern Mexico, Agave ocahui and Agave victoriae-reginae. By 2016, the seedlings from that cross were large enough to be planted outdoors. From our seedling offspring, we made ten initial selections, which represented the diversity of the seedlings. Nine years later, five have died due to winter cold, and five remain. So far, we have selected only one to name, which we christened Agave x ocareginae ‘Green Artichoke’. Below is our plant in the crevice garden, which is now 10 years old.
Since this cross combined two small, mostly non-offsetting species, finding any offsets with which to propagate is difficult. Last summer, we were fortunate to find two tiny offsets at the base, which were promptly removed and potted. With this selection approaching flowering size, we must make a difficult decision whether to force it to offset further by drilling out the center, or leaving it to flower for further breeding. By removing the center, which disfigures the plant, we eliminate the flow of Auxin hormones to the dormant leaf buds, causing them to all grow.
If, instead of immolation, we rely on the two offsets we removed earlier to build up numbers to share, it will most likely take until 2029 to have enough. If we drill out the center of our main clump, we’ll lose the ability to use if for breeding, but doing so, should produce enough offsets to save one year in the production cycle. Once the plant switches its growth mode from vegetative to flowering, its too late, since all of the dormant leaf buds can no longer be forced to grow into new plants. We’ll ponder those choices until spring, since it doesn’t seem ready to produce a flower spike this year.
