DSX scrapings from seven-year-old ramets growing in clonal trial in KwaMbonambi, KwaZulu-Natal Province, South Africa were sampled in September 2012 early springg).
Tissues were collected from five or six year-old ramets (genetically identical trees) of a single female poplar hybrid clone (P. trichocarpa × P. deltoidies) over a seven-month period in 2001 (Table 1).
Tissues from a four-year-old ramet of a Chinese fir clone (Zhelin 21) were collected in the experimental station of the Zhejiang Agriculture and Forestry University, Hangzhou, China.
Tissues from a six-year-old ramet of a commercially grown E. grandis × E. urophylla hybrid clone (GUSAP1, Sappi Forestry, Kwambonambi, South Africa) were collected in a clonal field trial and immediately frozen in liquid nitrogen, as previously described by Ranik and Myburg [ 48].
Eight 'old' ramets were still not accounted for; we assumed these were missed during the first census.
We collected DSX samples in spring from two seven-year-old E. grandis individuals (clonal ramets) growing in a plantation.
Rates of reversion from flowering to non-flowering plants could not be directly assessed for T. recurvatum, although, as noted above, the age overlap between older non-flowering and flowering ramets suggests that reversions could have occurred.
Flowering ramets were, on average, older than three-leaved ramets (Table 2): 85 % of flowering ramets were at least 10 years old and the majority were in the mid-teens.
Thirty ramets of 1-yr-old P. tomentosa clone 'LM50' were selected and planted at Xiao Tangshan horticultural fields, Beijing, China (40°2′N, 115°50′E).
We left the developmentally older internode attached, because resource transport predominantly takes place in the direction of the apex, leading to increased survival of ramets attached to the older internode (Dong et al. 2010).
