2014 Grafting Adventures of CrazyED

[CrazyEd]

Not only is it the season for bench grafting, but it's the season to see some Tbud's also coming to life!

If your bench grafts fail there can be hope for a second chance if your rootstock stays alive! These trees should really take off this year. I'll cut the rootstock tree right down to the buds very soon.

Centurion Crab

Winter Wildlife Crab

 

[CrazyEd]

My very messy garage.

 

[CrazyEd]

Finished another 25 last night. 75 done, 25 left.

Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk

 

[NY_Terrence]

Finished another 25 last night. 75 done, 25 left.
Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk

Awesome!
And, right now are you thinking this is getting tedious and 75 would have been enough?

 

[buckvelvet]

Yee Haw CE!

 

[CrazyEd]

When I was digging all of the trees going to my farm, I had to remove a bunch of other ones in the process. Today I got out there to re-plant them. I think there are about 40 trees here and it's a mix of 1 and 2 year old trees.

I dont know how i even had room for the all the trees i removed. Seems like by removing them all i didn't gain much. I prepped the ground.

Dug a trench and placed my trees. I didn't measure just packed them in similar to what i had before.

Once the first row was done I added another row.

 

[buckvelvet]

They sure look nice & healthy CE!

 

[greyphase]

Beautiful looking trees Matt.

 

[Bowsnbucks]

You have a real growing program there, Matt !! Everything looks great.

 

[CrazyEd]

Well my planting is done for the year. We had 4 people and put 25 trees in. I think it took about 5 hours to do everything. Dig by hand, plant, put down plastic, gravel, fence, window screen, tagging, conduit, etc. 25' between trees, 25' between rows. Everything was on B.118 but 1 tree that was on M7.

 

[buckvelvet]

Well my planting is done for the year. We had 4 people and put 25 trees in. I think it took about 5 hours to do everything. Dig by hand, plant, put down plastic, gravel, fence, window screen, tagging, conduit, etc. 25' between trees, 25' between rows. Everything was on B.118 but 1 tree that was on M7.

Is the M7 the tree on the left w/ all the spurs in this picture? Just curious...

Do you get a pretty cute rate by having bagged manure/rocks vs bulk? Another curious question as I'll be doing this in a year or 2 out of my nursery.

 

[CrazyEd]

Is the M7 the tree on the left w/ all the spurs in this picture? Just curious...

Do you get a pretty cute rate by having bagged manure/rocks vs bulk? Another curious question as I'll be doing this in a year or 2 out of my nursery.

No the tree on the left is a tamarack.

I think I paid just under $3000 for like 600 bags of composted manure and 400 bags of pea gravel, and 100 sticks of conduit delivered. I dont have a tractor w/ FEL so moving bulk would have been a nightmare. The bags are heavy enough as it is but we just loaded 50 some bags into the white trailer in the picture, my dad would drive slowly through the orchard as I would unload them at the planting hole. In most cases we didnt have to carry a bag more than 10-20 feet.

We did talk about buying bulk, and yes for the product it is likely cheaper. But the time and labor involved to move it, time is money too. I'd probably be in a wheel chair right now if we bought bulk product.

 

[buckvelvet]

No the tree on the left is a tamarack.

I think I paid just under $3000 for like 600 bags of composted manure and 400 bags of pea gravel, and 100 sticks of conduit delivered. I dont have a tractor w/ FEL so moving bulk would have been a nightmare. The bags are heavy enough as it is but we just loaded 50 some bags into the white trailer in the picture, my dad would drive slowly through the orchard as I would unload them at the planting hole. In most cases we didnt have to carry a bag more than 10-20 feet.

We did talk about buying bulk, and yes for the product it is likely cheaper. But the time and labor involved to move it, time is money too. I'd probably be in a wheel chair right now if we bought bulk product.

Oh I guess I've never seen a tamarack before so it had me perplexed.

I can see how bulk would be a problem as well, lots of man power behind moving it like that.

 

[Bowsnbucks]

Looks good Matt. Now it's GROW time. Keep us posted when buds / leaves open up.

 

[Merle Hawggard]

Looks awesome as usual ce!

 

[CrazyEd]

A few of the trees I grafted this spring are starting to wake up. I have seen new grafts grow well into the summer but finally tip over and die in July and August so i wont due any victory dancing until September. But, it's always a good sign to see some nice buds push through the melted coat of wax and show signs of life. So far it appears to be all crabapples. Adirondack, Anaros, Trailman, Wickson, Golden Hornet, Pumpkin, and Chestnut Crabs are moving so far.

 

[buckvelvet]

Pumpkin? Thats a new one, care to give the story on that one?

 

[CrazyEd]

Pumpkin? Thats a new one, care to give the story on that one?

Cool looking crab that Greyphase sent me. If you search this forum you should find some pics of it. Sorry i dont have a link handy.

 

[CrazyEd]

Here it is.

http://habitat-talk.com/index.php?threads/misc-crab-apple-pics.4130/#post-81890

 

[buckvelvet]

Yeesh I even commented on it and didn't remember. :)