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Great pix, Maya !! The orchard looks really good and must have been a good draw for locals there. The new barn/stand came out looking fantastic. Nice and rustic - it fits New England states. All the pickers and those school kids had a great time I bet. Nothing like an orchard in the fall !! Congrats on your operation.
When you top them down to 15-16 feet how do you do it and what effect does it have on the remainder of the tree. As for your sister and family, who all is in the pic? I feel like I am the only one that does not know ha
When you top them down to 15-16 feet how do you do it and what effect does it have on the remainder of the tree. As for your sister and family, who all is in the pic? I feel like I am the only one that does not know ha
WTNUT, we call it "crop and flop". You first need to get the side branches fruiting real well. This takes a while as they are the youngest branches. Once they have had a good crop and are weighted over(flopped) cut leader above a smaller weak side branch. Now you also want to be a little careful that you don't cut to much. In other words you don't want to drop a 20' tree (b118) down to 10', but you can go down to 16-17', and not have much suckering at the cut.
As for my Sister pic, that's her on the left, then her son, his girlfriend and my brother in law. Lot's of fun, they came to one of our Upics w, brother in laws father, not in the pic. Gorgeous day, but wicked hot for the end of September, 85 I think. We didn't have a lot of people that day, but the next day it cooled down and we had a good crowd.
This was funny, I found this one tree in the middle of my Daybreak Fuji's that put out some gorgeous great tasting apples. They also matured a few weeks later. Anyways w the help of Aerospacefarmer, we figured it out. It's an original Fuji. Much better texture imo, than the Daybreaks. They must of mis- shipped one tree in the order of 100 Daybreaks from the nursery. I wanted Daybreaks as they matured earlier. I didn't want anything to late in the season to interfere with bow season! Oh well they are great, so I'm going to graft some.
Here is a beautiful espalier tree at a nursery up in Maine. I think it was a Northern Spy. I started a couple two years ago on the entrance to my tall spindle. Has anyone tried one? They are just for fun, kind of Art meets farming!
We went up to Maine after apple season was over just to clear our heads after working 90 hours a week during picking season, and what do I do? Look at apple trees! It's a disease guys! Run far away while you can!
I put up a trellis for some espalier trees in 2014. Part heirloom apples part modern disease resistant apples. The heirloom varieties are on B9 and the modern apples on G41. Pixie Crunch produced some nice apples this fall.
Greyphase - Nice trees in the pic !! I see all the "normal" trees in the background, too. How many are you up to ??
Maya - You're right it's a disease !! I find myself looking at wild trees for late-hangers and no/little signs of disease. I end up pulling over and inspecting trees that I never would have paid attention to before. It's kind of like being a teenager who just discovered girls - head's on a swivel checking them ALL out. I'll be grafting new trial trees even after my camp is full-up with apples and crabs. You never know when one or more of our planted trees may be a bear target or just not pan out for some reason.