Recent content by DrewMc

By open center I meant cut anything growing towards the middle when leaving the two grafts.

Same. I have quite a few kieffers and no matter what I do, everything grows straight up and normally at a tight crotch angle. I should have taken some pictures of my others with the grafts. If I had to do it all over again, I'd stick with apples and crab apples. Much easier to shape.

These grafts are three years old. At what point should I cut out one graft or do I continue with two and utilize an open center?

These are Kieffer, Moonglow and Deer pears. Looking for best case of survivability and fruit producing.

No, but do I leave both grafts or eventually trim down to one? These pics are from last year. They are pears too.

I recently came across this article suggesting that crisscrossing the grafts is the best option. I'm already in year 3, so is this even still doable at this point? I'm concerned about breaking the grafts at this point. https://extension.psu.edu/apple-top-working-managing-the-new-grafts

Good to hear. I sure hope it looks better before archery season starts in a few weeks.

This is a pic 12 days after broadcasting the grains. The clover was broadcasted two weeks before that. The plot just never took off like I thought it would, even with ample rain in the last 12 days. Disappointed.

Gotcha. My sister lives in Mechanicsburg. I'm in Somerset, camp is in SE Somerset County. If it hadn't been such a dry summer, I'd have tried using more oats. What time of year do you usually plant your oats?

I did use seed oats. From my research, rye has a better chance of germination than oats when broadcasted. We'll see what happens. What part of PA are you from?

After two weeks, only one of the two plots has clover that has sprouted. We were to get rain in the few days after planting and hardly any came. Its been such a dry summer here in PA. Pretty disappointing. We broadcasted 75/25 Rye/Oat blend last night with rain in the forecast again for the...

I bought some cheap velcro straps I found on amazon for connecting to the stakes. As far as my grafts that I lost, I thoroughly inspected the tree on Saturday as even the limb sprouts below the graft looked rough. I had a corrugated drain pipe around the base to prevent girdling. I removed...

Appreciate all of your help. I've learned so much from this forum.

Thanks. What do you use to attach the upper part of the graft to the piece of bamboo?

Do you put your bracing directly against or right behind the grafts?