2014 Grafting Adventures of CrazyED

Here is a graft I did at my parents a few years back. The tree easily has the girth of a baseball bat. I didn't even take a pick of the tree but it's 12' tall with huge branches and some blooms. The huge root system is really blowing it up now. I had to remove some 2, suckers and should did an extensive pruning this winter.
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Class of 2021, I'm usually done grafting in april but finally done. Did 100 on. 118. I have another bucket of 20 in the garage that are 8" of growth.
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Cool pics man. No nonsense.
 
You beat me Matt, I just got my rootstock in the mail yesterday, and i'm leaving work early so i'm not up until 3 am grafting it all.
 
Here is my working list of what I grafted this spring. I need to re-inventory when I plant in the nursery but this should be close. Obviously I have a big focus on different crab apples. I find winter wildlife crab to be the best tree of them all. Crazy vigorous and fast growing, disease resistent, super easy to train and maintains good form with ease, fruits super early and holds late, and the fruit is good size. I planted all my new trees 4/28 and one of my winter wildlife crab trees was still holding.

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I have to agree with you C.E. on the Winter Wildlife crabs. They grow quick and produce in 3 years for us here. They make clusters of bright red 1" to 1 1/4" apples - and they stand out in the landscape !! Like red lights when fully ripe.

That's a heck of a list of grafts !! Are you planting all those for your own place ??
 
I have to agree with you C.E. on the Winter Wildlife crabs. They grow quick and produce in 3 years for us here. They make clusters of bright red 1" to 1 1/4" apples - and they stand out in the landscape !! Like red lights when fully ripe.

That's a heck of a list of grafts !! Are you planting all those for your own place ??

We’ll see I guess. I already have about 100-125 trees that are 1-3 years old in my backyard nursery. Plus These 100, some of which likely won’t make it. We try and plant 20 trees per year for the next 5 years and I’ll give some away to friends and family. We still have tons of bagged manure and pea gravel and concrete mesh so we just keep planting


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Here is another bundle of trees going out. While I love to plant dormant trees it's not always possible. Here is a bundle of 10 trees going to my buddy's 2 properties. Planting these on our spring fishing trip.

Harvest gold crab
Winter wildlife crab
Centurion
Cortland
Frostbite
Florina
Airport apple
Yates
#5 crab



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I'm fortunate to enjoy this spring fishing trip, same weekend every year with my closest friend. 3 hours of kayaking for trout this morning. We hit the big lake for smallies tonight but after 3 hours or garbage weather we called it a night.
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Only one thing missing in the pix of your float trip ………………… all your buddies on here !!!! :emoji_grin: :emoji_wink:

Great scenery. Nothing quite like a floating fishing trip. My sons and I do fishing floats. As a relaxing drug - it's better than any on the market. Thanks for sharing !!!
 
The only thing missing is when Fred Eichler had to use that hand gun to scare the grizzly off the shore line. :)

 
We are only planting 8 apple trees at the farm. These are all 2 or 3 year old grafts on B118. My brother in law is taking another 14 trees from me, and my friend another 4. I still probably have 100 trees in the nursery. I'm not really grafting any new trees this year either, time to get caught up and take a break. All said and done i'll have 250ish fruit trees. In addition to this i've got about 500 trees from MDC. Norway Spruce, White Pine, White Oak, Swamp Oak, Pin Oak, Chinkapin Oak, Elderberry, American Plum.
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We are only planting 8 apple trees at the farm. These are all 2 or 3 year old grafts on B118. My brother in law is taking another 14 trees from me, and my friend another 4. I still probably have 100 trees in the nursery. I'm not really grafting any new trees this year either, time to get caught up and take a break. All said and done i'll have 250ish fruit trees. In addition to this i've got about 500 trees from MDC. Norway Spruce, White Pine, White Oak, Swamp Oak, Pin Oak, Chinkapin Oak, Elderberry, American Plum.
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Matt, you are slipping! ;)


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Figured you had to run out of room at some point. With 250 trees, could you give us your favorite top 5-10 varieties? And rootstock?


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Figured you had to run out of room at some point. With 250 trees, could you give us your favorite top 5-10 varieties? And rootstock?


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Well 99% are b118, it seems to do pretty good in my sand. I have a couple m111 and 1 m7. As for my favorites.

Winter wildlife crab (grows like a weed)
Liberty
Enterprise
Galarina
Flemish beauty pear
Summercrisp pear
Kieffer pear
Kerr
Wolf river
Centennial
Dolgo

These above have been some of the easier low maintenance trees that stand out. I have lots of other varieties, crabs are always good.

Least favorite or highest maintenance in my area

Honeycrisp
Pristine
Gold rush
Frostbite



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What is your problem with Fristbite. They have done pretty well for me when most have not. So well I have 3 more to plant this year. What problems am I in store for?
 
Crazy Ed - I have to agree with your take on Winter Wildlife crab - it DOES grow like a weed. It's been our fastest to fruit and quickest grower. We have another WW crab coming for this spring.
 
What is your problem with Fristbite. They have done pretty well for me when most have not. So well I have 3 more to plant this year. What problems am I in store for?

Frostbite seems to be quite susceptible to CAR.


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