2014 Grafting Adventures of CrazyED

[chummer]

Frostbite seems to be quite susceptible to CAR.


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Okay. That works for me. No cedars!

 

[CrazyEd]

Frostbite seems to be quite susceptible to CAR.


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Car and the insects (ants) love it and destroy the fruit. I don’t really spray and the ants love these.

 

[CrazyEd]

this is what I planted today. Everything was well feathered and a few were producing fruit.

Fireside
Enterprise
Freedom
Harvest Gold Crab
Pea Crab (I plant it for birds, local tree with pea sized fruit)
Chestnut
Yellow honker crab
Keepsake

 

[buckvelvet]

Nice work as always CE! Enjoy the time of watching all your work come to fruition brother!

 

[CrazyEd]

Planted 20 fruit trees last weekend.

Keepsake
Indian Magic Crab
Snowdrift Crab
Centurion
Marble Crab
Marble Crab
Mary Knoll Yellow Crab
Pea Crab
Red Splendor Crab
Centurion
calville
cox orange pippen
B.118
Cherry Bomb
NY Bonkers
Red Honker Crab
Wickson
William's Pride
Shafer
Winter Wildlife Crab

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[CrazyEd]

I stopped grafting in 2018. Did a full inventory in my backyard nursery tree today. Down to 60 trees left. I'll plant those over the next few years. When i'm all done I should be right around 225 fruit trees in the ground over 12 years of planting. I still have 2 unopened pallets of manure and pea gravel, for those keeping score :).

 

[scott44]

Great looking roots!

 

[Corey Peterson]

Your still going strong!!! I moved the last of my grafts out of my nursery last weekend. My home orchard has 40ish trees and another dozen or so out in my food plots. I think I’m done with new apple trees - just keeping up with spraying is a ton of work!

 

[Jordan Selsor]

Thanks for the update Ed! You did it right!

 

[Chainsaw]

Excellent trees you have grown there crazy Ed. As Scott said, Love those roots. I look forward to starting on page 1 of your thread after planting season slows down.

 

[Chainsaw]

Received a notice from Soil and Water that they cancelled all habitat tree orders due to the virus. And the wind blew hard so I decided to read a few pages of your thread. It was a great story and I just couldn’t stop reading it until the last page was consumed. It is so refreshing to see there are normal people out there like yourself Crazy Ed that buy their soil amendments by the tractor trailer load. I admire your patience and methodical approach to creating and establishing your orchards and Thank You very much for posting and keeping your thread alive. It is helpful as well as inspirational to me as a first time grafter.

Your close up grafting pictures Of your Whip and Tongue cuts were particularly interesting. Especially enjoyed reading how you got around the “problem” of larger rootstock and smaller scions by cutting the rootstock to fit the scion in versus cutting it all the way thru in the “ normal “ way. Cutting the large rootstocks thru completely using the Whip andTongue grafting method has been physically difficult for me to keep the cut perfectly straight so your method will help me a lot. The larger rootstocks look more appealing as theoretically they should grow the tree at a faster rate than the 1/4 inch rootstock does. It appears that you have used both smaller diameter rootstocks and larger diameter rootstocks. Did you find in you nursery that the larger rootstocks grew the trees at a faster rate than the smaller rootstocks with everything else being equal? And if so was it enough to warrant the more difficult grafting cuts than using the smaller rootstocks that better match the scion sizes?

 

[sandbur]

Received a notice from Soil and Water that they cancelled all habitat tree orders due to the virus. And the wind blew hard so I decided to read a few pages of your thread. It was a great story and I just couldn’t stop reading it until the last page was consumed. It is so refreshing to see there are normal people out there like yourself Crazy Ed that buy their soil amendments by the tractor trailer load. I admire your patience and methodical approach to creating and establishing your orchards and Thank You very much for posting and keeping your thread alive. It is helpful as well as inspirational to me as a first time grafter.

Your close up grafting pictures Of your Whip and Tongue cuts were particularly interesting. Especially enjoyed reading how you got around the “problem” of larger rootstock and smaller scions by cutting the rootstock to fit the scion in versus cutting it all the way thru in the “ normal “ way. Cutting the large rootstocks thru completely using the Whip andTongue grating method has been physically difficult for me to keep the cut perfectly straight so your method will help me a lot. The larger rootstocks look more appealing as theoretically they should grow the tree at a faster rate than the 1/4 inch rootstock does. It appears that you have used both smaller diameter rootstocks and larger diameter rootstocks. Did you find in you nursery that the larger rootstocks grew the trees at a faster rate than the smaller rootstocks with everything else being equal? And if so was it enough to warrant the more difficult grafting cuts than using the smaller rootstocks that better match the scion sizes?

On which post did you find that information?


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[Chainsaw]

On which post did you find that information?


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Post # 178 comment #3 was the first that caught my attention on that. Then on page 10 posts 182 thru 184 explains it further and has closeup pictures and then on post 186 “Honker” adds a nice twist to it.

The rootstock sizes are mentioned here and there and also here and there are pictures and they show both small and large diameter rootstocks.

 

[sandbur]

On which post did you find that information?


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Post # 178 comment #3 was the first that caught my attention on that. Then on page 10 posts 182 thru 184 explains it further and has closeup pictures and then on post 186 “Honker” adds a nice twist to it.

The rootstock sizes are mentioned here and there and also here and there are pictures and they show both small and large diameter rootstocks.

Thanks for the link and thanks to Matt(Ed).

I have some big rootstock to work with tomorrow.


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[Native Hunter]

Matt, I've always been impressed with your work and glad to see an update.

Last year I started seeing a few reports of trees on B118 that started leaning. I'm just curious if you have seen that happen with any trees. I saw it with one B118 tree that my neighbor planted, about 4 years after he planted it. It happened in a windstorm. However, he braced the tree and after another year it seems to be very solid again.

 

[CrazyEd]

Received a notice from Soil and Water that they cancelled all habitat tree orders due to the virus. And the wind blew hard so I decided to read a few pages of your thread. It was a great story and I just couldn’t stop reading it until the last page was consumed. It is so refreshing to see there are normal people out there like yourself Crazy Ed that buy their soil amendments by the tractor trailer load. I admire your patience and methodical approach to creating and establishing your orchards and Thank You very much for posting and keeping your thread alive. It is helpful as well as inspirational to me as a first time grafter.

Your close up grafting pictures Of your Whip and Tongue cuts were particularly interesting. Especially enjoyed reading how you got around the “problem” of larger rootstock and smaller scions by cutting the rootstock to fit the scion in versus cutting it all the way thru in the “ normal “ way. Cutting the large rootstocks thru completely using the Whip andTongue grating method has been physically difficult for me to keep the cut perfectly straight so your method will help me a lot. The larger rootstocks look more appealing as theoretically they should grow the tree at a faster rate than the 1/4 inch rootstock does. It appears that you have used both smaller diameter rootstocks and larger diameter rootstocks. Did you find in you nursery that the larger rootstocks grew the trees at a faster rate than the smaller rootstocks with everything else being equal? And if so was it enough to warrant the more difficult grafting cuts than using the smaller rootstocks that better match the scion sizes?

Right now I’m grafting 100 trees for my closest friend. We ordered late from Williamette and all they had was 1/4 or 1/8th. They are tiny. I am used to the big ones.

Too early for me to tell but the bigger stock usually have bigger root mass, sometimes like a broom. These small ones are ok but smaller on all counts.

The big ones are definitely harder to cut, and for me took longer to graft because of it.

I try to be very consistent with how I’ve done all this. Mainly because i received excellent advice from this community when I first started and we had good success. I tweaked a few things early on with our approach but for the most part it’s the same. We have a good crew of planters between my father, sister and bro in-law. We average 20 trees per year and we have our system down. We all usually do the same jobs, some independently and some together. From digging holes, planting, black plastic, conduit, cages and tagging. It all takes time but we have a pretty good well oiled machine at this point.

Thanks for reading and the feedback. I was kind of shocked the other day when I saw how many views this thread has. Hopefully I helped a few people by documenting my adventures. Cheers!


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[CrazyEd]

Matt, I've always been impressed with your work and glad to see an update.

Last year I started seeing a few reports of trees on B118 that started leaning. I'm just curious if you have seen that happen with any trees. I saw it with one B118 tree that my neighbor planted, about 4 years after he planted it. It happened in a windstorm. However, he braced the tree and after another year it seems to be very solid again.

I haven’t had much leaning. A couple trees we have had to stake but they are not on super flat ground. We will see in the coming years as fruit load increases.


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[CrazyEd]

Geared up for pruning day tomorrow. I think I have around 175 trees now. Not pictured (2) pole pruners and my silky pole saw. If anyone needs scionwood private message me. I don’t have a list other than what has posted in this thread. I might have time to grab a couple things.


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[Mortenson]

 

[Turkey Creek]

Geared up for pruning day tomorrow. I think I have around 175 trees now. Not pictured (2) pole pruners and my silky pole saw. If anyone needs scionwood private message me. I don’t have a list other than what has posted in this thread. I might have time to grab a couple things.


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Looked like you have amassed a nice arsenal!