2014 Grafting Adventures of CrazyED

Love the progress report Ed! Thanks for sharing!

Liberty has been a rock star in our orchard! Glad I planted two
 
Look like this?
No, they were all red. Dark like enterprise. No green whatsoever.
 
Look like this?
I don’t have a pic of mine, but here is one. Maybe it is NG ?DAC38C4B-B356-444B-B018-E8F780BD3F65.jpeg
 
Last edited:
How tall are your Kerr trees and what rootstock are they on?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
I have at least 3 maybe more. 1 on b118 planted in 2012, it’s 12’ tall and a total runt. I have blamed myself for letting it over bear (puked fruit) at year 3 or 4. It does consistently produce and hold, but the tree should be bigger. I have another 2012 planted b118c that is probably 16’ tall, way bigger and produces insane. But still smaller than a lot of other 2012 trees planted in that class. I have a few other I grafted after, not sure if status.
 
I have at least 3 maybe more. 1 on b118 planted in 2012, it’s 12’ tall and a total runt. I have blamed myself for letting it over bear (puked fruit) at year 3 or 4. It does consistently produce and hold, but the tree should be bigger. I have another 2012 planted b118c that is probably 16’ tall, way bigger and produces insane. But still smaller than a lot of other 2012 trees planted in that class. I have a few other I grafted after, not sure if status.

I have thinned blossoms off of the central leader to get more growth and to keep the leader from tipping. I agree, strip blossoms off of the young tree. Kerr must be somewhat of a natural dwarf or semi dwarf.

I would like to see a Kerr on dolgo or Anty that is 6 or more years old. I wonder if it would grow taller.

When I have a year without fruiting on Kerr, the growth is much better.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
I have thinned blossoms off of the central leader to get more growth and to keep the leader from tipping. I agree, strip blossoms off of the young tree. Kerr must be somewhat of a natural dwarf or semi dwarf.

I would like to see a Kerr on dolgo or Anty that is 6 or more years old. I wonder if it would grow taller.

When I have a year without fruiting on Kerr, the growth is much better.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Maybe I should heavily thin my tiny Kerr this year and at the same time gift it a strong blast of Fertilizer to see if that will give it a growth spurt.
 
Great looking batch of various apples CE!! Those Wolf River are huge. I planted a WR at camp back in 2014 on Antonovka roots. Tree is getting really big. We've had a couple apples on it, but once it starts to really kick into gear, we ought to have bushels of them.

You mentioned Franklin. Is it the "Franklin cider apple" from Vermont that another forum guy found? If so - how do those taste?? DR of Franklin so far for you?
 
Here is the one labeled NG

648674d9bf694b0631580895b89c8405.jpg
 
Great looking batch of various apples CE!! Those Wolf River are huge. I planted a WR at camp back in 2014 on Antonovka roots. Tree is getting really big. We've had a couple apples on it, but once it starts to really kick into gear, we ought to have bushels of them.

You mentioned Franklin. Is it the "Franklin cider apple" from Vermont that another forum guy found? If so - how do those taste?? DR of Franklin so far for you?
Yeah, it’s the Franklin cider apple. They are a crabapple, I didn’t end up eating one fresh, so not sure. They didn’t looked good for fresh eating. Looks like a typical crabapple.
 
What is interesting is SLN shows a red blush on their NG pics but if you google it NG is straight up green. I’m still convinced I have a miss here but it was nice to feel optimistic for a few moments.


I’ll probably have to wait for next season to look into this more.
 
What is interesting is SLN shows a red blush on their NG pics but if you google it NG is straight up green. I’m still convinced I have a miss here but it was nice to feel optimistic for a few moments.


I’ll probably have to wait for next season to look into this more.

I have shared NG scion with some people(maybe Matt?) many years ago. It seems like my apples had some red on them. I purchased my tree from a small Minnesota producer and they were on Anty. I suspect he had some connection to SLN from things he mentioned. That was before I was aware of SLN.

This producer is no longer in business and may have passed on by now.

My tree did not do well and has died. I do have scion tacked on a flowering crab and another one on dolgo(?), I would need to check the label on the cage. It has also not grown much and I should just take it out.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
I tend to have pretty decent records of what I grafted and who/where I got it from. However, the northwest greening from 2016 is a little foggy. Looking at hand written notes and email trails, the best I can tell is I may have purchased the wood from Maple Valley Orchards. I didn't purchase much scion wood because I got most of it by either collecting it in the wild in a nearby park, trading with the awesome people on this forum, or GRIN.

I do think I did buy a few things from Maple Valley and I think this may have been one of them, but thats a guess at best.

 
CrazyED,

The adirondack crab has got my attention. I am planting up by stillwater resevoir near old forge.

It would be nice to see some overall pictures of your franklin towers orchard.
 
IMG_9126.jpegIMG_9128.jpegIMG_9127.jpeganother 24 trees in the ground today, the craziness continues. Beacon, winter banana, Hudson golden gem, ashmead kernel, haralson, jonagold, trailman crab, smittys seedling, cortland, Linda sweet, stayman, winesap to name a few first time varieties forus. Then more Arkansas black, Honeycrisp, prairie spy, northern spy, violi’s, all winter hangover. Trees were huge, most grafted in 2016/2017 that I hadn’t gotten around to planting.

20 grapes too. 8 concord from stark and then 8 other kinds from SLN.

Cheers !
 
Yeah buddy! Love the craziness! I just planted 8 I grafted 3 years ago. Couldn’t believe how big they had gotten!!! Had to wait for a soaker rain to dig them up!
 
No white paint on the trunks this year? Slacker! 😁
 
I would have to dig through a foot of snow to plant where I want to right now.... its going fast but its still here 😡
 
Top