2014 Grafting Adventures of CrazyED

[JackTerp]

I don't know if anyone has seen this before, but he sure makes T-budding look simple.

 

[CrazyEd]

Here's a few more pictures from the grafting project I have going over at my parents house. These all look absolutely awesome. I'll probably do some thinning next year but for now I'm just letting them go crazy and put on as much growth as possible. The bigger tree in the right of the frame will also be taken out in the next year or two.

Liberty

 

[CrazyEd]

Here is pristine. These scions were about pencil caliper and they have done very well, probably pushing 3/4" now.

Goldrush

 

[CrazyEd]

A few pics from a few steps back.

 

[CrazyEd]

I am probably one of the only people to get super excited to find 25' rolls of aluminum window screen on the clearance rack at my local big box store. Now i'm all set to screen my new grafts and my dad just made me stainless steel tree tags.

 

[greyphase]

I am probably one of the only people to get super excited to find 25' rolls of aluminum window screen on the clearance rack at my local big box store. Now i'm all set to screen my new grafts and my dad just made me stainless steel tree tags.

Hence the name Crazy Ed:D.

 

[CrazyEd]

Started a little project to try and improve my nursery this year. At home my whole backyard including my garden where my grafts are is low ground, usually in the spring there will be standing water, and it's very heavy clay even though i've been adding lots of organic material the past 5 years. I have about 100 trees in there now and i'm grafting another 110 or so in the next few weeks. I picked up some 2x12s to build it up a bit, i also bought 8 yards of high quality manure compost.

Here's what it looked like before. Last fall i screened all of my grafts, it was a lot of work but they were safe.

Here's the new box.

I plan to move it inside the fence tomorrow. I also dug out all of the trees tonight. Once the box is in place, put 2-3" of leaves from last fall in the bottom, and then fill the rest with the manure compost and replant all the grafted trees from last year. The trees i dug up tonight look awesome. They range anywhere from 3" of growth to up 36", all loaded up with nice juicy buds. I will baby them another year or two and then move them to the farm. They will be packed in the box pretty tight but i'm ok with that, they will be spoiled and they should do just fine.

 

[buckvelvet]

Ed how much property do you have to be able to transplant 200+ full size trees?

 

[CrazyEd]

Our family farm is about 160 acres but a vast majority of our plantings are focused on 42 acres. I've kind of gone a bit crazy with all of this, not all trees will always be planted in the ideal spot but i dont always expect perfect results from every tree. Some (40) of these trees are for my friends too. My goal is around 200 trees total and between apples and pears I should have around 75 varieties with a big focus on different crab apples.

 

[greyphase]

Our family farm is about 160 acres but a vast majority of our plantings are focused on 42 acres. I've kind of gone a bit crazy with all of this, not all trees will always be planted in the ideal spot but i dont always expect perfect results from every tree. Some (40) of these trees are for my friends too. My goal is around 200 trees total and between apples and pears I should have around 75 varieties with a big focus on different crab apples.

I like your kind of Craziness :D.

 

[CrazyEd]

Nice Ed. You do the whip and tongue grafts again this year?

Yes, vast majority will be whip and tongue. That seemed to work well for me. I only did the other kind (cleft?) with really small scions.

 

[Bowsnbucks]

Way to live up to your handle Ed !! With all that you're planting & have planted, the wildlife in your area should benefit for a long time to come. And I imagine you'll be eatin' some of those apples & pears too ??;)

 

[CrazyEd]

Took down the fence this morning and moved the box in.

Tried to get it halfway leveled

Put a bunch of nasty leaves from last fall in the bottom, 2-3"

Should help keep any weeds down that try and come up from the bottom.

 

[CrazyEd]

I filled the box with a really nice manure compost. 50% Black Soil and 50% Straight Mushroom.

15 wheel barrel loads later

 

[CrazyEd]

Here's some pics of the trees before i replanted. I didn't get any good pictures of the root systems but they looked excellent. Even the trees were all loaded with juicy buds. I'm very happy with the results so far. Some of the trees are not the biggest yet, but they should do really well in their new home.

Got everything re-planted. Room for another 110 more over the next month or so.

Fence back in place to keep the deer away.

 

[CrazyEd]

Nice work Ed. My back would be killing me after doing all that. They should be happy.

So on these 1 year old trees are you going to rub off most of the lower buds to promote upright growth?

Ideally I would like to keep them as whips since they are packed in there tight. We'll have to see what they do I guess then start making decisions.

 

[CrazyEd]

Right. I think the advantage to letting them branch just means more leaves that catch more sun and help the tree grow. As much as it's nice for trees to grow up, I think feathered trees aren't the worst either. Clearly some of my trees are tiny so those ones probably need to just go up. Some of the larger whips might be candidates to branch.

 

[wiscwhip]

Ed, I truly admire your dedication to growing apples on that sand. Kudos sir!

 

[CrazyEd]

Ed, I truly admire your dedication to growing apples on that sand. Kudos sir!

Thanks Whip hopefully someday I have truckloads of fruit.

 

[aerospacefarmer]

Here is pic of my grafts after completion