Am looking forward to hearing how you make out with your apple grafting onto the larger rootstocks Sandbur.
Received and planted the order of 11 trees from Fedco nursery, Clinton Maine which completed the planting of all previously ordered 2020 fruit trees. Then an order for habitat trees got cancelled by the county due to the virus so I ordered another box of apple trees from Northern Whitetail Crabapple PA. which is scheduled for delivery the middle of this coming week.
Yesterday, fertilized most of the planted 2020 planted trees with 1/2 lb of triple 19. All fertilizer was premeasured and bagged prior to heading to the field and it was spread completely outside of the 3 ft. square weed mats. Also applied 350 lbs of Urea yesterday to mature apple trees at the rate of 2 lbs. per tree(again measured and pre-bagged previously). That fertilizing effort didn't take all day but it used up a full days energy as there was a lot of walking and fertilizing throwing exercise. Two pounds seemed like a paltry amount to spread around the larger apple trees in the up to 24 inch DBH range but we'll do it again in a month if conditions are favorable to it and will see how the tree reacts throughout the season and plan next seasons fertilizing efforts based on those reactions.
As described earlier in the thread hundreds of Turning Point Apple Tree seeds were planted directly in the ground in December and hundreds more were planted in jugs throughout the winter. The weather last week has been hitting in the twenties most nights so when fertilizing was done for the day I figured it would be interesting to check the seedbeds and jugs to find out what if anything was happening. In the garden where 600 seeds had been planted in about one sq. yard three apple seedlings were beginning to emerge. They were just tiny hints of green at this point--nothing exciting there.
Then I checked the jugs;
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and more jugs;
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Starting daylily seeds in jugs is something that has worked well here over the last few years here and most of the jugs pictured have daylilies in them but some were planted with apple seeds during the winter to see if they too could use this very easy no maintenance seed starting method. Apple seeds were planted on and off throughout the winter, watered and then placed out in the snowbanks. Notice they are against rock piles, that is done to keep them from blowing away and I'm guessing the rocks may hold some of the suns heat. Not sure about the heat part affecting anything but it makes for a good place out of the way of driving and mowing to leave the jugs which will stay there until the resultant seedlings are planted in mid may thru June or even later depending on available time. The jugs are only watered that one time and never again and a few holes have been drilled into the bottom area for drainage. This is a closeup of what the jugs look like unopened; Notice the jug is fully sealed except the caps are discarded and the top is not covered in any way. The rain and snow must get in to keep them hydrated.
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Normally the jugs aren't even looked at until mid May but I am opening these to inspect them and will them reseal them and put them back into their previous rock pile locations.
Here the tape has been removed from three random apple seedling jugs exposing the apple seedlings;
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I find it amazing that there is no sign of frost damage whatsoever despite it having been cold enough during the week that water in buckets froze hard and stayed frozen some days throughout the day warmups which reached up to 45 degrees and last week it had snowed twice and rained once besides. The snow did not accumulate. The brown/dead material on the top of some seedlings is I believe the seed covering. Outside they would have fallen off but inside the jug though the jug is out in the weather it evidently stays calm enough that some of the seed pod coverings stay on. So the apple seedlings jugs have been resealed around the cut middle with duct tape and are back outside now. So far so good. WE'll take another status look around May 15 of both in the jugs planting and the direct in the ground planting.
