Apples,apples and more apples

[Chainsaw]

Preparation for spring tree planting is ongoing. I recently inspected cages and apple trees planted here many years ago. The ten ft. in length, five ft. high cages used back then showed themselves to be adequate in most cases— not all but most. Keeping in mind what gave the most protection by forum posters was cage wire cut to fifteen ft. lengths, five ft.high and what was sort of the wholesale approach used successfully for fifty years by Poor Sand was cages cut roughly thirty-three inches long, the 14 gauge, 2 inch by 4 inch welded wire was cut for cages into three different sizes; fifteen ft. long by five ft. tall for special trees, ten feet long by five feet tall for varieties bought in bulk and 33 inches long by six feet tall for varieties grafted here with very little cost associated with them.

Each piece of ten and fifteen ft. long fencing has been rolled up by itself and secured with two bent wires. They take up less space and can be transported easier than if they were at full cage circumference. There are 117 cages cut and rolled up and stored outside.

The one hundred and thirty-two pieces of 33 inch long by six ft. tall cut wire will be just piled flat and also stored outside. Moving all of this wire out of our walking aisle will make my wife happy. Once all of that wire is outta there, I'll tell her about how I need to empty one of our two refrigerators so the scions and root stocks can be temporarily stored there.


Cutting the wire took longer than expected as it wasn’t a very exciting activity. However having 249 cages pre-cut for spring planting will save time during the planting period and should more than cover this years' cage wire needs. The next preparations for the coming planting adventure will be to cut trunk protection screens, cut apple and pear tree scions and cut conduit stakes to size.

 

[Bowsnbucks]

Holy cow, Chainsaw! Are you starting up a commercial orchard?? 249 cages spells you're gonna be busy! Congrats on all the prep work.

 

[sandbur]

Preparation for spring tree planting is ongoing. I recently inspected cages and apple trees planted here many years ago. The ten ft. in length, five ft. high cages used back then showed themselves to be adequate in most cases— not all but most. Keeping in mind what gave the most protection by forum posters was cage wire cut to fifteen ft. lengths, five ft.high and what was sort of the wholesale approach used successfully for fifty years by Poor Sand was cages cut roughly thirty-three inches long, the 14 gauge, 2 inch by 4 inch welded wire was cut for cages into three different sizes; fifteen ft. long by five ft. tall for special trees, ten feet long by five feet tall for varieties bought in bulk and 33 inches long by six feet tall for varieties grafted here with very little cost associated with them.

Each piece of ten and fifteen ft. long fencing has been rolled up by itself and secured with two bent wires. They take up less space and can be transported easier than if they were at full cage circumference. There are 117 cages cut and rolled up and stored outside.
View attachment 27988
The one hundred and thirty-two pieces of 33 inch long by six ft. tall cut wire will be just piled flat and also stored outside. Moving all of this wire out of our walking aisle will make my wife happy. Once all of that wire is outta there, I'll tell her about how I need to empty one of our two refrigerators so the scions and root stocks can be temporarily stored there.
View attachment 27989

Cutting the wire took longer than expected as it wasn’t a very exciting activity. However having 249 cages pre-cut for spring planting will save time during the planting period and should more than cover this years' cage wire needs. The next preparations for the coming planting adventure will be to cut trunk protection screens, cut apple and pear tree scions and cut conduit stakes to size.

The two x four welded wire will keep the adult rabbits out and deer can’t reach through them to browse.

Cement reinforcing wire needs a bigger cage as some browsing can occur. We have a cat that hunts the orchard and the cement wire allows her to enter cages. Advantages to both ways!


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[Chainsaw]

Holy cow, Chainsaw! Are you starting up a commercial orchard?? 249 cages spells you're gonna be busy! Congrats on all the prep work.

Thanks Bowsnbucks, absolutely no commercial orchard is being started here, just the best darn deer garden I can make. And luckily being busy is normal here.

 

[Chainsaw]

The two x four welded wire will keep the adult rabbits out and deer can’t reach through them to browse.

Cement reinforcing wire needs a bigger cage as some browsing can occur. We have a cat that hunts the orchard and the cement wire allows her to enter cages. Advantages to both ways!


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Good point Sandbur.

 

[chummer]

How did I know easing into this plan was not going to be an option. Only challenge I see left other than our grafting ability is how are you going to dig all those holes? I have seen your rocks.

 

[Chainsaw]

How did I know easing into this plan was not going to be an option. Only challenge I see left other than our grafting ability is how are you going to dig all those holes? I have seen your rocks.

Whatever grafting ability you can impart to me by around March 20 will be plenty enough to get started. And if great results follow then great and if only mediocre results follow that will be great also. We will be in their swinging and success will come eventually.

We could be in good shape for the hole digging part. Plan A is a twenty- four inch diameter three point hitch post hole digger hooked to one tractor and plan B is a backhoe hooked to another tractor. The post hole digger though will have a very short window to dig holes. The ground needs to be saturated for it to handle all the rocks. And then some of the planting locations are difficult to get to in early spring due to wet soft muck on the way. The Strategy is to dig the worst access spots first if possible and save the easier ones for when soil conditions necessitate such.

Digging will begin as soon as soil conditions allow and hopefully we don’t encounter any serious breakdowns. Digging that many holes by hand is not a viable option. And actually this is ”easing” into it, isn’t it?

 

[Chainsaw]

It was tempting to just graft or have grafted a few hundred apple trees using scions from my Turning Point tree as that tree has everything I’m looking for. However in the interest of limiting exposure from unknown diseases it seemed necessary to go with several varieties of apple trees. And then upon further research it seemed additionally necessary to go with even more than a single specie of fruit. Thus pears were added. Besides the insurance against one disease wiping out the entire planting the resultant longer bloom time from having two fruit tree species and many varieties within each would reduce the risk of zero or extremely poor pollination due to bad weather.

It was about last Dec. 10 before a budget and ordering plan was figured out. Little did I know most nurseries were selling out of much of their stock by then. This was a real downer. Each day as the ordering plan was adjusted to match what various nurseries had in stock they would run out of something else. Finally I got some orders in for some of the trees that met my criteria for here and that the nurseries still had in stock. It made for some expensive shipping costs purchasing from different nurseries though. EDIT- Buying from different buyers did not actually raise shipping costs. They were higher because with small orders and the box not full is not so economical because UPS evidently charges by box size and not weight up to a point. Thus shipping four trees when ten could have fit makes the shipping per tree more costly.

These are the varieties of apples that are expected to be be shipped to us this spring;
Dolgo Crab, Liberty, Sundance, 30-06, Drop Tine, Gray Ghost, Enterprise, Freedom, Winter Wildlife Crab, Ormiston Roy Crab, Purdy, King David, purple prince and Arkansas Black. Arkansas Black might be a test case for our winters but the rest looked Okay for sure. And David and Purple Prince were ordered for just their blooms.
Apple trees were ordered on a variety of rootstocks as available. 14 apple varieties, 58 apple trees total.

These are the pear varieties expected to be shipped to us this spring;
Malus, Advent, Rifle Deer Pear, Danville Keiffer, Korean Giant, Golden Spice, Gourmet Pear, Stacyville Pear, Rogue Red, Patten, Magness, Harrow Crisp, Harrow Sweet, Potomac, Seckel, Summer Crisp. There are no other than one variety of early hunting season wild pears on the property so pears covering early to late were purchased and on various rootstocks as available. 16 pear varieties, 55 pear trees total.

Rootstocks for grafting from the few late holding apple trees here were ordered in B118, G890, and P18. Rootstocks for grafting from our wild pear trees here were ordered in OHX87 and OHX 97. Some leftover rootstock of both apples and pears will be planted in a garden bed to be grafted to at later dates. Additional rootstock diversity for both apples and pears will come from seedlings grown here from seeds produced here on various wild trees.

Apples on the short to order list for next year that were sold out before I got my orders ready this past winter are; Big Dog, Callaway Crab, Buckman Crab, Golden Hornet, Grams Gift, Kerr Crab, Road Kill, Sonocal, and Canisteo. And on the pears additional Advent and Rifle Deer Pears will be on the short order list. And I suspect some of the nurseries will tempt me with some "new" varieties next fall.

And again why all of this effort with over 2,000 released wild apple trees already on the property? Answer--Most of the released wild apple trees here have fully dropped their apples around Nov. 15*. Planting of these mostly late holding apple and pear trees is to provide additional food to the deer from Nov. 15 thru the winter part of March so more young deer can grow into larger and healthier deer like these two caught on trail cam last season. And it is hoped that the resultant additional winter food will help some of our older deer live longer and healthier lives as well. And further planting and growing apple and pear trees will be fun.

*Actual dropping dates vary each year and sometimes apples are held on many trees here another week or so but not normally.

 

[chummer]

That deer is sticking his tongue out at you. I think he is on to you.

 

[Chainsaw]

That deer is sticking his tongue out at you. I think he is on to you.

I’m pretty easy going but if he does it in front of me next fall it won’t end well for him.

 

[PoorSand]

The tree cages you made look the same as my favorite size. What I do probably violates a lot of "the rules", but seems to work out for bulk plantings of low cost trees. I keep my whips in my cages trained as whips until they develop laterals at the height I want them to develop branches. When something kills a leader before it reaches the top of the cage, I use a rubber band to pull a newly forming branchlet to near vertical to become the new leader. I trim off all the other laterals every couple weeks throughout the entire growing season and give them 44-0-0 polymer coated urea every month of the growing season, except July and August.

 

[Chainsaw]

The tree cages you made look the same as my favorite size. What I do probably violates a lot of "the rules", but seems to work out for bulk plantings of low cost trees. I keep my whips in my cages trained as whips until they develop laterals at the height I want them to develop branches. When something kills a leader before it reaches the top of the cage, I use a rubber band to pull a newly forming branchlet to near vertical to become the new leader. I trim off all the other laterals every couple weeks throughout the entire growing season and give them 44-0-0 polymer coated urea every month of the growing season, except July and August.

Thanks Poorsand. My cages for my low cost self grafted trees were fashioned after yours. We use a lot of Urea in my brassicas. Do you have a formula like a handful per month or a cup around each tree?
I got a big kick out your planting 300 trees with four Guys in a six hour day. Farmers are the only people that could accomplish that. I’m in relatively good shape but I can’t even accomplish half of what my friend Dennis does in a day. He is a dairy farmer and the work he can do in an hour puts most of us or maybe all of us non-farmers to shame.

On branch height, since deer here eat to about six feet I’m thinking five feet is a good level to start the branching. The branches they eat in the winter is a good thing for them. What level do you shoot to have your first branches?

 

[chummer]

I wouldn’t use urea, easy to kill a tree with that. I use 10-10-10 or 19-19-19 and not until second year. I have torched a couple young trees even using low nitrogen fertilizer.

 

[Chainsaw]

I wouldn’t use urea, easy to kill a tree with that. I use 10-10-10 or 19-19-19 and not until second year. I have torched a couple young trees even using low nitrogen fertilizer.

Thanks Jeremy. I have very little experience in using nitrogen when growing out apple tree seedlings but have seen how too much nitrogen or nitrogen at the wrong time kills plants. Still when the sweet spot in timing and quantity is hit Urea has shown itself to grow some plants large and quickly. It is also a low cost medium for the most amount of nitrogen It provides. Evidently Poor Sand has been able to get great growth on his young trees with either none or an acceptable minimum amount of losses. I’m game to learn how to use all of the fertilizer options available including the more cost effective nitrogen mediums such as Urea as effectively as possible to maximize young fruit tree growth. Testing different fertilizer options is one of the tasks for some of the seedlings from the 1,981*apple seeds that were planted since December. It is hoped that way more seeds will germinate than is needed to afford the luxury of testing and learning how to maximize seedling growth while also developing an understanding of how to avoid actually setting plants back or worse yet even killing them. It could end up being another swing and a miss or it be could a homerun.

*planted another 654 Apple seeds since we last talked about planting apple seeds.

 

[Chainsaw]

Snow had left for two days and though deer spent the majority of their time in the green fields of Triticale and rye they are still checking the Turning Point apple tree regularly. Have been busy cutting pear and apple scions from our property; Getting good apple scions has been challenging but the wild pears have what looks like perfect size scions. The plan is to prune, prune and reprune one main stem of Turning Point and a main stem on each of the other late hanging apples on the property with the goal being to cause the trees to sprout some good grafting size scions next spring. Will take before and after pictures. Meanwhile with the snow gone the area underneath Turning Point is well trampled and looks to have had plenty of natural organic matter deposited there.

Am ramping up getting prepared for planting. Had some hardware cloth in the lower barn so cut it to size for trunk protection; ended up with 80 sized 2 ft. by 12 inches. It was hard to work with but it was good to use it up. Also cut 230 window screen pieces to 2 ft. by 16 inches each for trunk protection. And have begun cutting electrical conduit to 5 ft. long for fence stakes. Weather is breaking but ground is still frozen below a few inches and currently it is snowing. Still prep time is almost over. There is maybe a week and a half left before grafting and planting begins.

The rough rolled pieces of screen came from one source and the nice neat flat pieces came from another. The flat pile has twice as many pieces as the more messy curled piles.
Wife Anne has not said a word as packages of screening, ground staples, cut protection gloves, ground cloth, traded scions, rolls of grafting tape, a stapler and matching staples have been delivered. Nor has she said a word about the second refrigerator being filled with scions but she did mention that the back room (where I'm busy preparing) sounds like Santa's workshop on Christmas Eve. There is a lot of stuff going on and the aisles are filling up.

Tomorrow I meet up with Chummer and we are going scion collecting in his area. Hope I can squeeze tomorrows' scions into the backup refrigerator; it might be pushing it to intrude on the main food refrig.

 

[willy]

That is an awesome workshop Santa. Have fun building.:)

 

[Chainsaw]

This project is full of learning curves. A most unexpected was the low amount of good scion wood on the average tree here. Apparently unpruned trees generally do not produce very good scion wood. This was totally unexpected. We did get some good scions off Turning Point but not any where the amount anticipated. The same went for two other late hanging trees. Some usable scions were had but for the most part they were too skinny. So Turning Point and the other two late hanging trees on this property have been pruned heavily in an effort to produce a large amount of sucker growth this summer to be used in March 2021 as scions. Pictures have been taken of each tree before pruning and after pruning. The trees will be caged and fertilized and mulched with the goal being a huge amount of tree suckers to use as scion wood in 2021. Near term fruit production has been sacrificed in hopes of encouraging lots of scion growth. Pictures will be taken this summer of the trees and all pictures will be posted so that other new grafting guys like myself might shorten their learning curves regarding creating scions.

Grafting was the next learning curve. You Tube videos showed how simple it was to make a few cuts and have the cut pieces fit together perfectly. It was very simple but not easy. After practice cutting around fifty sticks I finally got one that looked like it fit together good enough to work. So each day I practice cutting many sticks and slowly the cuts are getting better. Again it is a simple stroke of the knife with a pull from the opposite hand but not easy.

And as expected the first four tree planting holes were dug in a few minutes. And then a hydraulic hose eleven feet long sprung a leak. Three hours later with the hose replaced the soil had thawed and access to the remote planting plot was impossible due to thawing muddy ground on the way. A predicted twenty something degree night tonight might make it possible to get into the remote plot early am and dig a few holes and hopefully have time to get out of there before the ground turns back to soup.
Other than that everything is going as planned so far. My first shipped order should arrive tomorrow or Thursday. It comes from Cummins Nursery and includes 145 root stocks and eleven trees. It may be a little early for the trees but it is the date I requested. Four twenty gallon tubs filled with damp half composted wood chips are ready to transfer and hold the rootstock and trees. Hopefully that part will go well. Pictures will be posted of the trees and root stocks received.

Live grafting will begin in a week or so. For myself and two other forum members it will be our first live grafts; Chummer will be with us to make sure we get them right. He claims to not be that proficient at it but the many successfully grafted trees on his property say otherwise. Despite the unexpected poor scion deal and the difficulty encountered in cutting good grafts and the usual equipment breakdowns it continues to be a fun and exciting project. I wish I had got involved in this activity thirty or forty years ago.

 

[TreeDaddy]

Another classic Chainsaw thread......

bill

 

[chummer]

Dave if you don’t have enough scion don’t be afraid to plant the rootstock and graft them in place next year. I almost think that would work better than planting new grafts direct in the field. My last scion should be here today so I am ready. I am on unofficial lock out at work for at least two weeks so any day works for me.

 

[sandbur]

Dave if you don’t have enough scion don’t be afraid to plant the rootstock and graft them in place next year. I almost think that would work better than planting new grafts direct in the field. My last scion should be here today so I am ready. I am on unofficial lock out at work for at least two weeks so any day works for me.

If you need scion for one year from now, let me know early.


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