Apples,apples and more apples

[Lee Haakenson]

My grafts from this year, which are all late dropping varieties will go into this plot I just cleared. I transplanted a few from a property I am selling along with a few spruce. This plot connects to my other orchard plot which is great except it is closer to the road. I will screen it off but it will take a few years. Pics are a spruce I pulled and the best two dolgo seedlings. Tapatalk just cut me off so that is all for now

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Thats a fine looking spruce!

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[Chainsaw]

Good observation Lee, that is a good looking spruce seedling. It is amazing how nice they grow when the deer leave them alone like they do on Chummer‘s properties. Good luck on your new clearing Chummer. It looks great and it is always hard to choose where to end new openings but double girdling the multi stemmed cherry with shallow chainsaw cuts would sure help that spot retain nutrients and moisture for summer for the existing wild Apple trees as well as the transplanted ones. The cherry could linger on for maybe a few years afterwards but it wouldn’t be eating up much resources and of course would not get any larger as well. The clearing in affect has released the cherry tree and it is likely to see some new crown expanding growth if left unscathed.

 

[chummer]

Good observation Lee, that is a good looking spruce seedling. It is amazing how nice they grow when the deer leave them alone like they do on Chummer‘s properties. Good luck on your new clearing Chummer. It looks great and it is always hard to choose where to end new openings but double girdling the multi stemmed cherry with shallow chainsaw cuts would sure help that spot retain nutrients and moisture for summer for the existing wild Apple trees as well as the transplanted ones. The cherry could linger on for maybe a few years afterwards but it wouldn’t be eating up much resources and of course would not get any larger as well. The clearing in affect has released the cherry tree and it is likely to see some new crown expanding growth if left unscathed.

I hate that cherry, there are actually two of them. One of them had one of their main leaders come down this week and it landed right on my brush pile! They are on my list. Those spruce were on the property with no deer in the winter. I had a bunch of them I was babysitting at camp behind my shed and the deer found them and ate them down to the trunk.

 

[chummer]

Not thing like monsoon rains after all your plantings are done!!!

 

[Chainsaw]

As some may have noticed as of April 22 post #177 the grafts weren't looking too promising so we had moved the buckets with all of the grafted plants out of the cold and unheated lower barn and up to the heated barn. I was beginning to get concerned that maybe they froze too many times in the lower barn as they were being slow to show any growth above the grafts. Well eight days in the warmer building have brought most of them to life. The first picture are grafts from some of Chummers trees. This bucket contains Centerfield tree, Dolga Crab and Kerr Crab. Am especially excited about Chummer's Centerfield tree as it is a late holding huge old wild tree and we were only able to get a few small scions off of it but made eight grafts out of three small Centerfield sticks and they all seem to be possibly taking hold so far.


And the next two pics are of pear grafts grown from scions cut off of trimmings of Advent and Rifle Pear trees received in March.



The thrill of seeing so many grafted root stocks showing life made all the work seem like "What work?". I did not check all of the buckets but am presuming they are are on par with the few that were checked. Three garden beds 50 feet by 7 feet each have been tilled as deep as the tiller goes and are ready for planting. The electric fence is turned on and functioning well. Winds, very high winds made me leery of planting yesterday even though the grafts do feel strong. The winds are now gone though and no freezes are forecast for the next ten days at least so full planting of grafted trees can now begin as time permits. Yesterdays rain deluge will make for messy planting but it could go quickly as no watering will be done. Rain showers are forecast on and off all week. So out into the mud I go.

 

[chummer]

I moved mine to the garden box yesterday. I am going to upgrade to 18 out of 20 are alive. Someone else can chime in but I don’t think you should plant those yet. I think they need to go in partial sun for a couple weeks before being planted in full sun. I could be imagining it but that is what I have done and I must have picked it up somewhere

 

[Chainsaw]

I moved mine to the garden box yesterday. I am going to upgrade to 18 out of 20 are alive. Someone else can chime in but I don’t think you should plant those yet. I think they need to go in partial sun for a couple weeks before being planted in full sun. I could be imagining it but that is what I have done and I must have picked it up somewhere

Thanks Jeremy, Yes that practice was mentioned in a couple of different threads.Some trees will be planted directly in the sun and some not to see if it makes a difference. Center Field and other special plants will be planted after slowly exposing them to direct sun just to be safe. 18 out of 20 is very acceptable wouldn't you say? In your garden box do you have to fence it to keep out rabbits? And if not do you have rabbits there?

 

[mikmaze]

this looks interesting...... novelty no doubt but cool. https://onegreenworld.com/product/white-cloud-apple/?mc_cid=490a41302a&mc_eid=e9fb11597f

 

[chummer]

Thanks Jeremy, Yes that practice was mentioned in a couple of different threads.Some trees will be planted directly in the sun and some not to see if it makes a difference. Center Field and other special plants will be planted after slowly exposing them to direct sun just to be safe. 18 out of 20 is very acceptable wouldn't you say? In your garden box do you have to fence it to keep out rabbits? And if not do you have rabbits there?

It is a raised box of about 20”. I have never seen a live rabbit in there and we have a lot of rabbits. My daughter and I take them out with the pellet gun. I did find a fresh dead baby rabbit when I went to put the Midwest crabs in for a couple days. It happened to be dead and buried right where I dug a hole. I can’t for the life of me figure out how it got there. Best guess is a fox buried it after eating a few of his siblings. I put the bucket out for a few hours a day for about ten days. Then left it out for two full days before I planted them. I am very happy with the results. The only definite failure the scion got knocked loose so for grafting skill it could be 18 for 19. I must of been getting tired at the end because I ended up with three with out labels and one with out tape.

 

[sandbur]

I took my six grafts out of the garage and planted them. I use these contraptions for shade.

Maybe I posted these on this thread before. Heck if I remember.


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[Chainsaw]

Sandbur, that is as you referred to it quite the “contraption“. Thanks for posting, I’m planning on seeing how much the direct sun affects how many trees. Am presuming it might be more of a late winter problem and more pronounced on south slopes.Lots of stuff reacts differently on different properties so we’ll see what happens here. Likely may need to build some contraptions or at least white paint the south slope planted trees.

 

[mikmaze]

thanks for the thumbs up chainsaw, price is high, but we only need one to provide grafting material for years to come.

 

[Barndog56]

In the past I've went directly from storage to in ground, but have always made sure we had 2 or 3 overcast days for them to start out with. Never seen any problems.

 

[Chainsaw]

thanks for the thumbs up chainsaw, price is high, but we only need one to provide grafting material for years to come.

Price is pennies Milkmaze. I hope it continues but we are all really spoiled with being able to buy super genetic trees at commercial prices. In some other plants that is not the case; ie; daylilies sell for $15 each but new ones just introduced with special characteristics sell from $75 to $250 each with some occasionally going much higher. And "making" new daylilies is a lot more common than finding or "making" new apple trees.

Barndog, I'm with you. Thank you for sharing your experience. It was such a thrill to see how the grafts erupted once brought into the heat but now they need to be planted. If they were kept dormant planting could be more slow and steady. If one only does a few it doesn't matter so much but with such a small planting window as there is and a fair amount of grafts it makes more sense to plant them dormant if possible and directly from storage as you did. I definitely see that now.

To any new guys wondering how long it takes to plant grafted rootstock into a tilled bed, my average today was 47.75 planted per hour. However after four hours I had had enough of that and had to switch activities. Maybe a younger person could plant 60 or 70 per hour or better yet two young people working as a team together could plant maybe 150 an hour. I'm not suggesting it be a race but just providing times so other new guys will know how much time it takes to plant these things in numbers.

Edit;In planting more grafted root stocks today(5/3/20 it became very obvious that the time it takes to plant a large number is directly related to what root stock is being used. G890, P18, M111,and B118 plant very quickly. Antonovka root stock on the other hand with it's much larger root structure takes quite a bit more time to plant.

 

[chummer]

Dave, I cringed when I watched the weather today. Multiple days of potential frost and freeze warnings for this weekend. I hope you have enough buckets to cover those grafts. My home trees are loaded with blossoms ready to open, not looking for them. Camp has barely started waking up yet so those should be okay.

 

[BuckSnort]

Dave, I cringed when I watched the weather today. Multiple days of potential frost and freeze warnings for this weekend. I hope you have enough buckets to cover those grafts. My home trees are loaded with blossoms ready to open, not looking for them. Camp has barely started waking up yet so those should be okay.

I was out with stakes and blankets last night. The biggest trouble is knowing the graft union and new leaves are delicate and trying to keep the wind from doing damage at the same time. It took me a bit to get the setup right but it was time well spent considering the long term investment here.

 

[sandbur]

Dave, I cringed when I watched the weather today. Multiple days of potential frost and freeze warnings for this weekend. I hope you have enough buckets to cover those grafts. My home trees are loaded with blossoms ready to open, not looking for them. Camp has barely started waking up yet so those should be okay.

I was out with stakes and blankets last night. The biggest trouble is knowing the graft union and new leaves are delicate and trying to keep the wind from doing damage at the same time. It took me a bit to get the setup right but it was time well spent considering the long term investment here.

I finished top working on Wed or Thursday. The wind blew over one cage and broke off my Golden Russet tw. Frost last night and colder is coming.


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[Chainsaw]

Planting early here is always a gamble. I'm short about 340 buckets, only have fifty-three. Looks to be coming somewhat from the west and north. Those two winds will bring the frigid air over the warmer lake waters. We could get lucky and not get hard freezes. A few of the grafts haven't woke up yet so some of them will at least make it. Think I might put the rest of the graft planting on hold until this passes. Thanks for bringing it to my attention Chummer; They had changed the forecast and I hadn't seen the change yet.

Glad you got yours covered BuckSnort; that is for sure a hairy maneuver covering them with sticks and blankets.

Sandbur, you picked the right year for doing only a few grafts.

 

[chummer]

Planting early here is always a gamble. I'm short about 340 buckets, only have fifty-three. Looks to be coming somewhat from the west and north. Those two winds will bring the frigid air over the warmer lake waters. We could get lucky and not get hard freezes. A few of the grafts haven't woke up yet so some of them will at least make it. Think I might put the rest of the graft planting on hold until this passes. Thanks for bringing it to my attention Chummer; They had changed the forecast and I hadn't seen the change yet.

Glad you got yours covered BuckSnort; that is for sure a hairy maneuver covering them with sticks and blankets.

Sandbur, you picked the right year for doing only a few grafts.

They changed already since this morning. Now we have a freeze warning for tonight and snow and freeze warning this weekend.

 

[sandbur]

Planting early here is always a gamble. I'm short about 340 buckets, only have fifty-three. Looks to be coming somewhat from the west and north. Those two winds will bring the frigid air over the warmer lake waters. We could get lucky and not get hard freezes. A few of the grafts haven't woke up yet so some of them will at least make it. Think I might put the rest of the graft planting on hold until this passes. Thanks for bringing it to my attention Chummer; They had changed the forecast and I hadn't seen the change yet.

Glad you got yours covered BuckSnort; that is for sure a hairy maneuver covering them with sticks and blankets.

Sandbur, you picked the right year for doing only a few grafts.

I did a bunch of topworks, by my standards. Running out of room and I am trying to hold back.

... I did spray a strip in the old cow yard last week. For next year, maybe.


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