Oh this is a great thread.
A favorite topic.
Someone used the term "ditch crab". Great term. Will use it myself going forward.
Finding those trees (actually 'looking' for 'em) is sort of a hobby of mine.
And right now ...3rd week of November.....is prime time for me to do it.
And I am.
Collected seeds from two today....(and appraised them for March scion collection).
Over the years, I have had 4 or 5 home-runs. As many, or more, flops.
My home-runs are crabs.....and a pear.
With my best crab.....I watched this cluster of crabs for years before I finally started propagating. It was a very large red crab....but within 50yards or so...there were, oh I don't know....maybe 6, 9, 10? other crabs with similar fruit. But those trees were smaller. I assumed he big one was Momma. So I was confident she threw off fertile seed that came true (closely 'true') to her fruit and bearing qualities. So I now have a lot of trees from her seeds....actually the seeds of one of her progeny.
But what she and her child have done for me......is give me trees that produce annually, with fruit in quantity, and hang late dropping slowly (my 'vending machine' analogy).
That's a home-run in any habitatist's game plan.
My flops have turned out be bi-annual producers. Or meager crops.
Too often ...like this afternoon's collecting.....I pull seeds from trees I became aware of just within a year or so. . So I don't have years of 'curating' them. And too often I get 'flops' from such trees.
Here's a story of an interesting flop:
A beautifully shaped tree with a humongous fruit load in November of that particular year. I had just noticed it several months earlier. I was so impressed with that tree.
But it was on the grounds of a state prison with signs all over the place to stay off, no trespassing, yadda, yadda, yadda. It was not on groomed grounds but along one of their water lines, an un-mowed area. Big deal. No harm, no foul.
I had about a 100yd walk to get to it. So I did. Got my Bahco's on my hip and hiked to the tree and got 2 or 3 dozen fruits. And turned to hike back to my truck.....which, by now, had collected two guard trucks....one blocking it from the front, the other the rear. Uh-oh.
I knew I was gonna get a licking at least (my Bahco holster kinda looks like a pistol holster). The three uniforms were standing next to my truck watching me intently. Seriously. Oh, sh*t!
They asked me to stop about 10 so yards out, told me to raise my sweatshirt which exposed my holstered clippers. Asked me to take 'em out and hold 'emup. (they were armed but had not drawn). I gotta admit I had some trepidation. From 10yds they asked me what I thought I was doing. I explained. Told 'em I'd reach into my hoodie's belly pocket and pull out some crab fruits. Which I did.
They told me to approach. Got my name and where I lived. Looked at my driver's license. I said propagating apples and pears was a hobby. And that sorta broke the ice. One of the men didn't know me personally but was familiar with my farm location. It ended up a pleasant exchange. They told me don't do it again. If I want those fruits in the future call their grounds department.
Me: "OK, officers. Will do. Thank you. Have a good day. Sorry if I caused any anxiety."
Whew!!!!
And that damn crab turned out to be a bi-annual bearer.
I sh*it-canned its' seedlings after two years in the nursery.
