Hey all,
So here are most of the trees I'm working on. The first pictures are of the grafts. At this point, I think that all but one tree has taken, and that which I'm not 100% on I've still got hope. I'm thinking about taking the tape (a few times around with plumbers tape, and then wrapped with electrical tape. My plan was to just cut it to release pressure, but not to completely remove it until the fall. As a side note, I left one tag on a tree and this one said that it was going to grow 8-12' tall. Should this be staked for life? I think that the majority of the trees I planted said 12-15', so I'm not too worried about having just one like this.
For these trees that I grafted, should I cut out the nurse limbs later this summer? I left multiple nurse limbs because I wanted to make sure that I could graft onto these next year if this year failed (I basically just cut out the central leader to graft). I'm planning to make these DR varieties the new leader. I know that the entire tree won't be DR, but I'll only have a few feet of trunk that isn't DR.
Now for the diseases. The first picture is what I think is a fireblight canker. I've got a few problems with this. This is a wild tree, and judging by the size of it it's 20+ years old, and it has survived with no care its entire life. I would think that if this is fireblight, it would be dead by now. Another problem I see is that the end of this branch isn't cankered or showing any signs. Could it be black rot instead?
The second disease picture is on a tree nearby. This is the worst bunch of leaves that I saw. The rest seem to have only one leaf that is dead. Again, it looks like fireblight, but they aren't quite black and shriveled. Additionally, all of the buds are normal looking.
The third disease picture is on one of my new keiffers. I was wondering what would be doing this? Is it an insect, or a disease?
The final picture is just a nice picture of one of the wild trees that I found a few years ago. It is the smallest of the 4 that I found. It needs some more pruning, but already all of the trees have had the most buds I've ever seen after I opened up the canopy around them. They are on surprisingly wet (consistently mushy) ground. They have some nice 2-3 inch apples that hang on the tree. I'm really excited to get my new trees going along side them!
So here are most of the trees I'm working on. The first pictures are of the grafts. At this point, I think that all but one tree has taken, and that which I'm not 100% on I've still got hope. I'm thinking about taking the tape (a few times around with plumbers tape, and then wrapped with electrical tape. My plan was to just cut it to release pressure, but not to completely remove it until the fall. As a side note, I left one tag on a tree and this one said that it was going to grow 8-12' tall. Should this be staked for life? I think that the majority of the trees I planted said 12-15', so I'm not too worried about having just one like this.
For these trees that I grafted, should I cut out the nurse limbs later this summer? I left multiple nurse limbs because I wanted to make sure that I could graft onto these next year if this year failed (I basically just cut out the central leader to graft). I'm planning to make these DR varieties the new leader. I know that the entire tree won't be DR, but I'll only have a few feet of trunk that isn't DR.
Now for the diseases. The first picture is what I think is a fireblight canker. I've got a few problems with this. This is a wild tree, and judging by the size of it it's 20+ years old, and it has survived with no care its entire life. I would think that if this is fireblight, it would be dead by now. Another problem I see is that the end of this branch isn't cankered or showing any signs. Could it be black rot instead?
The second disease picture is on a tree nearby. This is the worst bunch of leaves that I saw. The rest seem to have only one leaf that is dead. Again, it looks like fireblight, but they aren't quite black and shriveled. Additionally, all of the buds are normal looking.
The third disease picture is on one of my new keiffers. I was wondering what would be doing this? Is it an insect, or a disease?
The final picture is just a nice picture of one of the wild trees that I found a few years ago. It is the smallest of the 4 that I found. It needs some more pruning, but already all of the trees have had the most buds I've ever seen after I opened up the canopy around them. They are on surprisingly wet (consistently mushy) ground. They have some nice 2-3 inch apples that hang on the tree. I'm really excited to get my new trees going along side them!
