Observations from the Nursery & Orchards

[greyphase]

I counted 75 living grafts this morning in the nursery. I grafted onto 75 B118's, 25 G-30's and 8 M111 this spring. Not a horrible average I guess, but my failures seem to be with the rootstock not growing. Just about every graft pushed out growth but the one's that died never pushed out any growth from the rootstock. Just an unanswered mystery from the nursery. I have had near 100% success with my limb grafts onto the wild apple trees growing around the place and should be able to get scion from these to replace most of the failed benchgrafts.

A mystery from the orchard is the death of 9 trees planted in the fall of 2014 and 2015. They leafed out this spring and then suddenly died about the 1st week of June. I haven't dug them up yet to try to figure out the cause.

An observation that surprised me in the orchards was the precociousness of some of my B118 trees. Planted in the fall of 2014 I had some bear fruit last spring and have even more bearing fruit this year. I only let 1 to 3 apples on a tree so as not to stunt their growth. I also planted about 20 G202 trees in the old pasture above the house at the same time and none of these have bore any fruit even though they are touted as being early bearing.

There's always something to learn or ponder on with this apple tree growing hobby we're all addicted too. :)

 

[Btaylor]

Do you have a different soil profile where the G202 planting were? I would be curious if there is a correlation. That seems to be the case at our place one orchard is doing significantly better than the other.

 

[Turkey Creek]

Yea I have been compiling the numbers as well and a good portion of my failures this year, more so than in past years was root stock that failed to grow. I am not sure there is a fool proof grafting method. Talked to a large commercial nursery last week and he said that they had a significant number of budding failures on their stock last fall. We are dealing with nature, its hard to bat 100%. I think grafting onto established root stock leads to the highest take rate, but is not a practical or convenient method in alot of circumstances.

 

[chummer]

Do you know the varieties that died after leaf out? Did they fully open? I had 4 chestnut crabs, 1 goldrush, 1 enterprise, and 2 liberties start to push out growth then shriveled up and die. There are the same varieties in the same area that did survive. Other than trunk cracking on the Liberties there is no visual distress on any of the trees. The Goldrush was a gamble (zone wise) but one 30 yards away did survive and is doing good. More interestingly was the Liberty with the worse trunk damage has turned the corner and is doing ok. The Chestnuts were the real kick in the pants, I thought they would be fool proof, to make it worse I planted 8 more of them this year.

 

[greyphase]

Do you have a different soil profile where the G202 planting were? I would be curious if there is a correlation. That seems to be the case at our place one orchard is doing significantly better than the other.

The G202's have kept pace with the B118's in vegetative growth, just haven't produced any fruit. They are planted in a different section of the farm, but just looking at the soil the G202's seem to be planted in better dirt than the B118's. A soil test from both places could tell what's going on.

 

[greyphase]

Yea I have been compiling the numbers as well and a good portion of my failures this year, more so than in past years was root stock that failed to grow. I am not sure there is a fool proof grafting method. Talked to a large commercial nursery last week and he said that they had a significant number of budding failures on their stock last fall. We are dealing with nature, its hard to bat 100%. I think grafting onto established root stock leads to the highest take rate, but is not a practical or convenient method in alot of circumstances.

Yes, when your dealing with nature anything can happen. This is also the first year that I've had so many rootstock failures. but I'll still have more than enough to plant this fall.

 

[greyphase]

Do you know the varieties that died after leaf out? Did they fully open? I had 4 chestnut crabs, 1 goldrush, 1 enterprise, and 2 liberties start to push out growth then shriveled up and die. There are the same varieties in the same area that did survive. Other than trunk cracking on the Liberties there is no visual distress on any of the trees. The Goldrush was a gamble (zone wise) but one 30 yards away did survive and is doing good. More interestingly was the Liberty with the worse trunk damage has turned the corner and is doing ok. The Chestnuts were the real kick in the pants, I thought they would be fool proof, to make it worse I planted 8 more of them this year.

Yes they were fully leafed out before they died. All were on B118 rootstock. The varieties were: Court Pendu Plat, Canadian Strawberry, Kerr, Kaz 614000, King David, Knobbed Russet, PRI 1743-1, Keegan's Crab, and Cranberry Pippin. Have been wondering if something like an apple borer got to them? They were located in two separate locations with trees beside them unharmed.