Project W: Columnar Apple Shot Plot

[chickenlittle]

Grafting success is still up in the air. 9 Tbuds and 5 bench grafts are in various states of turning brown and declining. Still likely 75% or better success. Some might still pull through. I hope we get out of this wet weather pattern soon.

My dozen seedlings got planted out into the nursery today. They'd had a week or 2 to harden off and get acclimated to the sun. Next year I expect to have a bunch more so I'll have to start preparing a new location.

Here are some fruit photos that should give me lots of seeds to start next year. I am not planning to thin these any.

Maypole crab


Golden Sentinel, lots of apples

This was labeled Tasty Red but probably mislabeled

 

[chickenlittle]

Dried off today and I spent some time in the nursery tonight. Pulled some weeds and looked things over. Good T-buds are starting to harden off and grow fast. I started to choose a dominant bud when I had 2 take. I just pinched the ends off one for now. Last year I mostly let both grow last year but more so I could get scionwood. Some t-buds and bench grafts are still struggling but I hoping some warmer, drier weather will help get them back on track if they haven't failed.

Work has been too busy lately. I hope to get a couple full days down to the farm this weekend. Will clean up the t-buds on the columnar trees. Thin apples on my regular trees. Check on persimmon and paw paw grafts. Maybe plant some of the 200 spruce seedlings that have been heeled in for 6 weeks if they are still in good shape.

Here are a couple T buds .

 

[chickenlittle]

Got to the farm and did a lot of little maintenance tasks this morning. Here is an example of a tbud that hadn't been touched in 3 or 4 weeks. The B118 rootstock was sending up a bunch of competing growth. I removed all that so it was just the columnar Tbud remaining.
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[chickenlittle]

 

[chickenlittle]

I've gone through my nursery in the last week and tried to photograph all my grafts for my records. I wish my phone had a better camera as I get way too many blurry or out of focus shots. I want to track what might be showing what disease like scab, cedar apple rust or powdery mildew.

My grafting stats are going to be ok but I might still lose some more. Currently at 41 surviving grafts out of 54.

23 of 27 tbuds still 23 going. Seems like I lost more than 4. Tbuds are typically more vigorous than bench grafts for me but a number are suffering from powdery mildew and look vulnerable. I have some more tbudded trees in pots that I did not include. Those were rootstock that got damaged by voles in my shotplot and I happened to catch them before they died. All have survived and all but one has the tbud still going. Unfortunately, I lost track of what is what variety while I was angry about the vole damage.

17 out of 23 on bench grafts. Few have really taken off and some still look vulnerable.

Only 1 out of 4 on field grafted. One of the non-takes really still looks like the scion is ok but it has never leafed out and the rootstock is sending up some shoots.

A number of the failures look like the rootstock could be dead. A couple of those just started sending sprouts. Some more might do the same. These won't be ready to tbud in August but could be regrafted next year.

Here is a tbud that looked pretty good a couple weeks ago. Turned brown and now I'll let that M111 sprout come up. Very disappointing to see it fail after it had that much nice growth.


Here is an example of what I think it is powdery mildew. Newest leaves silvery and some leaves curling up. This was a pretty vigorous tbud of Dabinett on G222.

 

[chickenlittle]

Here are some photos of some columnar bench grafts. As with these, columnar bench grafts sometime don't put on a lot of growth the 1st year and end up looking like tiny palm trees.They all look pretty good although the 3rd from left is showing a little powder mildew.

 

[chickenlittle]

I mentioned my field grafting a couple posts back. Here is one that I was calling a failure but further review shows the scion is still alive and ok. Buds look good, greenish tint to the bark. I scraped it near the top and saw green cambium. I realize I put on a huge stick of scionwood so maybe that has something to do with it? It was the last graft I did and I didn't see any reason to throw away all that wood. The M111 rootstock is sending up some suckers that I'll have to decide soon to remove or leave. I wouldn't be surprised if this scionwood would stay dormant all year and leafed out next spring.

 

[chickenlittle]

Here is an update on my shotplot. The one on left is the original one I started and showed in the 1st post of this thread. The one on the right is new this year and has 9 columnar trees in it. The shorter one in the back are dwarf trees on G11 or M27. Next trip I'll get in and weed and clean better. The fencing is about 6" off the ground and the plots are crowned so apples will roll away from the trees. Ladder stand will go up against a maple along the edge. I'll plant something between these and the field for a little screening, maybe 3-4 rows of corn or some sorghum.

Trying to field graft or tbud has worked poorly and set this project back. I am now transplanting trees from my nursery. I expect to get a small crop of apples next year. Most of the dwarf trees flowered this year. Only one of the columnar trees has apples now.

I did remove a few trees, tbudded rootstock, that had vole damage this spring. Those all survived planted in 5 gal rootmaker pots my nursery and most of the columnar tbuds taking. I need to get on top of how to best protect these. Normal window screen won't work as well with these trees. I'd also like to do something to prune the roots from the woods trees. Maybe rent a walk behind trencher and run it between the woods and plots to cut the roots. Just looking for free up moisture and resources that those mature trees may be stealing. Some fertilizer next spring looks like a good idea as growth has been slow this year.

 

[Bowsnbucks]

Good looking " laboratory " you have going there. ^^^^ Which columnar variety is your most vigorous so far ?? ( of all you have planted ).

 

[chickenlittle]

Bows, that is a tough question to answer yet. I should at least measure all my trees for height this fall.

My biggest tree with the most fruit is a 3rd leaf Golden Sentinel... But it was much larger than the others I got at the same time, likely a year longer in the nursery at Raintree. It had a few apples the year I planted it. Frosted last year. Good crop now. It is 8 to 9 ft tall. I need to prune it this winter to remove some of the other leaders.

The maypole crab I got from Stark last year looks good with fruit last year and now. It has some scab on the leaves but fruit looks clean.

The crimson spire I bench grafted into P18 3 years ago is good size but did not flower this year like I hoped.

 

[Bowsnbucks]

Roger that. Good project though, Chicken.

 

[chickenlittle]

Here is a Kandil Sinap on G11 with 3 apples. I might have removed some earlier. These are 2015 tbuds using budwood from the USDA GRIN. This is a line of dwarf trees on G11 and M27 in a shot plot. With a wet year, they all look to be doing well. Most had some apples but I removed most as they were all thin whips. I know which varieties I budded but I lost track of which is which until I get mature fruit and tag them.

 

[chickenlittle]

Update:

Still a bunch of not so healthy trees in my nursery but a bunch do look good, putting on about 2ft or more from last year's T-bud. The ones at the farm looked pretty good when I was down there the week before. I should probably do some t-budding now but I'm not really prepared or organized. Too much else going on so I guess. Maybe I'll get the itch to spend some time figuring out what to do and bud some this weekend.

My seedlings that got rabbit damaged last year have mostly recovered and got back to about where they were last fall. The new seedlings I put out in early summer have not done much. A few have put on a few inches of growth.

It is about time for me to put up some fencing around my fruiting columnar trees. Don't want to lose any seeds like I did last year. Several are starting to get some color on the apples. Golden Sentinel has the most apples. With a good crop on it and Maypole crab, I can start to document drop times.

 

[chickenlittle]

Got to the farm to check on things this weekend. I've been able to get down every 2-3 weeks for most of the summer. Everything looks pretty good now, both columnar apples, regular apples, and pears. Most of last year's columnar T-buds are going strong and the rootstock had not sent out more competing growth. With those trees and the the ones in my nursery, I should have about 35 columnar trees that are big enough to transplant this year. The weaker ones should give me about the same number to transplant next year. That gives me plenty of trees to make a couple more shotplots for me and some for a couple local friends. With that, my grafting will slow way down. After a couple years of buying 100+ rootstocks, I only bench grafted 20 apples this spring and am currently t-budding just 9 trees now. There will be a few to regraft next year but I won't buy any rootstock. I think I will create few stool beds so I have some rootstock to play with in future years. But next year my apple focus will mostly turn to growing out columnar seedlings for evaluation.

 

[chickenlittle]

Update at the end of August on apple production in the backyard:

My columnar apples in the backyard are getting pretty good size. I bumped a couple trees with the lawnmower a couple weeks ago and knocked a couple apples off. Golden Sentinel has dropped a few in the last week with rotten spots, maybe insect damage? The seeds were just starting to turn brown. Should be ripe in a 2-3 weeks. Still a nice crop of small apples on it that are starting to blush. Maypole crab are getting close to 2" size too. Three of the urban apples varieties have big apples. The one that is supposed to be "Tasty Red" is starting to turn color. The others with apples are Blushing Delight and Golden Treat. The one that is supposed to be Tangy Green got a red apple last year but did not fruit this year. I am very interested to see if the others appear to be correct per the label as received. I need to put some some chicken wire fencing around them so I can get seeds out the apples after they drop. A few disappeared last year before I fenced them. i'd like to get a good idea when they will drop.

Maypole crab

Golden Sentinel - Lots of apples. Tree about 9 foot tall. Need pruned this winter to remove the co-leaders.

Tasty Red

 

[chickenlittle]

Blushing Delight - 3 apples



Golden Treat - 3 apples

 

[chickenlittle]

The nursery has mostly recovered from the powdery mildew from earlier in the summer. Most of the columnar T-budded trees will be ready to transplant out this fall and are a little over 2 ft tall now. With the disease problems, I was reluctant to cut off growth from one of the 2 buds from all of them. Some I headed back and some I let go. I could have gotten more growth from the best bud. I did realize the best growth on tree was actually a rootstock bud that looked to be from my Tbud. I just removed that the other day. Here are a couple photos of the best ones. My nursery has a lot of clover and weeds growing in it now so taking good photos can be difficult. Handweeding every week or so hasn't quite kept it clean.

 

[chickenlittle]

My seedlings the rabbits hit last December have mostly recovered and are now close to where they were at the end of last summer. I have pulled out 5 or 6 that looked non-columnar and there are some more that I will likely pull up before winter.

Last year's seedlings


Pulled out tree showing a lot of side branching.

 

[chickenlittle]

Seedlings started last winter have not done much since planting them out. A few are looking healthy at about 8-12" tall. Some of those look columnar. The ones that have struggled are just a few inches tall still. They may get another year to take off and those are probably more likely to be columnar. However, I should have so many columnar seeds to start this winter that I can start being more strict about ditching those that are not growing well.

I think my process of starting indoors in Jan-March has not worked well. I have started after they showed a radicle in Rootmaker 18 pots and later transplanted out from those pots rather than repot. I don't really want to buy a bunch of larger pots, I'd rather get them into the ground after last frost. Seeing Mahindra's post on direct sowing of pear seeds has gotten me thinking more about that root. Starting trees in pots indoors has never worked that well for me. They usually are starting to decline before I can get them transplanted. Then it takes a long time for them to recover and get growing again after transplanting. I will consider direct seeding some or all in some raise beds in the back yard. Direct seeding definitely worked better for me with chestnuts. With good outdoor conditions, the seedlings can really take off.

 

[chickenlittle]

Golden Sentinel has been dropping an apple every day or two. Not sure if many (or any) will make it to the end of the month. The seeds are not brown yet but the apples have a decent flavor. For my hunting seasons, I'd prefer varieties that drop after September. Being a smaller apple makes it a nice size for deer.

One of the Tasty Red apples dropped today but I have not checked the seeds or tasted it. These have not developed the full red color yet. I expect them to ripen into October.