Wet Feet, Wind and Hail damage, a Bark graft & a Suprise or Two.

greyphase

5 year old buck +
With Sandbur's talk about wet feet on another thread I thought I'd show you a "mistake" I made. Three years ago I planted an Antonovka seedling from SLN near my vernal pond. At the time the pond was smaller but this year has been especially wet (3 1/2 inches in the last 2 days) so the pond as grown and now she definitely has "wet feet". I grafted a Black Oxford scion to her last spring that took and she seems to be growing this spring. Hopefully the water will drop in a few days and she can start to dry out. It will be interesting to see if she can survive and prosper in this location.
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We had a big storm go through Wed nite with high winds and hail. A tornado touched down 6 or 8 miles from my place, a very rare occurrence for my part of Pa. The nursery took some damage from the hail but hopefully the trees will bounce back.
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The biggest damage was to an old Blue Pearmain apple tree that I had planted 30 some years ago down along the lane. She never produced that good of an apple but the deer like them and I was sad to see her laying there across the lane.
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But as I waded in to clean her off the lane I saw that she hadn't broken off but as just leaning heavily. So with a severe "pruning" I believe she will go on producing apples for the deer to enjoy.
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As I started to cut down the mess of honeysuckle and pole timber sized sumac and cherry surrounding her I found this.
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Where this apple tree came from I don't know. Possibly a seedling of the old Pearmain , it somehow grew in the thickly shaded tangled corner. It has a few apples on it and will benefit greatly from the additional sunlight it will now get.

As I was checking for storm damage in the horse pasture I looked in on a bark graft that I had done on a wild seedling apple tree with some Williams Pride scionwood that I had left over. Happy to see that my first attempt at bark grafting was a success.
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My last surprise came when I was checking the nursery this morning. A Court Pendu Plat grafted on April 1st to a B118 rootstock finally woke up. So boys don't give up on those sleeping scions too soon.
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Lot2Learn

5 year old buck +
Thanks for sharing the experience!
 

Jim Timber

5 year old buck +
I wish I could stumble upon a fruiting apple tree. :) I'm positive I don't have any though.
 
D

dipper

Guest
I've got 6 "sleepers" like that. I thought Crazy Ed said sleepers are the first ones to dry up? Mine also have that brown color on the tips, I'm guessing that's a bad sign? You do have some grafting skills, looks good.
 

Turkey Creek

5 year old buck +
I have had some sleeper scions as well, not sure how they will fair in the long run, but glad I didnt remove them. Thanks for the mini tour GP.
 

sandbur

5 year old buck +
I wish I could stumble upon a fruiting apple tree. :) I'm positive I don't have any though.


The furthest north I have found a wild apple tree is about 7 miles south of Brainerd.. It had crabs about 3/4 inch in diameter. There are probably wild trees in the northeast along Lake Superior and to the west of Brainerd. I have not found wild trees to the north of Brainerd.
 

CrazyEd

5 year old buck +
Well Rick a few set backs but plenty of positives too. If you need more Black Ox scions there are plenty more where those came from! I think your tree will pull through, i'm curious to see the results. I don't have experience with wet feet, it's absolutely impossible on our property. water runs right through it.
 

Jim Timber

5 year old buck +
Art, I'm 10 miles SE of Brainerd off CR22. I've already been through my whole lot a few times and have never found apples.

I did throw out some crabs from a neighbors tree for the critters a couple years ago, so maybe I'll get some yet, but I fully expect to be planting the apple trees I end up with.
 
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