It's almost the end of November. Now that it's frozen outside, not a lot to do in the orchard. I'm thinking about next year. Some nurseries ship in Feb. Even though winter is just beginning, some take orders now. Some don't until January.
I have a number of changes I want to make in my orchard. I try to balance long-term goals with short-term. I like seeing some benefit in the next year or two. Some trees won't bear for 3 or 4 or more years or more.
What I'm thinking about adding -
Euro Plum grafts. Some multigrafts for a NOID Euro plum that isn't that good and not very productive. It has a lot of suckers from the rootstock. I can graft onto those and cut out the rest and some of the older tree. Leave some which might bear better with pollinizers added. Maple Valley Orchards takes orders in Jan, so I'm researching their scion offerings. I think, "Mt. Royal" - Euro - blue, freestone, heavy producer, and "Seneca" - red, free stone, proven at Mt. Vernon WA.
Hybrid Plum grafts. I have some rootstock for Asian plums, and some trees I want to add varieties to. I'm thinking, Hybrids of Asian and American species - "Pipestone" - P. salicina X "Burbank" X P. americana "Wolf". U Minn 1942. Needs "Toka" or "Superior". Possibly an Asian plum would do it. "Pembina." P. salinina X P. nigra. Hansen, 1923. Dark red heavy yield. "Superior" - I don't have the history. "Waneta" Asian X American species. Hansen, 1913. These will be multigrafts, not much orchard room is needed and not a big investment. I am less and less interested in Zaiger hybrids, many don't seem adapted to Pacific NW, and there are few other varieties specifically designed to grow here. Maybe the Midwestern historic varieties will work, I haven't found trials. Main issues are will they bloom too early, are they susceptible to local disease, and how will the pollination work out. If the grafts from early 2015 bloom next Spring, I might have info in 2016 for other historic hybrid plums. They grew very well.
That looks like a lot, but is only 6 scions to graft onto 3 trees.
Apple trees and grafts. I am thinking about "Sweet 16" - U Minn, resists fireblight, precicious, good keeper, spicy flavor; "Winecrisp" - a PRI apple, "Newtown Pippin" - from 1700s, supposedly a favorite of Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, and Geo Washington, but is slow to start bearing; "Milo Gibson", unknown provenance, considered highly flavored, licorice with hints of banana, good keeper; "GoldRush", another PRI apple, and "Baldwin", about 1740, a classic from New England, keeps until Spring, disease and insect resistant. Again, seems like a lot but actually only 5 grafts plus one new tree that will get one or more, depending on what it looks like on arrival. This should give me a nice long season and a nice trial of some disease resistant varieties and a couple of heritage varieties.
I like multigrafting because this lets me try multiple varieties without adding too many more trees to take care of, and should help with pollination. If one is a dud or takes forever to bear, there are others to make up for it without removing trees and planting new ones and waiting more years.
I haven't been to HOS scion exchange - that could change the picture, especially if there are some good Asian pears or historic plums or some of the better pawpaws.
The big focus here is disease resistance, with some focus on historic types and diverse flavors I may never get to try otherwise.
I hope there are some apples and plums to taste from 2014 and 2015 grafts and trees. Some look promising, with spurs and what I think are flower buds. If the weather is good, there will be new pears and apples to taste, and more of the ones I tried this year. PRI "Pristine" was my favorite new one in 2015 - a very nice sprightly summer apple.
I probably spend too much time thinking about this stuff, but that's better than drinking or driving fast.
There are a few more additions, those will be mail order trees.
Are others thinking ahead, or I'm just the most obsessed guy in town?
Hello Daniel,
Thanks for sharing.
I don't think there are usually pawpaw scions at the exchange. There are countless apples and pears. This year, stone fruit selection was better than normal, but still a tiny fraction of the pomes.
Newtown Pippin is the principal apple in Martinelli's sparkling cider. They apparently pay a premium to keep the Newtown orchards in production. I can taste the resemblance when I eat them (which is I think is good).
I have Seneca, it is a nice, large, sweet free-stone European plum. I think I prefer Yakima though. It was hard to find scions, but I can hook you up if you are interested. (Hopefully the thrips don't come with the package)
Jafar, thanks for the input,
Yes I would be interested in trying Yakama. I wont hold you to it, but if there is a chance it would be fun to try. Im not worried about the thrips.
The local fruit stand had some Newtown Pippin last year. I liked it for pie and fresh eating.
If the force is with us, I may have some scion to add this time around. Most of my trees are young, but some figs and a couple of plums should have some.
Gold Rush is probably my favorite all around apple. Very flavorful, outstanding keeper, fits the rare yellow apple niche, tends to be disease resistant.
I agree with you on multigrafting. If I taste a fruit that I think is great, I am tempted to grow it. I've had many fruit from outstanding varieties that tasted extremely mediocre until I tasted them on my trees or someone's trees who grows them well. Some are just ok, and I remove them. Every year I taste a new variety.
I highly recommend Hollywood Asian plums. Disease free, delicious, and so productive I have to grow them in the shade so they don't break limbs. I still have to prop them up in the shade.
I can't believe you haven't been to the candy store/FPF/Scion exchange. It's amazing! There are also many things like quince, figs, grapes, medlar, etc. that you can grow from cuttings without grafting.
We're in HOS because we're all obsessed just like you. We can be insane together. No one will notice how weird we are because we're in a group.
John S
PDX OR
I'll be weird too then.
Year 1956 bulletin of the Minnesota breeding station lists Superior plum pedigree,
Burbank : salicina X (Kaga : americana x ? : simoni)
Your choices are making good sense as a result of some limited experiences (mine) here for several open pollinated selections of american and commercial plum and "straight" wild ancestors of the commercial types.
"Plum wise" beach plums, of the several I have had from mostly the wild performing very poorly (like apricots), no improvement grafting beach plum to Citation either.
From here I go into full crop next year with another cold hardy hybrid selection Lydecker (per patent: black ice). First fruit signs from last summer gave excellent reports from freinds which is not that unusual about many fruits in the first picking.
Nijiseiki asian pear can be like that. Once the crop is too high it's not my favorite asian pear anymore.
John, if there is any way I can co to the scion exchange, I really want to. I retire March 4th, at which time I hope to be free of schedule burdens.
I might be interested in quince. How long to bear from a cutting?
I found Hollywood easy to grow from hardwood cuttings. I got strike for 6 out of 6. Hollywood is the rootstock for my Ember, which grew 7 foot from a graft this year. Holy guacamole, I was impressed! With Shiro, I got 0 out of 6.
I can hold off pruning those, and Lattarula, Hardy Chicago, and King figs if those are wanted at scion exchange. Also Price, Venus, and Interlaken grapes.
Rooney, thanks for the pedigree. I really pay attention to that. Most of the pollination advice for hybrid Asian-American plums is from the upoer midwest, where the Asian varieties don't survive, so probably not tested. I am speculating that Asian plums will pollinize the hybrids. I do have an Smerican plum seedling, about 8 foot tall, hasn't bloomed yet.
Ive been looking at the info on Black Ice. What a great name! When will plums start to have "crisp" in their names? But, I don't want to buy a whole tree right now, and it is patented. I saw some in the Fedco catalog and thought about it.
All the years I tried making hybrids in Alaska I only had ancestry of wild plums from the opposite side of the world as the female to work with. Then when having big problems storing pollen from my home and always failing to do good with it in Alaska I decided several years ago it was time to have my own hybrid female parents near. When I bought 2 Black Ice I also tried 2 Zard apricot (hunza ecotypes) at the same time and always double up for insurance purposes. I ended up having to use winter rain cover on only the Zards and even lost one. The remainder and the Black Ice will live indefinitely so that leaves a spare with patent fees already paid. Just one idea.
I'm just very happy about the outcome for each variety. For example the Zard apricot was more successful making crosses to Alaska plums when I went up there than plums were. Zard must be rather wild then.
Shiro is very nice here and so far my best completely tested one. My worst is Emerald beaut here and Owen T. as well, being they have been brought here imported from greenhouses and from California, etc. I certainly would like to know if I could ever have male pollination go with my black ice this spring from either Toka or Superior or both.
John: According to this (link) there have been several false names under "hollywood" floating about. Which one do you think you have? The one most interesting to me is the true "Spencer Hollywood".
I think I shall have to pick one up of Spencer, and also one each of Superior and Toka that I have noticed all three are being offered by nurseries near Seattle or here. Any hollywood (or form of it) should be great pollinators. For example the rare times I get fruit from Emerald Beaut plum the seeds show reddish leaves after germinating from being pollinated by a Thundercloud plum, or something very close to it, all being related to the myrobalan (cerasifera) type that have always been known as being effective pollinators.
Rooney, my Hollywood came from Raintree Nursery. I doubt they know more about it than that, but you could always call them. Here are the plums -
Plums on tree last year. No photo from this year, overbore like crazy and I had to do a lot of thinning
The tree in my yard. It's the dark red one.
I also have another cerasifera, Crimson Pointe, an ornamental that has a fastigiate shape. The plums are smaller, all ripen within a few days of each other, watery, and clingstone, but the flavor is spicy and different from other plums. I think they would make a great jam but have only eaten them out of hand. Lots of plums on that tree too.
Crimson Pointe plums
I grafted Hollywood onto some of my other plums trees as a pollinizer. I did that with Crimson Pointe, too, but that tree died. Hollywood is proven graft compatible, in my yard, with 2 unknown Asian plums, Methley, Toka, and Ember.
Your Zard apricots sound interesting. Im burned out on apricot failures here, but do have some seedlings from a semi-local orchard - Marysville, I think - and have Pixiecot in a pot. And a graft from Mormon apricot that was top killed, not sure if it's from the top or the roots.
DanielW said
Rooney, thanks for the pedigree. I really pay attention to that.
I appreciate it about you too. It took me a little while to realize progress in developing new strains and furthering the professional work of others is kind of important. One such person I knew was (late) Lon Rombough who many here also knew and His contributions (like Nick) to scion events. In the case of Lon's collections it was less apples either because he knew what was going on with Nick or the fact stone fruits generally need more work to adapt here. In any event I know Lon's stone fruits. I can even tell you he has Yakima plum grafted on the same tree as one of the parents of Yakima, being Peach Plum. The bottom line about Lon is he took over some of the things started from other plum breeders and I don't know who they were, only his surviving wife knows. I feel one of the most important are F2 plum and apricot crosses. About 20. Like the types from California they will never be steady croppers here. But there is one that has proven highly productive every year and it does well at my site and means it will do well anywhere. One of 20 is something, though the fruit is useless, it has value to our area in furthering the developing to 3rd generation (F3) and on. Or we will never have anything here for apricots period. So that's really what it comes down to is just that "one in 20" stone fruit hybrid and the high level of patience involved to screen out for just that case.
Goals: Lon had many. Most of them were for scientific reasons. One with the above mentioned apricot hybrid could have gone to labs to determine the exact mechanisms involved why too much rain hurts production. With the advances of genetics this material can be examined more easily and accurately when the other 19 siblings with the rest of them. Which is why I back up some of the best.
DanielW said
Your Zard apricots sound interesting. Im burned out on apricot failures here, but do have some seedlings from a semi-local orchard - Marysville, I think
I got burned out on 100% apricot testing here too. The late blooming (100%) Zard hunza strain, and a dwarf (50%) different one I have not talked about yet - are different cases I'm still interested in for sure! The zard is no hybrid, the dwarf is. The latter carries late blooming genes from sand plum. Apricot X sand plum crossing yield even possibly worse percentage wise in infertile much the same as Lon's (F2) hybrids, which also is according to personal communication with now retired (OSU?) Mr. Weeks. "M800" is probably not one in the program from Oregon, I bet it is from Morden program of hardy fruit breeding but exteremley rare and interesting is my point.
Much of what you see in extremely productive plums like red leaves on Hollywood will be due to biennial habit is my guess. I have seen plums produce very heavy in Alaska too like yours. The ones that won't get ripe fruits until frost die off because of that. There is one very interesting very early to ripen clone up there that is very adaptable in that regard. It had a tracking history very similar to the 20 above. It started with a Mr. Lee in Alberta Canada as an american plum cross to salicina, and I don't know who imported it to Alaska, it wasn't me, but I do have it now.
Jafar,
I'm glad people like getting fig cuttings. If I can bring some, I will feel more useful. I will hold off pruning my fig trees so there will be scion to contribute. If grapes are wanted I can do that too. And a couple plums varieties, although most of mine are pretty standard. Oh, I forgot, that info about Newtown Pippin is really interesting. Maybe in a few years I can make a glass of sparking cider.
Rooney,
I have Lon Rombaugh's book and it was the basis for the grape vines that I chose, and how I learned to grow them from cuttings. I didn't know he was interested in stone fruit too. Your description of your experiences is really interesting.
I inspected my trees today. It looks like the Hanska (P. americana X P. simonii), the Ember (P. salicina X P. americana) have potential flower buds. I grafted them March 2015. It looks like La Crescent (Howard Yellow apricot X Shiro plum) is less vigorous on my tree, but maybe. Maybe there will be a taste from each. We'll see how early they bloom here, and if they frost. Pollination is more complicated because my orchard is such a mix, potentially multiple pollinizers for each.
Can't wait for grafting time in a few months.
DanielW said
La Crescent (Howard Yellow apricot X Shiro plum)
So you mean "Howard Yellow tastes like an apricot", but (here) is really a plum, therefore La Crescent is not really an intergeneric hybrid like Lon's or Zaiger's are. Correct?
As far as grapes and Lon Rombough's other interests (see profile), I know Susan will still provide free material for further research grants etc. just as He used to. One example: Prunus Instititia that has very little to none endocarp material (wood) covering around the seed and some materials were sent out to ARS. (don't know where it originated either) With that material Lon (or somebody) crossed it to Prunus Domestica and some day wished to have anyone develop sweet pit apricots. That was just one example and not one myself willing to branch into experimenting for.
Rooney,
You ask some good questions. I don't know that my answers will be as good.
I need to look for better background, because catalog info is not always accurate. That said, this catalog states "La Crescent is a cross between the 'Shiro' plum (Prunus simonii x Prunus salicina x Prunus cerasifera x Prunus munsoniana) and 'Howard Yellow' plum ( Prunus americana). It was introduced in 1923 by the University of Minnesota Fruit Breeding Farm." Since all of its ancestors are Prunus, I think La Crescent, and for that matter Shiro, would be an interspecific hybrid, instead of intergeneric. Then again, to me that means all Prunus hybrids would also be interspecific. Even say, a cherry hybridized with a real apricot, or a real apricot with a peach, etc.
I think the confusion in my mind is that P. simonii is called the Chinese apricot plum. Maybe it contributes an apricot-like flavor to its descendents. I've seen La Crescent described as having an apricot flavor, but looking now, it has no P. armeniaca ancestry. Real apricots, P. armeniaca, are still prunus, so hybrids with other prunus seem to me still to be interspecific.
It adds to the confusion that there is a real apricot called a Chinese apricot. It's marketed as good for places with late Spring frosts, but mine was killed by a late Spring frost, anyway.
I do see your point John about how I stated it which is a rather complicated subject but I'll try.
Hand thinning helps eliminate biennial bearing on apple. Biennial bearing problems if they were to happen on plum would (in the case of plum) cause tree death. I have it that plums are just not that advanced or fine tuned to environmental issues about northern cold, disease etc. as apple as a whole. That is to say in the breeding world we have a long way to go perfecting plums for size and not lose it. I test plums in Alaska as Daniel does here or other friends in Alaska do. Here we don't see tree death from over-cropping if it is related to prunus cerasifera being the more adapted to conifer shade or disease, ie. -hollywood plums have not lost it yet.
You start bring in plum size and production into the 'equation' from California you start having energy related issues such as possible lack of crop the next year, then too much the next, then weakening the tree from a big crop to the point it dies. Equation being "out of their environment".
This does not apply to east of the mountains nor is this an advisory of anything more than preservation of genetics and breeding efforts and ideas about having to bring in early plums to start with. Example: Brian S. from Wisconson and his patent Black Ice, derived on the pollen side one of California's biggest and begining season early plum, why early is because developing a cold hardy plum in short season needs "after" time to prepare for cold as did Mr. Lee have between what ever he had between presumably salicina x american wild plum, which is a process I meant to say has very similar applications in some subspecies to over-cropping and biennial behavior. 
I grafted over parts of my plum trees so I would get different varieties at different times. I'm also trying to get different nutrition with different colors. Hopefully, the trees will balance out over time so that I am picking off a lot of the plums sequentially and they won't break so many branches. Then again, it does sound pretty wimpy for us to complain about having too much good fruit! This is a problem I dreamed of having a few years ago!
John S
PDX OR
Has anyone known about KDL in the use of spring frost protecting on apricot?
It is an available product used locally as in grape orchards because it is a fast foliar fix to add the element pottassium back into vines when applied. Loss of pottassium has for example been implicated in grapes during excessive rains in Iowa, year 2013.
Note the quote almost half way into the article ;
"We don’t want to wait until the threat of first frost to give the vines the nutrients they need."
(ie. loss of pottassium)
The NAFEX apricot interest group report that KDL has been used about crop loss avoidance and the company I think has data to support it with apricot production (the flowers) now. At this point I'm not sure if our losses due to rains are because of harmful levels of diseases entering into each flower (and cultured by all our winter rains), or the loss of the ability to retain pottassium and frost protection (which are the result of winter rains soaking up too much nitrogen at the expense of pottassium).
New things to try in 2016... I think I'll try that apricot KDL as a companion to my plastic tree shelters. OSV in Aurora has 2.5 gallons of the concentrated form of it, though wish it was smaller.
Edited 12-1-15 for additional information as follows...
Daniel: If nothing else I would like to know more about the small apricot you have. Can it be moved around in a container?, do you shelter it?, what is it again?, and any production? etc..
My late blooming Zard apricot is attached. The blooms are two weeks or more later after the rest around town. The 3 mil plastic is for bacterial prevention which will stay on for Dec --> Jan for two months. When I used covering on miniature peaches I would get away with growing them here indefinitely when I kept the covering over from end of Dec to March 5. The one year I had put my cover on too late made it get leaf curl real bad. It did recover and then I finally removed the whole tree because it was Honey Babe peach, a variety not very productive.
Good point Rooney,
I remember talking to some dudes who grew peaches in the Puget Sound area (More rain and less sun than Will. Valley) and said it was easy. That's what they did. I have done that before. The biggest limitation to me is making sure your tree has the right number and strength of limbs. Last time my branches felt too wimpy to withstand that much cover, but I think it will work now.
John S
PDX OR
John, it's encouraging that others grew peaches in a more rainy / less sunny climate than here. I cut down my Oregon Curl Free last week due to lots of canker. I don't want it to be a source of canker for others. I cut down my Indian Free because in 7 years or so it has never had a peach, even when hand pollinated from others. I have Charlotte and Salish, and a container El Dorado. There were some on Charlotte last year, OK not great. Salish looks promising for next year. Container El Dorado was very good, like a big tomato plant in size and production, but all ripe at the same time.
Something posessed me to order a Mary Jane peach from Raintree for next year. I don't know why. Peaches usually don't do well for me.
Rooney, my container apricot is PixieCot. Supposedly a genetic dwarf. Here is the Dave Wilson link. PixieCot is a Zaiger hybrid, patent pending. I can't vouch for it yet. It grew very well in container last year, and the buds look like my impression of what flower buds will look like on the dormant wood. My goal is to watch the weather and move it inside if there are frosts predicted when in bloom.
To be honest, the apricots on web photo don't look very attrractive, but maybe they are better in person.
I also have a Mormon Apricot that was spring frost killed, and new ones grew from low on the tree, but I don't know if they were below the graft. I T-bud grafted some onto an Asian plum to see what would happen - we'll see next Spring if they grow.
Consider what might work in Mt. Vernon won't work here. Not necessarily because: They have a better micro-climate from the Olympic mountains. Some cultivars that pass their screening might work here. The WSU testing that went on there, as far as I know, started at a time when Yakima apple producers were well off when a little industry of apple marketing tried to get off the ground. I think all the original trees are still being evaluated and thanks to local volunteering efforts will probably remain so.
There is still worldwide attention alive on disease resistance on a molecular level. From what I have read were old cherry studies for bacterial pseudomonas, same thing as per peaches and apricots, though they are easier on sweet cherry and the cherry flowers are not effected. Something to think about knowing we have problems setting fruit of most species in prunus. (ie apricot peach)
John: Good point as well. I'm not sure how long your peaches will live. I have seen the very same thing, good at first few years, in time the peach will flower/fruit, and then always downhill after that. During the period of time I had been a NAFEX member it was never clear as to why seedling growth stages in peaches would be better suited then grafting them for the first several years.
Daniel: Thanks for reporting and Bookmark this page will you.. I have already tried that about bringing prunus inside for prunus pensylvanica, which unfortunately did not work. I'm guessing due to internal pseudomonas moving back into the direction of the blooms. I wish you would do that and report. One idea would be about spraying pottasium silicate on some of the flowers to see if that helps prove something. Home Depot Concrobium might work as an inhibitor to bacteria as well. Concrobium is mold/mildew control for the home and so nothing should harm the plants. I think the combination is similar to ingredient pottasium silicate which otherwise you might not find..
Note that all the miniature dwarf peaches or such dwarf apricots will get nailed as fully exposed even more so for the reason that trees show best results growing steady. I had my little apricot form from Stark's nursery die in Seattle after a year in 1995. Was not smart back then about covering it. New reports regarding copper sprays discourage growers using them anymore, which according to farmers, has found to be making the problem worse.
John, I wondered that about seedling trees too. I read that Citation has canker and other disease issues, which is a problem for me. I wonder if cuttings are possible for peaches.
Your rationale for multigrafting is similar to mine. I don't need a bushel of fruit all at the same time. If one, or a small number of trees, can be multigrafted to handle pollination issues, trying new varieties, and spread out the yield over the summer, that seems like a great approach.
Rooney,
Thanks for the great information. I plan to continue reporting on what happens.
I don't know what you read about Citation but my reading indicates that it does not work as well under peach the way it does for plum or apricot.
When in Alaska I find hobby time playing with wild chokecherry and grafting onto them plum buds. Not very often I have success. When it works it will last that season on a branch at standing height. I find them the next season dead. Where at which time I find another opportunity much lower than the first time to bark graft the same combination and used dormant scions of the same. With 3 out of 3 I was able to plan pruning with confidence the new combo would work for many years. One of the 3 had been here a local plum onto prunus serotina (SW Washington).
I want to bring across in the above cases the idea of how prolific juvenile wood is (which you probably know). So if you can produce rooted cutting out of older adult wood of peach, a lucky proposition, then the next big chance is the unlikely event the cutting will adapt. Almost nobody I have ever met has heard of plant plasticity which is the internal capability in woody plants the time needed to figure out the new environment during transition from seed. Plasticity in this case is very general of a term not used too much but it involves regulation of choosing which genes in a plant turn on and off from between a seed or young plant to an adult. The youngest part of a plant is the area between the root and first stem (ie hypocotyl).
This adaptability (and increased ability to root) is one of the ideas wished for in apomixis rootstock production which has not happened yet but things are rapidly getting there. (once the big companies figure out ways to stop the seed they sell you from producing more seed might take another few years on top of it all)
Rooney,
I love reading your emails/talking to you because I feel like I get 50% smarter every time I do. Does that mean that I'm getting really smart or that I started out really dumb? Only you can decide.
Ted Swensen (another gardening genius) wrote an article in the Pome News about the very idea of plant plasticity that you are talking about. Apparently the Russian plant breeder (Vavilov?) did experiments with that. The plants can take on the characteristics more completely the earlier you graft them onto the other plant.
For that reason, I grafted Abbe Fetel Pear onto a quince plant that was 5 inches tall, to see if it would take to "pearness" more completely. It is slowly growing up, but I am excited to see if there are differences.
John S
PDX OR
I know. It seems like alot of fun..
The first documented beliefs in our country that I have ever seen were ~90s.
(attachment: MentorToApricot.gif)
Credits: Symposium_S12.pdf
When did Ted's get published?
Good idea about Quince because they are so easy to root as cuttings! Looking up about pear rootstocks as there is something said about "sport mutation" of Bartlet pear to a "Swiss" form of the same, which is funny to me because we think this might all be due to plasticity, as defined earlier, and funny that this can be predicted by copycat of other patents etc. when so few of other people (ie at college level) have ever been taught this old "already established" principle of Michurin!
(attachment: MentorToSwissBartlet.gif)
Credits: M19_DAVI4493_08_SE_C19.pdf
Another: Which as the story goes for Redlac cherry in the patent description "sport mutation" should read "mentored form of Rainier". I suppose that if the mentored changes that were caused by the Ericson Lambert were carried to offspring (of the redlac) then that would define Redlac as unique enough to be listed as a sport. I am now kind of curious if the red skin of Red Bartlet which I think started as a sport if it (of redbartlet) carries over into offspring?
(attachment: MentorToRedlac.gif)
Credits: USPP8721.pdf
Which relates to the last example;
Once I had an interesting quiet conversation with a person at a computer staion next to me who mentioned "I wonder what you would get if you grafted sweet cherry to these wild Alaskan chokecherries?"... which later to find he was originally from a family owned cherry farm and that he used to topwork a pure yellow cultivar on other mazzard stocks. Shocked then later to find out differing color traits on many incuding red stripes!
It is probably much simpler to avoid the long breeding period if all that's needed is to mentor them. Currently this works to increase bean mass in mung been after having been grafted to tomato (increased bean mass to progeny etc). I currently don't think I have seeds from apricots to try this year. Will do it some day using my late blooming ecotype of Zard scions.
Edited: 2 hours later
50% of being smart people is knowing that other half of things about what we don't know!
On the topic of planning for 2016, here is what I am doing:
- Building a timber-frame style grape arbor from "restoration juniper" timbers and black locust pegs
- Assembling and placing materials (big chunks of wood and big rocks) to build a large hugelkultur raised keyhole vegetable garden
- Playing with ideas for making an apple grinder/crusher/scratter. I recently bought an old press, so now I need a grinder. But I am in no rush. I have a lot of big juniper scraps (see project #1 :-)).
- Throwing black oil sunflower seed wherever I want to fertilize my plants and disturb insect larvae (i.e. put wild birds to work for me).
- Approached a distant neighbor who has out-of-control English Ivy in some of his large trees. Starting about 5 years ago I started getting ivy sprouts all over my yard. After some observation I place the blame on starlings. We have lived here since 1990, I never had a single ivy seedling until 5 years ago. So something has changed. Anyway, I have been giving the neighbor's ivy the "evil eye" for many years because ivy only produces seed when it is allowed to climb. His ivy is a huge source of seed and thus seedlings all over the neighborhood. Ivy never stops growing (except during cold or drought) so eventually it will pull down even the biggest tree. The trees in question are right next to a road and power lines. After the ivy pulled down two trees (fortunately not onto the road/power lines) I decided it was time to say something. He wasn't willing to cut it himself but he said that I could, so I cut it a few weeks ago. The vines were massive - a solid mass 8" thick and 12" wide, plus lots of smaller vines. I will come back in a year and pull off the new vines. I spend a lot of my lunchtimes cutting ivy in a natural area near my work (with permission from the landowner, i.e. the city) so I have gotten a LOT of practice cutting ivy. Of course starlings could bring ivy seed from far away, so cutting my neighbor's ivy won't solve my problem, but it may slow it down. And if you have ivy on your property, please don't let it go to seed, otherwise you are inflicting pain on all of your neighbors. And on a fun note I saved the biggest vines to see if they are good for wood carving.
- I recently harvested and cleaned my teasel stems which I use for mason bees.
- I am trying my hand at growing mushrooms indoors (shiitake & oyster shell). I have harvested one "bloom" already, they are tasty. One of my goals is to be able to harvest something from my yard any time. It looks like mushrooms may enable me to harvest something in winter.
- Eating & drinking all the fruit, nuts, and juice that I have dried, frozen & canned. I need to make room in the freezer & pantry for next summer's harvest 🙂
- Not in my yard, but I recently led a volunteer group in planting several hundred native Oregon White Oak (Quercus garryana) acorns on a wildlife refuge where I frequently volunteer. Here is a pretty good new video on these habitats in the Willamette Valley: I have a lot of native plants in my food forest yard, I consider them to be the foundation of all the life in my yard (native and not native). e.g. my apples provide pollen for 2-3 weeks, but my snowberries provide pollen from April-October.
DaveM, impressive plans and ambitions. All sounds great. Similar to your ivy situation, I'm in the process of clearing blackberries. I think we have about 1/4 acre of blackberry bramble on our 2 acres in Battleground, much of it obliterating some native Hawthorne that lead to a ravine. I want to clear the blackberries as much as possible, although there is a reserve of them off my property. We don't have much ivy, and I want to keep it that way.
Rooney, the red color of Bartlet carries over to at least one offspring. Maxie hybrid pear is a hybrid of Red Bartlett and Asian Nijisseiki pear. Maxie is a mottled red, based on the photos, which I imagine comes from the Bartlett.
John, I think I will graft some of the fruit tree seedlings growing now, onto mature trees, to see if they mature and bear more quickly and I can see what they are like. It looks challenging - they are such tiny diameter, so the cambium match will have to be partial. Maybe that's enough? I have seedling apricots in my window now more than a foot tall, and some plums heading there.
Another reason bark grafting works best is it's not hidden so far out there in the tree structure. This means that using whip grafting on an established tree form that none of this high up activity is going to be producing signals to the bottom part of the tree and roots to grow. In turn the lower areas know there is something wrong and will start reverting energy flow upwards to other areas first. Over time fresh growth in other areas grow stronger producing even more signals downwards which is big competition over the high grafted. If you have to make whip grafts then try only on a center leader or do as Jafar mentioned.
Another source of information I would like to pass is the amount of turgid cell pressure available in the mother tree which in wet soils which in a grafting cut cause much more damage to several cell layers deep. In the nursery and in pots this situation is remedied by holding off on water before grafting. In the field use a razor blade or at least brand new box knife blades.
Jafar, Rooney,
Just when I thought I learned the only methods I "needed" 🙂 As an officially old guy with not the greatest vision and stiff hands, I can do whip and tongue just fine, and T-bud fairly well. Haven't tried bark grafting. Live and learn. Most important, try to keep all fingers while grafting.
Today I was at Longview for an appointment and stopped by Tsugawa nursery on the way back. They had some nice looking fruit trees, left over from 2015 season. I bought a Honeycrisp on unnamed semidwarf rootstock. I might have bought Spitzenberg or another one, but they were too big to fit into my car. So now I can pull out the Honeycrisp on M27 that runted out. This one has viable - looking fruit spurs, and a couple of branches I can graft with varieties I want to try.
So this one is checked off my list.
I think planting it now is ok, it's not a cold winter yet.
The thing you said about small diameter prunus scionwood sets off alarm bells. Prunus produces little amounts of bridging tissue so I feel (after series of disappointing results) they "should match". See attachment about whip grafting on pencil sizes of mother tree.
The green bands are cattle castrating bands using them is about keeping everything steady and aligned properly at first. They are also tolerated for years and used to keep a weak tongue strengthened from future mishaps and also help mating everything tighter.
Battle for dominance against existing growing parts waking up before the scion grafts are still ongoing so better to use grafts to all the upper branch tips (saying this for sake of other newbies).
Idyllwild
jafar
Marsha H
Viron
John S
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