How'd it go today?

[Mr. Sir]

Here's the artwork we bought at the auction:

 

[SkwerI]

I like the 4th one.

Did you splurge with the proceeds from your big removal this week?

 

[woodworkingboy]

Brett, how you fixed for furniture? Got a nice cherry wood blanket chest nearly finished.

 

[rumination]

Helped a friend graft 100 apples trees and 50 cherries for his orchard today. Going out of town for a week tomorrow.

 

[Mr. Sir]

Brian, you have a good eye for fine art. The fourth one is a Guido Borelli original, oil on silver; an excellent piece.

Jay, do you have any pics of that blanket chest? It might go well at the foot of our new four-poster bed.

 

[woodworkingboy]

Will post some pics when finished, thanks for asking.

 

[Old Monkey]

Helped a friend graft 100 apples trees and 50 cherries for his orchard today. Going out of town for a week tomorrow.

I just planted a fuji apple today and root washed it before planting it. I washed off most of the soil from the root wad and untangled the circling roots. It had been planted too deep and had some adventitious roots growing on the trunk. I sort of split the difference with the planting depth because the adventitious roots seemed to big to cut off. When I washed off the bottom of the root crown, I thought it felt like there was a flat cut on the bottom. How do they get the root stock for fruit trees? Are they just prunings that they but in medium and apply rooting hormone to or are they the bottom of trees grown from seed?

 

[sotc]

Lotta work Leon!

 

[stehansen]

I think they're from cuttings OM. My fujis that I had were on a rootstock that would put adventious growth out every year. We cut it off with a pruning shears every winter. I can't remember the name exactly but I do remember the name had 111 in it. We just called them one eleven. Every once in a while someone would ask me what kind of root stock I had while we were looking at the orchard and I said one elevens and they would nod their head like "that's why they have all the suckers". OM my wife bought a bag of Gala apples grown in washington and they have all the favor of cardboard.

Leon what varieties were you grafting onto what existing trees?

 

[Old Monkey]

When I lived in Washington they said that the best apples were sent to Japan and the rest were sold domestically. Whether that is true or not I do not know. When I lived in Japan every apple I bought was perfect. They came in wrapped four packs, all uniform in size and texture, all crisp and sweet. They were expensive compared to our apples but not so much compared to other Japanese food stuff. Melons over there came in special individual gift wrapping and were very expensive. We never had any but I assume they were perfect too.

 

[rumination]

Steve, your rootstock is probably EMLA M111, a good semi dwarfing rootstock. Yes, the rootstocks are clones/cuttings that are rooted in special beds. You can actually get away with planting these deeper than you would expect because there's no real root crown to speak of. All of the roots are adventitious so if you plant it deep you just get more adventitious root growth, which, in this case is just fine, AS LONG AS THE GRAFT IS WELL ABOVE SOIL LEVEL. Once the tree gets established in it's final planting spot it will develop a root crown over time, which should be respected as with all trees.

Having cloned/cutting rootstock allows for choosing specific traits such as disease resistance, soil preference, climate preferance, and dwarfing characteristics. Proper varieties of seedling rootstock, however, will produce longer lived and much larger and more majestic apple trees.

With some of the seedling rootstocks (M111 is one of them I think), when planting you want to make sure that none of the roots go upwards. They should all be lateral or downwards in the hole. Upwards facing roots may have a tendencies to put out root suckers under certain conditions.

Steve, from your description it sounds like you are getting lots of sucker growth from below the graft. I'm not sure why that is happening, but I don't think it's because of this particular rootstock.

Today we grafted apples onto the EMLA M7 rootstock (a bit shorter of a tree than is produced by the M111). If I remember correctly the varieties were Canadian Strawberry, Golden Russet, Northern Spy, Amata, and something else. The cherries went onto Mahaleb rootstock and the varieties were Evan's Bali and Masabi, both tart cherries good for pies and fresh eating.

 

[stehansen]

Apples are not graded for flavor. They are only graded for size, defects, and color. So when the store orders a few thousand boxes of Fuji extra fancy 128's they have no idea what they will taste like. Other than Fuji's generally taste good. My Fuji apples were grown on soil that made them taste extraordinarily good and everyone who tasted them agreed with me but it did me no good at all. Because they were graded disregarding any sugar content or flavor and mixed in with everyone else's apples that went into that shed. Just venting and letting you know what people in production agriculture are up against.

 

[stehansen]

Yeah, that's them. Thanks Leon.

 

[rumination]

You got that right about fruit quality Steve. A Fuji from a good orchard blows the socks off of most of what you find in the standard grocery store. My friend is going organic with his orchard as well as concentrating in heirloom and other unusual and special varieties. This will put him in well with the high end health food store and farmer's market crowd. Organic fruit will fetch well over twice the price. On the other hand, the organic certification has become a pain in the butt bureaucratic paper trail that doesn't have as much meaning as it used to. That's what happens when you hand these types of things over to the federal government.

 

[CurSedVoyce]

Ribs came out very good over the oak and mesquite. Maggy (Cousin Russ's lady) made some excellent salsa and chili relleno. I put the relleno on the grill and man O man was it tasty
Was a good mothers day for Aunt Sheila and Katy . Still have to call my mom and wish her a happy yet. This is probably Aunt Sheila's last mothers day Cancer is getting her I just hope she makes September vacation .... Probably starting to spend nights over there soon. Rob, Katy and I will take turns.

 

[Old Monkey]

I'd be interested in what your friend does for pest management as I want to keep my apple tree organic as well. I wish I had more room for trees. I cut down two trees this week so I could plant two trees. I am trying to sneak more trees in where I can but we still want full sun in our backyard for our vegetable beds and the spot outside Haley's bedroom window is reserved for a pyrocanthus.

 

[rumination]

Darin, it depends what kinds of pests you're having problems with. I'm not sure what are common pests in your area. For codling moth which are common around here there are pheromone disruptors (little twist ties you put on the trees) that confuse the males so they don't mate and hence the females lay no eggs in the fruit. Available from Great Lakes IPM in packs of 400 which is going to be well excessive for your backyard. You might want to google around for garden shops that sell them in more reasonable quantities. Otherwise a good easy approach is to spray the trees with a kaolin clay based protectant (popular one is trade named Surround). This just acts as a coating that keeps the bugs at bay. Another organic approach is to use traps that are specific to certain pests, again see Great Lakes IPM.

But really for just a couple fruit trees in a back yard I wouldn't think that pests would be an excessive problem. Good tree health is going to be your best defense, and that begins in the soil. A soil test might be worthwhile if you're serious about taking care of your fruit harvest.


EDIT: another pest that can crop up in snowy areas are voles/mice that will burrow under the snow and eat the bark off of young tender trees. If they are common in your neighborhood you might want to wrap or cage the trees during the winter months until they develop thicker mature bark.

 

[stehansen]

Be sure and paint the bark on your newly planted tree with white paint. If it sunburns then flathead borers will get in there. After a few years they toughen up and shade themselves.

 

[Wagnaw]

Got one call today, so I'll go check that out tomorrow.... I also ran around looking at new places to live. My lease is up in July.

 

[squisher]

Dead wooded a willow and topped three cottonwoods. The tops were dead but the people want to keep the rest of the 'alive' part of the trees around for the next few years while the willows they've planted grow a little. Then I bid a couple of jobs on the way home. One really nice family and one borderline rude lady who's reply to my quote was well I'll have to sleep on it and get a few more quotes after raising her eyebrows at quite a decent price I had given her. This was after complaining that my quote didn't include stumpgrinding for free, I explained my quote could include it for free it would just be 3 bills more for the quote is all. Maybe if she calls to accept I'll tell her I'll consider it but I'm doing a few quotes on work that might be more lucrative then her job so I'll have to sleep on it.

 

[CurSedVoyce]

4 acres of grass not standing on a ranch along with a 1/4 mile drive way 15 foot each side. I need a shower and an early bed time after I get the kids down. Aunt Sheila ended up in the hospital today. Her son said it was possible dehydration. We have hired a family member that is a professional care giver to live with her for now, plus all three of us will take turns keeping vigil. Her son will come up from San Diego once a month. She has been battling cancer or on to 7 years. Looks like it is going to take her this time. Everyone is kinda stressed around here.

 

[sotc]

Maybe if she calls to accept I'll tell her I'll consider it but I'm doing a few quotes on work that might be more lucrative then her job so I'll have to sleep on it.

 

[stehansen]

Good luck with that Stephen. When you get done grinding her stumps you can come and do mine Squish. It could be like Canadian health care! We did the oak shaping at the motel that we do a couple of times a year today. I got my hydraulic leak fixed first of course, what I needed was a hard O-ring.

 

[CurSedVoyce]

Thanks Bro.

 

[CurSedVoyce]

I almost forgot to mention..... Got a call from the Stihl dealer/shop and went to see what was up since I needed stuff anyway....
Turns out another FS250 is now being retired. Compression low and still needed its 4th new carb in two seasons going into it's third. Carb self destructed and she went hot. So one more goes into the parts bin tonight and we are one closer to having parts for who ever needs them... I have 3 left.