What did you do in your orchard today?

[Larsen Poultry Ranch]

Can you gently bend the suckers out to the side a little farther away from the trunk and then feed them through the bottom of a pot? Fill the pot with dirt with some rooting hormone but leaving the top of the sucker sticking out, and add more dirt as it gets taller? Then in spring before the leaves start, check to see if it has grown roots in the pot. If yes, you should be able to cut the sucker off at the bottom of the pot and it will be a separate plant, to put into a bigger pot or plant in the ground elsewhere.

 

[CrealCritter]

What fun grafting apple trees, I enjoyed myself. It's some delicate work with razor sharp stainless budding knife.

First select a branch this year's branch and cut it off where it meets the main trunk or main branch. It helps if it's about the same diameter as the root stock you're grafting. Then trim off the leaves but leave the leaf stems. Now you have what is known as a bud stick.

Potted rootstock and bud stick

Next select a good bud to cut for the chip. Take budding knife and cut across the bottom of the bud the cut the bud loose from the bud stick by gently slicing top to the bottom of the first cut.

Good bud pictured and the cut chip.

Next do the same cuts on the rootstock, to match the chip cut from the bud stick.

You know you did a good job when the chip sticks to the root stock all by itself.

Next wrap with parfilm to secure the chip to the rootstock cut and snip off the leaf stem.

Pretty cool 👍 I had fun. I chip grafted a granny Smith, red delicious, golden delicious and an unidentified apple from the original orchard.

Plus I did a "fruit cocktail" 4 grafts, plus the crab apple produced by the root stock just for fun.

We'll see in a couple of weeks if the grafts took or not.

I believe I'll go try and T-Bud graft a peach tree next. That is if the bark will slip it might be to late in the afternoon now.

Jesus is Lord and Christ 🙏❤️🇺🇸

 

[CrealCritter]

T-Budding the bark on this peach sapling is pretty thick. But with the nice rains we had last night and the cooler temperature the bark slipped (peeled away easy from the sap wood). This is a lot quicker and easier than chip budding but kind of the same. Cut a T in the bark with the budding knife down to the sap wood. Then use the brass non sharp bark seperator to gently peel back the top of bark to expose the camban layer (green). Then cut a chip from the bud stick same as for chip budding. Slide the chip into the T top to bottom and wrap with parfilm. Easy peasy.

Three T bud grafts about knee high

Wrapped with parfilm

Budding knife it's a good one with razor sharp stainless steel blade and brass bark seperator.

Jesus is Lord and Christ 🙏❤️🇺🇸

 

[CrealCritter]

FYI... Fedco Trees opened ordering today for rootstocks, scionwood and pre-grafted bare root fruit trees.

Catalog Search - Fedco Trees

Catalog Search - Fedco Trees

www.fedcoseeds.com

I ordered rootstocks and scionwood. Grafting my own is the least expensive way I know how to get an orchard going. When this order comes in, in March it'll be my first attempt at whip and tongue grafting. But I believe I've done my homework, it'll just be time to put all the book and video learning into practice.

Jesus is Lord and Christ 🙏❤️🇺🇸

 

[CrealCritter]

I suspect spring is getting closer rather than further away. Starkbros shipped my replacement barefoot sunrise pear. I also noticed yesterday, the plum trees are starting to bud. I'll have to set this pear out in the mother orchard this evening.

Starkbros graft, this is most definitely a chip bud graft.

I suppose while I have the shovel out there. And it rained heavy last night, meaning everything is well hydrated. I'll go ahead and dig up three peach root stocks and bring them in to bench graft. With scionwood I harvested and storaged in the refrigerator since February 11th.

I'm quickly coming to the conclusion, that trying to start a mother and production orchard requires air-laying, scionwood and grafting skills, all of which is new to me. I've studied but that only goes so far... putting studies into practice is where the rubber meets the road persay. I thoroughly expect failures to learn from, so I'm not disappointed 😁

Jesus is Lord and Christ 🙏❤️🇺🇸

 

[CrealCritter]

It's true if you're early you can find potted cherry trees at farm stores. They are the first to arrive and the first to sell out, at least around here they are.

So, meanwhile at Rural King in town, they are selling #5 potted cherry trees for $49.99 plus tax, that's pretty crazy priced 🙄

Black tartarian is a sweet cherry variety for eating fresh. black tartarian requires another sweet cherry pollinator variety to produce cherries. A black Republican, Sam, Bing, Schmidt, Cavalier, Stella, Gold, Van, Heidelfingen, Vega, Montmorency, Vista, Ranier or Windsor would be required. But there were only Black tartarian available. I already have a bing and stella so, no thanks not at $50.00!

So I went over to Tractor Supply out of curiosity. They had #5 dwarf North Star dwarf tart (pie) cherry trees and some dwarf peach trees for $38.99. tart/pie cherry trees are self pollinating so no pollinator required. All peach trees are also self pollinating. I've been looking for a North Star cherry and a Reliance peach tree for the mother orchard, they had both 😁. The manager was out there, somehow we got to talking about things,. I picked out the two trees I wanted, nice banchy ones to gather scionwood for grafting next February. She took the tags off them and said follow me. So I followed her to the register and she gave me 15% each tree, what a sweet heart she has ♥️

I told Farm Babe I bought some.more fruit trees and that 5 more are coming from tyty this week. She said: so will this be it for the year? I said, have you forgotten my rootstock and scionwood order from Fedco comes next month? That'll be 20 more fruit trees to put together and practice grafting on. She said how many? I said 10 apple and 10 peach. Her eyes got as big around as jimmy dean sausage patties ❤️ then she said: keep going. So I'll keep going 😂

Jesus is Lord and Christ 🙏❤️🇺🇸

 

[CrealCritter]

Parafilm fell of peach bark graft. Bark graft is on top, bud graft is on the bottom still wrapped with parafilm. This was a 3 year old root stock I dug out of the mother orchard this past late winter. 1 year old scion wood from my mother in law's peach trees. Kind of interesting to see early callousing of the bark graft to me. It's calloused together tight and water proof.

Jesus is Lord and Christ 🙏❤️🇺🇸

 

[R2elk]

At least for the time being, the Contender Peach I bought this year has peaches on it.

 

[CrealCritter]

Well it's looking like we'll be having a grafting party in March. My favorite daughter in law is wanting to start a small orchard like the one I'm working on starting.

Wednesday evening I showed her how to air layer MM111 rootstocks. I did one as a demonstration, then kicked back sitting on a bucket and answered questions, while she did the remaining 9. When she was done she asked if I had more root balls 🤣. I said I'll show her how to harvest scionwood in February. I sent her home with a Fedco catalog so she can pick out some scionwood for varieties she wants to grow. Here's her handy work.

I also ordered year end overstock rootstocks from Fedco. 10 OHxF97 semi standard pear and 15 Lovell Peach rootstocks. They arrived last week bareroot, buds breaking and some leafed out. I potted them and am slowly hardening them off. I couldn't resist the hugely discounted prices. Lovell peach rootstock can also be used to graft, appricots, plums and almonds. Lovell is also interesting as it used to be the industry canning peach up until recently. I'll most likely plant 3 to 4 Lovell ungrafted rootstocks for canning peaches and for growing more rootstocks from the peach pits.

I also want to graft cherries this March, so I'll be ordering Mazzard rootstock also.

Yep it'll be a bench grafting party come March alright 🥳

Jesus is Lord and Christ 🙏❤️🇺🇸

 

[CrealCritter]

If you go by the lies spread by the zone group, it is zone 5. I don't know anywhere in this state that is an actual zone 5. I have an email from Arbor Day where they admit it is not zone 5 but a very cold zone 4. When I buy based on zones, the ones that survive the winter here are the zone 2 and 3 ones. This past winter the temperature hit -40°F. The ground here normally thaws by mid March. This year it didn't start to thaw until mid April.

I had a couple of Reliance peaches make it through 3 winters. The last spring they had a few blooms and produced 2 peaches. I had forgotten how juicy tree ripened peaches were. I had also forgotten how fuzzy peaches used to be. The newer varieties are being produced for minimal fuzz. The following winter killed both trees.

The low temperature isn't the killer. The real killer is the January thaw followed by sub zero temps followed by the February thaw followed by sub zero temperatures.

you explain a very harsh environment for peaches / appricots. Let me have a look around and see if I can find a variety that may stand a chance for you. Reliance came to mind but there might be other more suitable varieties. is the main issue trunk splitting due to freeze thaw cycle, root stock die off due to freeze, blossom freeze or tip die off due to freeze? Maybe one or more of the above. there are frost proof (frost peach) varieties, but I haven't looked closely at those.

Jesus is Lord and Christ 🙏❤️🇺🇸