What did you do in your orchard today?

[CrealCritter]

For my neck of the woods February is scion wood collection time. I'll be doing some snipping tomorrow it's currently 26 degrees so a little snip snip in the morning and store in polyethylene bags in the refrigerator until my root stocks arrive in March.

More info if your interested

Collecting and Handling Scion Wood for Grafting Apple and Nut Trees (Michele Warmund)

ipm.missouri.edu

Jesus is Lord and Christ

 

[CrealCritter]

Apple and Peach scion wood, bagged and tagged for storage in the fridge.

Apple
Pink Lady
Golden Delicious
Granny Smith

Peach
Contender
Red Haven
Flavorich

I'll get some more from mother in law's peach trees this evening.

Currently 26 degrees great morning for snipping.

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]

First ever bark graft attempts with peach rootstock from the mother orchard and peach scionwood from the mother-in-law's. Easy... but we'll see how it goes...

Root stocks from established peach tree root suckers I let grow last year. They grown pretty big I would have liked them a little smaller in diameter. They are just starting to bud.

Roots and main trunk trimmed. Just take the grafting knife a press on the bark until you hear and feel a pop. Gently peel back the bark and slip a trimmed scion tip into the slit. Wrap with parafilm.

Then apply treecoat to create a good waterproof seal.

Place in bucket to allow treecoat to dry, for about 3-4 hours. I'll pot them later this evening.

Jesus is Lord and Christ

 

[CrealCritter]

Both are potted, I have no idea what species of peach the scionwood is from, so I'll call the by my mother-in-laws name. Now that they are potted, I'll set them inside the warmth for a couple of weeks. Hopefully in a couple of weeks I'll know if they took, they should bud. If they don't take, I'll keep the root stocks growing and chip bud them during August.

I went ahead and bark grafted the one with a side branch. Perhaps one or both will take? Won't know unless I try and see what happens.

Skip to 6:00 mark and the bark graft demonstration. For better details than I can provide.

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]

It'll be a week tomorrow since my first ever bench bark graft attempts on peach root suckers and harvested peach scionwood. Time sure flies in plant earth!

My grafts have not broke bud yet but after being in 68 - 70 degrees the potted root stocks have broke bud. At least I know the rootstocks are breaking dormancy and are alive. So I didn't do much damage to the roots digging them up and trimming the roots to fit 3 gallon pots. It doesn't appear the grafted scionwood has dried out either

I should know if my graft attempts took or not, in another week or so. See buds breaking into leaves below the graft attempts.

Jesus is Lord and Christ

 

[CrealCritter]

Eventhough it's not quite spring yet, I'm enjoying a little bit of the beauty of spring inside. I guess I've unintentionally forced this reliance peach tree to flower and bud by bringing it inside.

It had a couple of flower buds when I bought it last weekend. Now it's in full flower and starting to leaf. If the flowers set into peaches, I think i'll have to wait to set it out until after the last frost?

Jesus is Lord and Christ

 

[CrealCritter]

Two weeks since my peach bark graft attempts. No bud breaking on the grafts yet, but they aren't dried up either. Hard for me to tell what's going on being my first ever bark graft attempts. The root stocks have broke bud and beginning to form leaves. So I know they are alive.if the grafts don't take there's always chip bidding attempts in August as long as I can keep the root stocks alive over summer.

Jesus is Lord and Christ

 

[CrealCritter]

First ever bark graft attempts with peach rootstock from the mother orchard and peach scionwood from the mother-in-law's. Easy... but we'll see how it goes...

Root stocks from established peach tree root suckers I let grow last year. They grown pretty big I would have liked them a little smaller in diameter. They are just starting to bud.
View attachment 22841

Roots and main trunk trimmed. Just take the grafting knife a press on the bark until you hear and feel a pop. Gently peel back the bark and slip a trimmed scion tip into the slit. Wrap with parafilm.
View attachment 22842

Then apply treecoat to create a good waterproof seal.
View attachment 22843

Place in bucket to allow treecoat to dry, for about 3-4 hours. I'll pot them later this evening.

Jesus is Lord and Christ

Quoting myself...

30 days since I bark grafted these peaches. I got scionwood bud break on one of the three grafts, pretty cool . The root stock itself leafed heavily, I snipped almost all them off below the graft so the energy would be put into healing the graft. I haven't seen any graft buds break on the other two yet. But still pretty cool to dig up my own rootstocks. Snip scionwood from my mother in law's peach trees. Graft them together and see results a month later

See that little dormant bud on the scionwood twig that's broke free into a little green mass. That will eventually form leafs, then a new trunk to become a new peach tree

Jesus is Lord and Christ