Despite this breakthrough-- Do you fear the callery understocks will bolt around the desired scions and out-compete and overtake them in the span of just one or two seasons if suckers are not properly monitored and pruned?
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I had two scions, each with one flower apiece, so I pulled one off (medlar buds are surprisingly bulky!) and will leave the other. For Science!
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Matt,
Yes they absolutely would do that. They need to be monitored weekly and new shoots rubbed off. After a few years it’s no longer a problem. If left on there own callery shoots outgrow normal pears 20 to 1.
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Medlar is a neat fruit to grow but I’ve been apprehensive of it due to fireblight. I’m not sure it would do well here based on what others have said not my own experience.
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Dax,
What kind of labels are those? How well they do through rain and snow?
So good growth on those grafts.
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I buy blinds and cut them with a guillotine paper cutter.
I use on Dixon Ticonderoga (black colored) pencils because they won’t break when I press hard. It’s best to sharpen your pencils with a utility blade.
I write on both sides.
Outdoors I have labels 4-years old that look like the day I wrote them. 1/2 of the key to it is pressing hard.
Dax
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Beautiful weather for the next 14 days. I got the weekend off and I will grafts everything in the fridge. Probably ended up to about 50 grafts. My fingers will be sore tomorrow.
Tony
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Thanks, Dax.
Rain on and off since yeaterday. The next 10 forecast is rain, cloudy, very cool ( for May) with low in the 30 and high in the 50’s.
Yup…trough west/trough east…nice and sunny and beautiful in the middle… It was almost 90F in many parts of Canada/N Dakota/S Dakota yesterday.
Summer budding from last summer was very successful…lot of buds growing out quickly now.
Thanks Matt.
I’ll probably just hold off until next weekend. I was planning on doing my major veggie planting this weekend, but with 30s in the forecast, I’m also going to hold off on my peppers, tomatoes and eggplants. Looks like it will be thinning, spreading and pruning this weekend (and planting lettuce and carrots).
A couple weeks ago I thought I was way behind on planting everything compared to the weather we were having. Now, my plants are all set to go into the ground but the weather is holding me up.
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I know. This weather is bonkers. But global climate change “isn’t” happening.
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@Matt_in_Maryland,
Out of the several hundred grafts I made this year none would be alive on any rootstocks if I didn’t take care of them. Just figure the pears are worth at least $20 each. That would be an awfully big loss by not pruning off under growth. It would not be like me to neglect $6,000 worth of trees. By the time they are 3-7 years old they should be providing more pears than this town can eat. Quality pears like these are the likes of ones no one around here has tried. More important just figure how many people lives those pears will make better, might even make some live longer. If I grow pears successfully pretty soon others will do it to. Trimming on a little undergrowth won’t stop that dream.
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I think it might be safe here to plant on Weds. Maybe.
I had lettuce and bok choi hardening off, and some dam varmint came along and nipped them all down to the nub
Last years grafts are taking off! And this years are starting to burst. Found a mini blind with vinyl slats for perfect fruiit I.D. Use.
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On one hand, I get it, but on the other…do you need to label an unknown?
My OCD would make me do it, so I’m not knocking it. Just thinking about how cheap I am with supplies.
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I have over forty grafts so I want to know which ones are the unknown variety I got from a neighbors tree. ( she doesn’t remember what it is) The window shade I got at our town dump swap shop. I figure I could do over a thousand markers with it. Free is good!
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I also have been grafting some ones marked WILD because I found a wild Apple tree growing near me and I’ve been grafting them onto my trees also.
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Can you imagine how insane you might go trying to match a seedling to a list of varieties you know you grafted in 15 years?
Yes I realized recently how quickly I forget.