No, they usually will grow laterals themselves when ready to fruit. pretty amazing. I do tip them to keep them at a reasonable height if needed.
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Thought this was interesting
Katy
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Those are amazing photos and that is a really neat phenomenon. But I’ve spent more time in the woods that anyone I know and I’ve never noticed anything like that and the canopies around here don’t look like that…I don’t think! I’m going wild paw paw hunting this weekend so I’m going to look and see if any of our trees around here do this. Very interesting.
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I’ve never seen it either!
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Do old unpruned pear trees flip into biennial bearing just like apple trees?
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I don’t think its the industry or the American consumer. Asian pears I believe have past consumer acceptance levels. There are just factors not in A-Pears favor. E-pears are picked firm and improve with storage A-Pears while they can be stored, they are picked ripe and do not improve much with storage. Fewer can be grown on the same amount of land as they require thinning to achieve market size. only seeing one type of Asian pear is due to there only being around 25 commercial cultivars vs the thousands of epear cultivars to choose from. During the season you can fill the shelves with Bartlet flavor profile pears every week. Not the same for Asian pears, which are going to flood in all at the same times when ripe.
Pear breeding in the US is also an issue. Brazil and Australia are breading pears for there climate. That would hopefully bring new product to the US. What pear breeding that is goign on in the US is focusing on fire blight. I know with Apples at least Europe tends to breed for scab resistance and the US breeds for firelight resistance. ‘Gem’ a fireblight resistant pear was released in 2015 it was crossed in 1981. Gem from what I understand is just an OK pear. It will likely be the parent or grand parent of good cultivars years from now.
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Thank-you, Carroll. That was very informative and made very good sense. It is unfortunate that the short-term outlook for A-Pears isn’t great due to the reasons you mentioned, but it makes more sense now. And as for fire blight, my 2 asian pears certainly had a LOT of it most years.
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This is my first year of growing green tomato.would anyone tell me how to know it is ripe. I have some green tomatoes on the vine for a long time, I am wondering if they are already ripe.Thanks
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They get a yellowish cast to them and for me, they split and rot.
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I was wondering why one tomato plant was just not turning red. Full of tomatoes, but they’re all green!
Took me a few days to remember that’s where I planted green tiger!
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Latham is my tallest raspberry and I do tip it to bring it down to about 5 ft. But like Drew said, I think they make laterals without. I get more lateral fruit iwith farther spacing but most fruit on mine is at the top… It’s my favorite for flavor.
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Does anyone have an approximate date for when Kidd’s Orange Red is ready to pick in the Midwest? Bonus points for weeks vs. Honeycrisp. (HC is ripe here now.)
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I had a hail damaged one, KOR, today, excellent. I think the undamaged one will hang until it falls just to check dates. We may be 2-3 weeks ahead in central Ia. The razor russets were sweet tart, slightly green yet. Wickson was just sour, Venus de Muscat has a very interesting flavor but still needs some maturity, Roxbury is sour, Golden russet sour, Baldwin has a ways yet, orleans very green yet, (haven’t forgot, NB) Spigold, Gold Rush, and Liberty coming along nicely, Gala and Empire almost ready. You have my latest update, this afternoon.
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Any idea what did this to this random mulberry? I was thinking maybe caterpillars ate the leaves and then my dogs ran it over? It just seems very much like a localized tornado hit it.
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maybe a deer
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Could be a groundhog. I had a groundhog strip all the leaves from my contorted mulberry. Broke some branches too.
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I had some peach pits that were 1 year to one month old. I just got around to planting them. The pits were never refrigerated or kept in any kind of moisture so they were bone dry when planted. Any chance they will sprout and grow? How long can you keep a pit out of the peach before planting (with no special care)?
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Yes
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