What is your Tip OF The Day?

A tip from my sister in laws’ 91 year old father after spending a week in the hospital with severe G/I problems. Don’t eat slimy lunch meat!

He’s a tough old bird and will survive but is much chagrined. :slight_smile:

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Copper octanoate fungicide applied in late winter (March) dormancy is not a complete solution for peach leaf curl. My redhaven has some leaf curl showing up now, even though I sprayed at the right time.

I will try again this fall during leaf drop… The infection isn’t as bad as last year, at least.

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What brand of Copper was it? Brady

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I used Bonide liquid copper fungicide concentrate (copper octanoate is the active ingredient). Scott and others use Kocide 3000 for this purpose, but I’m not sure that I need 4 lbs.

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I have read a few reports that the Bonide Copper is too weak for PLC.Their most powerful product for that,Fung-onil,wasn’t successful on my Nectarines. Brady

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Scion wood is a funny thing, you either have enough of a variety to graft an orchard or just a couple of sticks. I grafted my two sticks of amadiocot today. While going through my diminishing supply of scion wood I found a left over stick of hood pear that I got from @amadioranch. I had put two sticks on my pear tree but neither took. I was very pleased to have one more chance to add hood to my tree. It never hurts to save one stick of scion wood just in case, and when you are sending scion wood don’t forget, it might be that extra stick you put in that makes the difference for the guy grafting.

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Hood is a funny variety for dormant storage. It doesnt seem to be a variety that need heat units to come out of dormancy. As soon as its chill requirements are met they come out, no matter if its in the fridge at 35 degrees or not. I had a hard time finding hood wood to send to people that was still dormant. Much of it had broken bud in the fridge.

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Mine was still sleeping soundly fortunately. I hope this one takes, it is the only pear I have failed to graft. The scion was nice and green inside.

Good luck with it. Its quite a decent early season pear. What are you planning to use as a pollinator?

Lol, I graft then think about stuff like a pollinator later :grinning:. Honestly, I had not given it much thought. Currently, my pear orchard is mostly one big ole tree that was damaged below the graft 18 years ago. Not knowing how to graft I just let it grow into a thirty foot tree. Last year I cut it all down to stumps and I currently have six European pears on it and four Asian pears. I hope one of them will pollinate hood. What do you use as a pollinator?

You most likely will have a pollinator for the Hood in your group. I grafted in some hood scions the spring of 2015 but I haven’t gotten any fruit yet. All indications is that it is high quality and FB resistant. Bill

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Its probably a little low chill for me but some years it should fruit. I have heard it compared to magness.

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Two spray or one spray. Aphid Observation and blister mites in my orchard

I do a lot of grafting during the winter and I have been wrapping most of the scions with parafilm for the last two seasons. My dormant oil/copper spray is applied after I graft and or after I gather scion wood to store in my refrigerator. This is my observation from a small sample. My parafilm is protecting the eggs from my spray and I am seeing a few spots of blister mites on these new grafts. Some of you do two sprays and I plan to do so this winter. Like to here your thoughts whether you agree or not. My observations are small so there is plenty of room for errors in my logic. As a whole this spring I am having less aphids and the blister mites have been reduced to two or three scions. I just picked the infected leaf off and that appears to have taken care of those (not sure but I think Scott posted the leaf pick idea). Bill

I was using the same wire to tie my deer fence down to the ground. While unspooling it I stuck my fingers inside the holes and started backing down the hill at a good pace. The start of the wire on the inside caught my finger and went right through the middle of it. Then I was stuck with my finger inside and bent wire going through it. It was a very painful experience pulling my finger out with little room for that wire to bend back out of it. I just don’t want anyone else doing that! That’s my tip for the day.

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I hope you are up to date on your tetanus shots!

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Oh my! Ouch, Sorry to hear, John. Wow.
But that launches me into my tip of the day which comes from an old PA dutch saying: The hurrier I go, the behinder I get.
This is so true and since I can’t afford to get behind, I intentionally slow myself down when doing any kind of work.
Hope there is a happy ending to your injury.
Pat

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I was alright. It was a couple years ago. I even took a screwdriver with me to hold in the middle, but decided it worked better with two fingers. The first thought was oh my god I’m going to have to take this spool of wire with me to the emergency! Then I contemplated for about five minutes and the hell with that and pulled it out.
I frame houses and there is no such thing as take your time. We wont make money if we take our time.

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I had a boss once who watched me scurry around the shop and redo a couple of things and then gently observed “more haste, less speed.” Sage indeed, and a reminder I try to keep at hand! Thanks, Hank!

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Tip of the day - check your grafts often and make sure the rootstock is not shading out the grafts. This is a wild callery on a remote part of my property that I top worked using cleft grafts. I checked it two weeks ago.
Before :


After:

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Will that rootstock ever quit pushing growth below the graft?

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