What's happening today - 2018 edition

glad I’ve never seen them or SWD up here yet! they just detected EAB in Maine for the 1st time! we were the last new england state that didn’t have them. logging industry is taking all precautions to stop the spread. i think its a loosing battle and i believe the other 2 i mentioned above, is just a matter of time before it gets up here.

My HC apple finally started to leaf out. This is the latest that it’s ever broken it’s buds. I think this will be the last year that I give it before I rip it out. I may try grafting a couple of scions to my Pixie Crunch apple which is proving to be very precocious, before it goes.

The last few years I have nicked the pits out of sour cherries with the tip of a paring knife. A short cut, nick it out, and minimal damage to the cherry.
This year we are headed into a HOT and dry summer, so when my little North Star cherries (sour) got to 15 Brix (%) I elected to pick 'em all. No fruit fly maggots inside - and that without any measures taken to deter them in a cool June - and 9 of 10 pits stuck to the stem when pulled. Made pitting the lot ( about 17 cups; a young tree) quick this time around.

North Star can get 21 Brix, but then I have to deal with the flies and thought this worth trying.

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My latest bud break was to a cider apple graft. It could be a combination of sloppy technique on my part and possibly later bud break for the cultivar, Bitter Pew. This is a first try with this scion, a cider apple found in the state of Maine circa 1900, and grafted to Bardsey. It is so small by now I will wait to air-layer/marcot it until next year.

If you have Honeycrisp and initial it HC, that bodes badly for either the stock it is on or the placement, near as I can tell blindly from here.
The two that are latest to break buds in my collection are Lamb Abbey Pearmain/Budagovsky118, and Edelborsdorfer/Geneva41. EdBf is in its fourth leaf since buying the whip from Cummins.

I grafted LAP onto Budagovsky118 last year. It was last to take, but grew slowly throughout the 80 day dearth last summer. Edelb. bloomed on just two spurs this season, its first, and set one fruit. If all goes well, this will enable me to enjoy an apple that folks have eaten since 1175.
Lamb Abbey is a small tree, so I might have to wait a while before allowing it to yield a debut sample fruit, lest it be further stunted by making seed.

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Just too lazy to type out Honey Crisp! It’s on M111 which I sought due to my crappy soil. I have a foot of dirt over a layer of clay, so I have to help everything along. It’s probably the hot summers and relatively warm winters which play havoc with it. My other two apple trees, a Pixie Crunch (rootstock unknown) and Gala (M111) started to leaf out in mid-April. They both still have a couple of bare branches, but that isn’t terribly unusual here. It makes for a lengthy bloom season followed by a prolonged harvest.

HC, per Dave Wilson’s website, is good for zone 3-8 with an estimate of chilling requirement of 800-1000 hours. It is an apple that is very good for northern growers.

Since you are in zone 10. It is probably why you are fighting an uphill battle.

We finally met the chill hour needs for Honey Crisp and I actually have a few apples. Not sure if our warm climate will have negatively effect on the taste.

My first methely plum, very sweet and the skin is just a little tart. Will see how they are when they are a little more ripe. I will test brix on the next few.

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Lovely
I know its a black knot risk but i love it

I’ve enlarged my nursery area—sweated a lot more for more space. My previous area was 10 x 10. Now I have 10 x 30. My goal is to fill it up too! :grin:

Jujubes

Jujube grafts

Persimmon grafts and rootstock

Figs and a grafted Oscar mulberry

World’s Best mulberries with mulberry rootstock in the background

And a workspace…may never be cleaned off again…:flushed:

Katy

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Agreed! However Kuffle Creek has had some success with high chilling hour apples in SoCal. Their entry on Honey Crisp mentions that it will never be a big producer, but could produce down here under the right conditions. There are enough hopeful types like me that my local HD will carry bare root HC trees every year.
I like the apples quite a bit (some do not…), so it was worth the gamble and the ~$30 I paid for the tree. After this year, if it doesn’t do anything maybe I’ll rip it out and replace it with something more suitable (or completely different.) Or maybe I’ll double down and buy another HC from a big box store that’s willing to take my money. Not sure yet.
But like you said, an uphill battle!

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I have HC that took 6 years in ground to fruit. Then, it went on to be biennial a couples more times. I just broke the biennial tendency with heavy thinning last yesr so it flowered and set again this year. It is worth it for me because I like the fruit and beside biennialing, it does not give me much of an issue. I am in the right zone.

Re. Home Depot and Lowe selling fruit trees not appropriate to their zones, it happens everywhere. By the way, @applenut is great with apples esp. growing them in a warm climate.

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My combo plum tree from Stark Bros. produced its first crop of Red Heart plums. They are about the size of a half dollar and are very tasty. I probably have around 120 of them. The tree is suppose to be a combo of Red Heart and Shiro, but none of the plums are yellow so I assume they are all Red Heart. I’m working on getting pictures, but my computer is not downloading pics from my phone all of a sudden.

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Fantastic!!!

I found the JBs swarming one of my aprium fruits, which they do when the fruit is ripe, so I picked the tree - about 2 dozen fruits, quite sound except for some JB bite marks

They’re all over the Asian plums now. I need more of the bug-excluding nets

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Decided to take the parafilm off the last graft to take. Bad idea. Broke the callus and now praying it survives. Am hoping to try the same scion next year on a different stock -might be compatibility issues.

I just did the same thing with one of my plums, it was depressing.

FYI if you plant a little grafted apricot make sure to put a tomato cage over it or someone (meaning me) might have trouble turning the mower and decapitate it. On the bright side, I have some successful grafts that are doing great.

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The heat wave last week was miserable but this morning was 55. Lettuce is loving it!

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I will have to try your knife method. It is all so time-consuming, but maybe that would be a bit faster for me. I will have to wait until next year to try it!

When was that planting?