Got them in my Amazon cart tonight, thanks for the tip (no pun)
Yep, permanent sharpie on vinyl blinds won’t last a season. Fades. Been there, done that. Nor cut up pie plates. All ripped off first season. Pencil on vinyl lasted two seasons so far , but the vinyl gets brittle and some break. Definitely keep a chart for a back-up. Embossed Dymo tape on heavier metal strips would work, but I’ve had two embossers fail the first day I used them! Hard to find them any more.
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Thanks, good to know!
No, it won’t.
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Congratulations on your plan and your willingness to work your ass off!
When you are young you believe you can do anything- and sometimes you can.
Hope you have a job with a flexible schedule because a 2 or 3 week vacation is not nearly enough time. Your project is going to be a lot of fun and could make some money too!
We planted 1000 apple trees but never grafted that many. We planted the trees over several years to make the project more manageable. We started with a shovel and moved to an 18 inch auger on a tractor mounted post hole digger. We visited several commercial orchards. read everything we could find, attended commercial apple grower seminars in my state and spoke with the apple PHD several times before we started but many things did not work like we expected
Here are a few thoughts based on our experience over last 8 years
Some type of professional grade grafting tool would helpful for the bench grafts
High quality fence will be required to keep deer and other animals out of nursery beds
Quality labels and extreme focus to keep varieties and rootstock combinations marked
Good weed control in nursery rows but be careful with mechanical cultivation to protect grafts
Need ability to water nursery rows
Most likely only about half of the variety/rootstock combinations will be profitable unless you intend to sell apple trees rather than apples. With some solid research you can eliminate the ones that are less likely to succeed which will simplify the project a lot. Also spacing, pruning/training, and trellis practices vary widely between rootstocks. Its a lot to learn and it must be learned quickly in order to succeed
Growing sellable apples is a different skill set than grafting or growing trees. 1000 trees will require airblast or perhaps mist blower sprayer. Lots of good research on ORMI chemicals for apples but most commercial orchards that are not located in very dry areas find synthetic chemicals are required to produce sellable fruit. A north/south layout may help to prevent sunburn. Probably need drip irrigation which will require at least 5 GPM. Well water is preferred over surface water. Multiple cover croppings of orchard area ahead of time will help control weeds and enhance soil fertility. Careful planning is required. I would describe the level of knowledge required to succeed as masters of science in practical tree fruit production. The establishment cost of one acre of trellis apples is over $15K. Grafting your own trees will save money but the trees are just one of the costs involved.
Edit:
Can you make money? Excellent yield would be 1000 bushels/acre but 700 bushels sold for a good price would still make a lot of money. If you can sell 500 bushels at $20/peck you could gross $40K/acre. Looks good on paper and sounds easy!
Edit2. Just read the whole thread including the the part about grazing the sheep in the orchard and the experiment. Also see you are close to Madison so I bet you could get a ton of folks who would be happy to pay to see your “experiment” especially with the term “permaculture.” If your experiment works well you become the expert and could create and sell multiple 1 day seminars. An old barn on the property would be a perfect location for the seminar. As a general rule agri-tourism is more profitable than growing and selling fruit and easier too since the folks looking for entertainment or education are not as critical about fruit quality and normally spend money freely
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This Rhino embosser works well for me, but it’s pricey. You likely can find it cheaper if you shop around. I use the stainless steel tape, and attach it with stainless wire.
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I think my mother has an embosser that she used to use for her work (vet). I’ll try that before I buy something.
@Stan, the markers came and Im impressed so far! They seemed to be really quick drying, too, which is helpful on outdoor graft markers. Thanks for the tip!
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Hey, not sure where you’re at with this. I just read this thread and actually took notes on a lot of information provided by other posters which is awesome how helpful everyone is. As for keeping the scions, rootstocks, grafts dormant, I use a big chest freezer that I bought on Facebook marketplace for $100. I also bought an inkbird temperature controller which cycles the compressor on to maintain the process setpoint temp. I have it in my pole barn which isn’t heated so I also put a boot warmer/dryer in there and the inkbird controller has a heater output that would cycle it on when it gets too cold. The other nice feature is that since there is no fan, and evaporator drain, it doesn’t dry everything out so the moisture is retained while keeping it cool. Here I have a little over 250 grafts and it works great. When I’m getting ready to plant I can slowly raise the temperature a day at a time before I plant them.
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Update on this project:
Of the 1000 rootstocks, I grafted half and planted the other half to graft in future years. About 90% are pushing good growth but it is a little early to call. At what point can I declare the grafts successful?
I have 70% neem oil that I’m planning to mix up and apply to them on Sunday:
1 tsp oil
1 tsp dish soap
1 quart warm water
Am I making a mistake?
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Good job !
That’s a lot of grafting !
Success looks like …
your picture.
(Right before a bird lands on it and knocks it off.)
Or… when you pick that first apple. That is a sure sign of success !
Why the neem oil, ? Any issues you are spraying for. ?
I have burned some leafs with neem oil. May depend on …type , weather, concentration ?
May do a test spray on a few and observe for several days first ?
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Mostly pests, especially Japanese beetles which will descend on us any day now. Also if it does actually provides some rust protection then that would be an added bonus.
Is this something I should be worried about? Anyone else want to chime in?
I don’t think neem oil will do much for beetles. At least it didn’t for me. If you want to spray something non-toxic for beetles use Surround, it works very well. Given that your grafts are so small though you may just be able to hand-pick the beetles off. I did that for a few years, it is not a whole lot of work. Knock them into a soapy jar; their instinct is to drop when disturbed so drop ‘em into the soap. They are also more awake in the day so evening it is easier.
In general I don’t think neem does much for anything. Regular old hort oil will be just as good 90% of the time on aphids, mites, etc. It can be good as an extra helper with certain pests, e.g. Surround plus neem could be a little better than just Surround for the JBs.
Re: your neem recipe I would use less soap. I would try 1/4tsp and see if that gets the neem into solution and bump it up from there until it goes in. Different soaps have different requirements of how much is needed… I once used Dr. Bronners and I needed a ton of soap to get the neem into solution with that.
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Looks good! My grafts are a year old, and I still sometimes wonder how long before I can be “sure” they’ve taken.
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Im skipping neem on pears next year. Too much leaf damage, one almost to the point of defoliation. Local application of neem to peach tree trunks may have discouraged borers. I always add solid neem to any borer damage areas. I think it might help finish off any I may have missed. Remember to decrease final spray concentration on foliage by half.
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Neem oil is a waste of time for insects once the trees break dormancy. Not only does the oil cause leaf damage, but it’s about worthless for most pests.
If you want good control, an application of sevin, surround, captan or the like will clear out many japanese beetles.
Long story short, yes spraying neem oil would be a mistake.
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I’ve spent a lot of precious time weeding the nursery this year. Cover crop and row lack of spacing issues…I bought a load of scion so I could do more grafting- mostly top work previous years fails. With a new kiddo this didn’t fall into the schedule as well as bench grafting. In apples, Of the grafts that I thought were good Ive probably lost 10% per year. Mostly winter kill, a few to fireblight I think. I think I brought on some my own winter kill as well by not waiting long enough to winter prune/collect scion. I didn’t know about pruning stimulation and winter damage. I’m going wait until March next year. In pears the only ones that took were ones that lost labels - at least I don’t have any perry pears.
Some of my grafts have healed up ok and look to make a stout trees, but Some of the cleft grafts are slow to heal over. Only a hunch, but I’d recommend Finding a good source of budwood and Learning budding. I think you’ll end up with good trees in less relative time.
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I believe neem is somewhat valuable (diluted) in holistic sprays as a food source for competitive arboreal organisms…