Reciprocating saw is less mess involving dirt. I would avoid dirt with chains and gears.
Where’s the cream? Sacroligious eating it without 
My first pesticide spray was today, 5/13. 99.9% of trees are at petal fall (shuck split for peaches and nectarines). Since I have a mixed fruit tree orchard, it has been an issue because some fruit reach petal fall earlier than others. I need to cross my fingers most years.
Zeta-cypermetrin (new Sevin), Captan, Myclobutanil (Immunox), Nufilm 17 and a couple drop of dish soap. Because of Captan, I add vinegar to the water and use ph strip to make sure ph was between 5.5-6.5.
It has been warm and dry. The dry part is a good thing.
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I did my first spray a few days ago. I was scouting my orchard when I saw a plum curculio on a nectarine tree, and my nectarines are at shuck split, so I sprayed right away; Sevin, Infuse and NuFilm. I only sprayed the trees that have fruit.
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I mainly spray trees that have fruit, too. If my empty Freckle Face get OFM’s flagging shots a week or two from now, I may spray it if I have leftover spray.
I got Captan and myclo now because it does help with Marrsonina leaf blotch on apples which has been a big issue in recent years.
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It’s a wonder to me,that before growing fruit,I never saw or heard of some pests or diseases,involved with my other plants.Maybe the native ones,developed defenses along the way and survived.
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I grafted it at about 2" high. It looks like I cut across the myro rootstock, though a small part of the cut could have gotten some apricot.
I put 3 plums on it (2 Lavina and a Laroda), but I’ll probably need to decide on one or two (maybe a V shape…).
2 and a half weeks later and it is putting on some growth.
And even better, it looks like a decent set of peach/nec on that tree and several other peach/nec/apricot (many of which were planted in 2021). I’ve given some 1 spray, but haven’t gotten all my stonefruit yet.
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Bob,
I am interested to see the development of your Lavina and Laroda grafts. That was as low as a graft can be. By the way, now I know which of my graft is Lavina ( it has a distinct pink-tinted flowers).
I will post some pics of my stone fruit grafted earlier when the weather was not ideal (58F - 62 F). Some are successful !!
Tippy, my Lavinia doesn’t have pinkish flower color. My Flavor Queen does
It was not pinkish but compared to other plums bloomed at the same time it looked a bit pink-tinted instead of very white. The fruit also matched Lavina pics. I got scionwwod from a trusted member. I never have Flavor Queen.
I don’t think that it is how low they are that will be an issue. I think the more likely problems could be some animal like a rabbit eating them, or the rootstock being dead from whatever killed the apricot on top. We’ll see…
I’d like to report my early grafting of peaches/nectarines.
On 4/25/23, I grafted 1 apricot, 3 nectarines and 4 peaches when temp was 62 F and the rest were 57, 58 F, at least 10 degrees lower than my usual” peach grafting temp (68-72F).
Today, 5/14, 20 days later, the success rate is 50%. An apricot, a peach (Ernie’s Choice) and 2 nectarines have taken.
@scottfsmith - the first two Gold Dust have not shown signs of taking. I grafted the 3rd one two days ago and hope third time is a charm. Ernie’s Choice is a success.
By the way, 50% success when temp was in the 50’s was very good by my own peach grafting history.
@Ahmad
Have you experienced twin nectarines much this year?
My small potted nectarines (just move the tree in grown last month), seemed to have their share of twins.
I can’t remember now what causes them to have twins.
I have seen a few, but remember, I have a very small crop this year, perhaps around 30 nectarines on all my trees combined. I have seen them a lot in past years. I noticed that some flowers have multiple stigmas, and I guess multiple ovaries too, and if two stigmas are pollinated you get a double. I don’t remove the whole double, I snip-off the smaller of the two and keep the big one.
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Wow- it’s really been pretty warm (for May), so even a few days later, I see green buds. I think I need to wait a bit longer to know it is really taking.
Speaking of checking grafts, the 5 nectarine grafts I made on 4/27 all seem to have worked.
I’ve been thinning peaches. And once in a while a few apricots. This Sugar Pearls branch got 1 fruit thinned off…
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It might be related to the vigor, the Gold Dust tree is not so vigorous.
This spring I was trying to propagate two old peaches I have, Clayton and Heath. None of my grafts took even though the weather was good. I think the wood was just not vigorous enough… I will try budding them this fall with the most vigorous wood I can find on the trees.
In general for peaches along with great weather you need excellent vigor in both stock and scion.
Re nectarine doubles I get those on some varieties more than others. Same for peaches and plums. My worst doubler was Golden Transparent Gage… half of the fruits doubled. I topworked it this spring.
You’re probably right re. vigor of the tree (and scionwood). While my 3rd Gold Dust grafted 4 days ago has shown no sign of movement, my 2nd Ernie’s Choice grafted the same time has already pushed buds. Glad that, at least, I have Ernie’s Choice for a good mid season peach.
I have two donut nectarine grafts, Snack Time and H13-23, take, too. (Thanks to the kind scion donors). Very exciting.
I have not seen many doubles in plums but I don’t grow many plum varieties like you do.
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Funny you should mention Heath. Earlier today I was at a rental with a seedling from Heath cling. The parent tree is at another rental (shockingly planted by the previous owner, not me…) and started a couple seedlings. I left one in place and transplanted the other. There are 2 other peach/nec at the site with the transplant and the HC seedling seems to have a massively heavy fruit set. It needed lots of thinning, compared to only a bit on Snacktime and almost none on Pink Diamond.
Yesterday, high temperature was 81 and dropped to 45 F early this morning. Tonight it will drop to 36 F!! I have not put many seedlings in ground but the low temp is still nothersome.
What is your expected low temp tonight? @galinas , @JinMA , @jcguarneri , @Colleen7, @SMC_zone6 ?
Have you planted out your veggies?
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Forecast says it could go down to 30 here overnight. I think Alan has said that apples and pears should be ok as long as it doesn’t go down into the mid-20s. (The earlier cold snap did for my peaches already.)
Haven’t planted tomatoes yet but the beans I planted are starting to sprout. Might be a good idea to put some kind of cover over them. Most other garden things should be ok, I think. (Lettuce and such.)
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