I visited an old heritage apple orchard (part of a national part) and noticed several odd things I hadn’t seen there before. The trunks on some of the varieties are covered with holes. I don’t remember seeing this before. Also, they drastically pruned the trees shorter this year. I don’t remember this level of pruning before either. Any thoughts on what is going on? The trees are between 60 and 80 years old, lots of heirlooms. As a side note, there was scion sized wood on the ground under the York tree. The pruning looks recent, the wood is green, and now in my fridge. It is viable for scion wood?
2 Likes
The holes look like the work of sapsuckers. I’ve seen it on some old seedling apples out in a pasture where I rode horses as a kid. We made some tree houses up in the top of those old trees so I remember the bark from all the climbing up and down.
The scion wood looks good to me, probably better than some that has spent a couple months in my fridge already.
9 Likes