Pacific Northwest Fruit & Nut Growers

Portland just ended a string of 130 consecutive daily highs below 60 degrees.

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It’s been crazy cold this winter in the PNW. In reality, it has been really cold in the West all winter long.

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That’s typical for La Niña, I’m hoping for a warm late spring now that La Niña officially ended. It takes some time for the atmosphere to catch up with the changes in Pacific Ocean heat patterns, though, so maybe I’m being too optimistic.

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Very much agree!

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@swincher, thanks again for the scions. They did not go to waste. I grafted them yesterday to my 2nd year feijoa. Have you had any luck rooting the trims?



Yesterday I also got my honeycrisp scions grafted too. The replacements for the scaffold that died on my tree. So back to 7: Granny Smith, Braeburn, Fuji, cosmic crisp, gala, gravenstein, and honeycrisp. Assuming they take.

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I’ve easily rooted water sprouts that emerge from around ground level on my bushes, but only occasional success with branch tips, and then only when the top few leaves are left intact. I’ve never had scions with leaves removed root, but I’m sure it’s at least possible to do. I’ve only tried once, though.

I posted about the one time I did a whole bunch from all over the bush here:

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Not specifically, but i had a peach pit sprout three years ago from my compost pile, and it doesnt get curl. At all. My store bought trees get curl (except where protected under the eves). Go figure.

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That’s good news because from what I’ve seen feijoas all like to sucker at the base (just have to make sure they’re not grafted otherwise the suckers would be from whatever random seedling was used for the rootstock).

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I’ve had peach trees grow from pits in my yard for years. They often don’t get curl at the beginning. I think this is because they haven’t been cut for grafting. Mine have all gotten curl pretty badly afterwards. I did have a few years at the beginning when some produced well. Eventually, none produced well.

John S
PDX OR

Well i guess we will see. Youre probably right, but i can always hope i found one “Resistant” to curl. :stuck_out_tongue:

You may be onto something. Has it fruited for you yet?

Betty, Avalon pride, and Mary Jane are all 3 varieties sold by raintree. In the description all 3 are random pit sprouts found to be curl resistant by Wa state residents.

What will you call yours? If it fruits for you I would love a cut…

They leafed out so not till next winter, but if you want scions of Salish summer (my best curl resistant), Oregon curl free (close second), frost(got curl but recovers), contender (curl mess), hw 272 (curl but recovers), Betty (gets curl but recovers), veteran (new don’t know), and Indian free (don’t know replacement). Just hit me up around new years…

I also have a nectarine collection too if interested.

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Well it is actually five years old*, but due to a new puppy incident two years ago, i’m officially calling it three years ago. Apparently labs like to chew, who would have though it /sarcasm. That being said, we should connect online this coming winter, i would like to trade some stuff.
As for this peach of mine, once it fruits i’ll let you know how it tastes. But so far, so sign of curl and last year was a very wet spring. Hopefully none this year as well.

You could name it “lab food”. Ha

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Testing on 2 peach varieties without using chemicals spray this year (3.23)
Charlotte peach and Oregon curl free peach.

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My seed grown Hunza sweet pit type apricot tree has finally reached blooming age this year! The local cherry plums (P. cerasifera) are already opening flowers here, but the apricot isn’t quite ready to start opening which means it might be a late enough bloomer to somewhat reliably set fruit here (western WA South of Seattle). I don’t think this tree will get super large either as it’s acted like it wants to be a bush and I’ve had to prune aggressively to make it a little more tree like.

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@DennisD i read from a few university sources that Stanley is one of the most black knot-susceptible. Did you notice this with your Stanley?

So far Tubig I have not had it here, maybe I’m just lucky but we do have aphids pretty badly each spring, so I have to deal with them very often. The maladies I deal with, most are apple fly maggot, peach leaf curl, aphids, and occasionally shothole disease. If I am very careful with my watering I can usually avoid shothole, when I had it badly I discovered it was because I was wetting the foliage, once I avoided that, have not had many episodes. Stanley and Empress are both pretty disease free. The only thing is that Empress tends to have mold on fruit that quickly spreads to other fruit, so I need to watch carefully and thin them as they either begin to mold or ripen. The fruit hangs in clusters so thinning is the best remedy for mold prevention.
Dennis

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@DennisD do you have photos of your green gage fruits? I’ve seen some photos of round and oblong ones and wondering what the differences are flavor- and texturewise if any.

Hi Tubig
So far only some volunteer green gages are fruiting. In a year or so my Rosy gage grafts should produce. These pics are from trees that came up and grew as volunteers presumably from seed. Possibly the sweetest plum I have.
Dennis

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Those are probably St Julian rootstock plums. Nice and sweet.