And here’s a brief overview of how invasive apricot roots can be. My hope is that since we are growing them in a wet region they won’t spread as much in the search for moisture. Plus my soil is clay and I’ve never seen it dry out completely even when we didn’t get rain for over 3 months.
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I think the invasiveness of apricot roots would be impossible to predict given the huge amount of scion/rootstock combinations. If you’re worried, I imagine those rootstocks with poor anchorage would be the least invasive. I’m trying to dig up an article I read the other night, but I believe Krymsk 99 had the worst anchorage for prunes among a lot of options. I don’t have long term experience, but Krymsk 1 seems to have a large amount of small roots vs fewer large roots of cerasifera based roots, however supposedly has compatibility issues with apricot. P. americana in the wild had roots up to 11 feet long.
If you can find that article I would be grateful. I don’t know what rootstock my apricot is on, but I’m sure I can find out by emailing the seller.
Is there anything that will help if copper wasn’t sprayed during the dormancy.
Compost tea.
John S
PDX OR
Thanks, spray or root drench.
Is this the start of grape clusters forming? I noticed quite a few of these growing on my second year Suffolk Red grape. Does anyone have experience growing Suffolk Red? I would like to know what others think of the variety (I’m brand new to growing grapes) I found this variety at my local walmart last year and decided to buy it as it was a pretty good deal. I’m glad I did as the vine is doing very well.
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yes those look like grape flowers. when it’s just leaves it’ll look like a fractal pattern, a leaf with a smaller leaf inside, with a smaller leaf inside, and so on, which it looks like you have above and left of your circled part. when it’s flowers you’ll see a distinct cone that looks sort of like a tiny hops seed cone at this stage
I just looked and most of my new varieties started last year aren’t making grapes this year… but I think one is. my established vines all have the cones visible now, like yours
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Thanks for the info! I feel pretty fortunate to already be getting grapes on a one year old vine (now it its second year of growing)
It seems to vary a lot by variety.
Some varieties have beautiful leaves with no disease all through winter. Others get diseased and very sick.
All of them shrug it off once the weather gets warm. Loquats also do much better in ground than in a pot. But my one very sick variety in ground is doing worse than many potted trees.
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Thanks for your response. Two of mine are seedlings from the famous Seattle tree. How does that one hold up? I also have one from some dude in Northern Florida. My buddy in Salem is growing a seedling from the Florida tree and it looks very blemished in the winter. I took the Seattle seedling loquats out of the greenhouse in early March and even though we had some fairly cold weather they remained green and beautiful. We didn’t drop below 28, but they sailed through a few nights with those temps looking mighty fine. They are so happy to be on the ground now. Responded right away.
I remember that you have lots of loquats growing in the PNW. Are you familiar with the Premier cultivar that’s supposedly a dwarf. I have a covered patio with a polycarbonate roof and it never really freezes under there. The roof is about 10 feet and I was thinking maybe that dwarf cultivar would be a good choice. What do you think about that variety?
Thanks again for responding!
No experience with premier. There is another supposed small variety called Advance. Or graft on quince.
They all grow pretty slowly that I don’t think it is necessary to choose a particularly dwarf variety. You can also prune them in summer after fruiting.
Lots of people love to get scionwood at that time.
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Doesn’t it fruit on new growth? So how do you control the size without removing the fruit?
I posted photos of it a week ago in this thread, the mother tree has good clean looking leaves: Pacific Northwest Fruit Growers - #1268 by swincher
Out of my three seedlings of that tree, one of them gets very splotchy, but the other two look great. The splotchy one is in a hotter, drier spot with a lot more summer sun, and more exposed to radiative cooling in winter, but I’m not sure if that actually plays a role or if it’s just a coincidence and it’s just more genetically inclined.
Well hopefully these two will look nice and green all winter. Given how well they handled our relatively cold March I feel optimistic. They seem to really like the heat whenever they get it.
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Three
My completely unprotected loquat grafts had some significant dieback this winter, although I don’t think I’ve lost any of the varieties. They are just starting to leaf out, so I’m waiting to prune to better see exactly what’s dead. But they are completely defoliated. That’s probably due more to wind and snow than to cold.
Varieties are Viking, Sunset, Sugarcane and Orange Dream. The last may have done best, but is also a year more established.
None of these look very ornamental right now. In fact, grafted to quince, which has leafed out sooner and about to have lovely bloom, they look pretty bad in comparison.
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What was your low when it was windy and snowy?
Here are my two better looking seedlings, already leafing out nicely:
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Those look great. I don’t exactly remember the weather pattern, but we had some very unusual events this year.
We had 20F on Feb 22 and 19F on Dec 21, which as essentially the first freeze. With highs in the mid 50s before those. That is measured on the North side of my house, essentially touching the building, maybe 50 feet from the Loquats which are downhill. Probably a few degrees cooler and no protection.
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