Had some old whole sardines in the freezer that didn’t look too good. Decided to get creative. They’re still frozen but I’ll check them later for flies. I’m only keeping them out during the day because of the chickens. Debating whether I should cut the tops off to make them more open. The thing I like about this is I can put the cap on at night to keep the smell from escaping.
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Also…
Cleared the leaves from my BSD Carmelo and saw the lower bark was cracked and rotting. I cleared it out to let air get to it. I’ll graft to the two suckers soon, but may leave the other one just to see if it recovers.
Also, my Tallahatchie when dormant early last year and is very slow to wake up this spring. It’s pushing fruit and vegetative buds on the bottom half of the tree, but not much yet up the leader. I cleared the leaves from that one and saw a minir crack on that one too with damp looking bark. I think I’m going to try to keep the bases more free to air flow going forward.
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Dutchess County NY Z6A….my lawn guy sent me this photo yesterday………although my great intentions this spring to ensure enhanced pollination all fell thru, looks like my old try and true fallback plan (do nothing) panned out again……I was convinced the 3+hour 25F frost on April 21 killed most / all the blossom buds which I thought were just a hair cracked open at the tips……apparently some were not…….so the bloom I did get around the expected date of May 9 looks like it was reasonably successful……after blowing up the photo, I see more pawpaw fruitlets than I got all last year……..this is the KSU Chappell tree…….so I will give my new electric tricycle its first try tomorrow and see how things look overall……..I am / was hoping for fruit on all 5 trees this year……on a distinct down note, 2 out of 3 of my now 3 year old jujubes woke up dead……go figure…….Beemster.
…
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welp im going to the ohio paw paw fest this year. maybe i’ll see some of y’all. i decided to make a weekend of it and go the hocking hills orchard too.
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A “Growing Fruit” meetup at the festival would be cool!
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Tallahatchie tends to over crop.
so might be depleting its (Sugar & Potassium), or another nutrient.
This is a good way to check on general soil nutrients in your area, under Geochemistry
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I’m in the yellow/orange in C NH. It was a bit of a drought here last summer and that tree went dormant really early. It only put on about 6-8” of growth compared to the other larger trees too.
This week will be a test as we should have sun and near 80 most of the week.
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Sounds like that cultivar can’t handle high Sodium.
NH is in a high Sodium area, that would trigger Abscisic acid during heat & drought.
Abscisic acid could cause early dormancy & late wake up too.
Gypsum & Bone Meal in the soil, plus foliar & branch spraying of Iron (EDDHA),
would be the best way to wake it up & counteract Sodium
Update on my grafting on semi hardwood. Both are pushing growth so I think they are taking. These pictures are from today (12 days since I grafted).
Top middle graft is KSU Chappelle on hardwood grafted with whip and toung with no growth yet.
Longer graft with two buds is Rappahannock grafted with whip and toung on semi hardwood. Shorter graft poorly covered is Potomac done with a reverse cleft cause the scion was larger than root stock on semi hardwood.
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So I had a serious win today! I have 19 pawpaw trees that’s so far have survived here, with only one being really questionable as to whether it’ll survive another season or not (KSU Chappell). Of those 19, five are grafted trees. Wells, Nyomi Delicious, Allegheny, NC-10, and Chappell. The other 14 are seedlings I started in pots, and transplanted outside after a year when they had toughened up. These are the ones that have survived so far, and they have been given lots of babying and care; i.e. lots of manure and sheeps wool, regular watering, deep wood chips, micronutrient applications, plastic for a mini greenhouse effect through the summers, etc. I had other seedlings that fizzled out, or just flat out failed to survive here at the top of Michigan. I have planted HUNDREDS of seeds from Oikios Nursery all over the place. In the woods, along the edges, and in a specially prepared mulch bed under raspberries. All the wild planting was done about 3 years ago in October. None of those had seemingly made it. However, today I was cleaning out some suckering cherry rootstocks I had on the edge of the woods that were starting to take over an area behind my cool-bot shed. Hacking away with the saw on all the nasty little suckers, all the sudden I saw a pawpaw seedling that was about a foot tall. That brings it to an even score. It is now all cleared around, well manured, and mulched deeply with hardwood chips. It is evidently the one that could survive wild on its own here given the right conditions. That is, at least initially. I’ve seen too many fruit trees outright die here to be confident of much.
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Update on my KY Titan. I now have some strong growth below what I think was @Blake’s graft, and some very small and tentative growth what I think was above it. I’m judging from what looks like the remains of grafting tape.
What would you do in this situation? Cut the dead top off and pull the rootstock growth to grow the titan? Cut to below the graft and try to graft something to the well-established roots myself?
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That’s a good sized tree with an established graft. I would rub off everything below the top bud push. Hard to tell where that highest growth is coming from. Did he do a bud graft? I feel like all of mine from him were W&T. I assume that top push is Legend/Titan since you have a branch below there and I doubt he grafted that high up. Is that parafilm pieces on it?
You have a lot of growth above the graft. I’d just let that regrow. Leave the top two and rub off the lower ones.
Also, does the upper leader scratch green?
I have some trees that have been super late to push growth in the upper portions, but they are slowly trying to get there. Don’t give up on it yet.
That’s what I’m not sure — how high @Blake grafted these. It looks like parafilm to me, but I am not an expert. So I don’t know where the rootstock is and where the titan is on this.
It’s mostly scratching brown.
Unfortunately, both of the two pawpaw seedlings that survived their dormant period have now perished. Maybe the drought we’ve been experiencing got them.
Trying again. I got another round of seeds and most of them are coming up.
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@TJ_westPA
Some interstem grafting. Did at least 10-15 of these on cheap $1 rootstock.
We’ll see how these turn out this year…
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He tends to graft very high
I’m interested to see how well this turns out. I’ve been wanting to try this for awhile, but I was going to graft Chappell year 1 and then graft on top of that the following year…rather than trying to callous two grafts at the same time.
That’s so cool! I hope it works for you!
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