I’m sorry I don’t know well enough to say. I will say I would have a pit in my stomach…It looks horrible. I’ll be hoping for the best for ya…
1 Like
HA! I appreciate the empathy. And I’m like you…even if it isn’t black knot, it sure looks like the kind of thing you wouldn’t want on a tree next to your fruit orchard. Whatever it is, it is bound to be transmittable to fruit trees, I fear!
1 Like
Check out the jujube thread from last year. Picture of my latest two trees.
I have a lot more!!!
1 Like
That made me smile! Good for you girl. Same with @BobVance! Can’t believe you got all those this year! ha. I’m going to have to up my Jujube Game now. 
Honestly, its so nice to have a tree that makes pretty good fruit that I don’t have to spray 100 things 50 different times in a season! So far my persimmons and jujubes have been among my easiest trees, and that is worth a lot when you are dumb enough to plant as many trees and plants as I have.
2 Likes
Oh…my name must be Kathryn when I’m in trouble because that’s when it’s used. I’m Katy (as in Katy bar the door) to my friends and sometimes Kate (as in Kate the shrew!). I’m convinced it’s the name that gets me in trouble…
1 Like
Looks like canker has infected this one year old arctic jay nectarine. This is the second time a tree has looked like this, the first time I had to remove it. In both cases it is a peach or nectarine on citation. I will see if it can out grow the issue, but i am concerned, I hate losing good trees.
Well, I don’t own stock in any of them, but I buy more stuff at Lowe’s than Walmart by far, and even less from Home Depot (mainly because there are few of them in Kentucky). Not just personal fruit plants…but hundreds of dollars worth of landscaping materials for customers yards. (Yes, I like buying from Wholesale Only nurseries, but sometimes Lowes has more selection and even better pricing on some items than a wholesale grower that doesn’t allow the public to shop.)
I was in 5 Lowe’s this past weekend…from Asheville NC to Newport, TN and London, Somerset, and Richmond in Kentucky. The Asheville store carries a product that in KY or TN I would have to plunk down advance payment of over $2,500 for a whole pallet…and that is not do-able.
1 Like
Well, it was a busy day for us. Our old house is getting renovated, so there’s been lots of old flooring, carpet, paneling, clothes, etc that needed to be trashed. So, we’ve been loading down the truck and trailer with all this junk the last few days. After we got everything battened down, we took off for the landfill, about 30mi from here. I will say it took us about half an hour to off-load all of it, after hours to load it up.
We got done with that about 5:30, so I wanted to get home before too late because I wanted to get the pluots in the ground before dark. I started about 6:30 and had already dug the holes a couple days ago. I got the first two in the ground and while I was planting the last one, it started raining lightly (SHOCKING!! /s), and it was about dark so I had to get after it. I filled up the hole with backfill as fast as I could and while I could barely see.
So, I got them all planted, but didn’t have time to throw down any mulch, prune or cage them. But, I think they will be okay until tomorrow. I doubt the deer will mess with them tonight considering it’s raining now, and will be off and on thru the night and tomorrow. I also got a gooseberry plant in the ground as well.
I figured I better get the trees planted as it’s going to be wet and cool this week, and I don’t know when it’ll be dry enough again to plant. Man, I hate this wet weather, plus we may get 3in of snow Wed! Way to start the spring…
I’ll post some pics of the newly planted trees soon.
1 Like
I think in humid areas you need other rootstock besides citation. I have had the same problem, done with citation. Lovell has worked well for me, but it all depends on local conditions. Trees tend to grow taller on Lovell, I don’t really care, i keep them small by pruning anyway.
4 Likes
Well, I checked my three apple scions that I grafted to M7 rootstocks a little over two weeks ago that I got at the apple grafting workshop. I’ve kept them wrapped up in a damp paper towel totally enclosed in a plastic bag in my dark closet.
It looks like my Snapp Stayman and Suncrisp scions have started to sprout a little bit, so that seems to be a good sign. I guess the graft took, or is it too early to say for sure? I know some scions can sprout based on the little energy or life that’s still in them. Anyway, assuming they’ve taken, what should I do with them now? Would they be OK if I planted them outside even though we’re supposed to have a few days below freezing?
The Goldrush graft doesn’t look like it’s sprouted yet, but I’m not giving up on it just yet.
1 Like
Don’t say that, I just planted a pluot on Citation! Hope it works alright here, considering all the rain we get.
I was out there today in the cold weather with snow falling all around checking out the new trees (or sticks, as they’re bare). I haven’t caged them up, as I’m thinking (hoping) the deer won’t mess with them considering they have no leaves or real branches on them yet. When it dries out a bit, I’ll put down some mulch, and maybe put fencing around each tree.
I spaced them at about 18ft in the row, and that row is about 15ft from a row of apples, so I hope that’s enough space for them.
I can say pluots do better on it. I have no canker on a Citation with pluots. Citation dwarfs the peaches so much, part of the problem. Pluots don’t notice it’s a dwarfing rootstock.
I kept my trees small and I have 8 foot spacing and it’s working well. But you have to be on top of pruning. I love pruning so not a problem. I like grafting too, just working with the trees is a lot of fun for me.
I was out there today stringing trellis wire, I have the last of this very thick gauge wire, hard to work with! Would hold a horse up! Got’er done.
1 Like
That’s good to hear. I don’t have anything else on Citation but this one Geo Pride. My four peaches are on Lovell, and the other two pluots are on Myro.
What’s the trellis for, black and raspberries? What gauge wire was it? Working that thick wire can wear your hands out in a hurry. We use a clothesline to dry clothes in warm weather and I have to pull it taut as it tends to sag with use. My hands ache after doing that, but I don’t have the strongest of paws either. Looking forward to not having to use the clothes dryer soon.
I bought a lot of trellis stuff for my raspberry plot a couple months ago. My big berry order (10 rasps, 4 blacks) is due in a couple weeks, so gotta get that plot prepared at least. Whenever I can get some drier weather I’ll need to get on that. The trellis can wait a bit, I guess. I got 7 Triple Crown plants in the ground two weeks ago in another plot.
Grapes! I don’t know the gauge, it is grape trellis wire from a grape orchard supply place. Heavy commercial grade not really needed, but I have it . It’s all gone now. I have a roll of the next thinner gauge which will be easier to use in the future. Grapes can be very heavy I like the wire, and I have heavy duty wire tighteners on them too. No slack in my lines.
Here is an old photo from 2013 showing the same wire, and tighteners I use over my new (at the time) raspberry bed. Line is 24 feet long between posts.
3 Likes
I survived the snow storm. All my fruit trees seem undamaged with unopened blooms. I went out every few hours and cleared the snow from my hoop house to prevent it from caving in. I was able to germinate spinach in the soil and planted some spinach which I had started indoors, all of which look fine. This morning I moved all the snow around the hoop house so that I could put the flat of brassicas and the rest of the spinach in there to finish hardening off. There are multiple trays of plants that should be in the ground already and I haven’t even been able to move them outside to start hardening off. Now I’ll have to wait for the snow to melt, then the soil to warm and dry out a bit before planting.
In the orchard I still need to spray cooper, prune peaches, raspberries, blackberries, and elderberries, finish moving the 10 yards of mulch, plant the five trees I have coming, and graft the 10 varieties I have to graft.
I feel like all I do is complain, and I shouldn’t because I haven’t lost anything, but this weather is pushing all my spring garden chores into one big stinking undone pile of stuff to do. I guess I’ll have to pull a garden all nighter at some point to catch up.
I hope everyone else made it through okay.
4 Likes
We’ve had a north east wind for almost a month now do to the Northeasters out east. It’s been keeping us in the cold weather but we are dry. I still have four inches of snow though. We are about the only ones with snow yet in my area. Go a mile away and it’s mostly gone. So if you guys would quit praying for more snow we might get warmer, Lol!
Post card photo!
Tony
1 Like
I would think we are safe after tonight to plant out nursery stock. (Around 25 tonight). Here in Kentucky.
But, I have had grafts outdoors for a full month now. So far all looks well, but we won’t know if any have dried out and fail for a few weeks yet probably.
1 Like
How it works with trees when they spend winter inside - do you need to train it back to sun by shading them for few days or just take it out and that’s it and no damage to the leaves?
1 Like