What's happening today 2020

Done… cut them deep… I think I hate pruning more than anything. I don’t “see” it. I cut them both down to less than 36 inches and left 6 branches on one and a few more than that on the other. The other one had a fork and two central leaders. What do you do about that. Cut both of them? So they got a bit of 13-13-13. And the little peach is lying across the fence…:flushed::cry:

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I spent most of the weekend tearing out my orchard fence and rebuilding a fence using Tenax deer stopper fencing. This is my last attempt at controlling deer. If they manage to get past this one I’ll rip every damn tree out and start a new hobby :).

The unfortunate part is I’ve gone this far to protect my trees yet last week’s frost was a total haymaker. Not sure there is any fruitlet’s left after that one. And the sad part is this year’s bloom was incredibly prolific. I don’t think the gods want me to have fruit.

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I’m the wrong one to ask about what to do with those that have a fork and 2 leaders. I say that because I usually leave them but end up regretting it. Its harder to get a big open center area, and I’ve also had those forks end up splitting years later when they have a big fruit load. So probably better to cut below it…but my thoughts are always that 2 central leaders give me an opportunity to create more bio mass and therefore more fruiting wood SO I often leave them…but the outcome is often not good. So by all means, I hope someone who actually knows what they are doing answers your question- I don’t!!! BTW…haven’t heard any mention of your jujube project? Last I saw you had a very large number (by my standards) of grafted jujubes but I never really heard if they were successful, if you sold many, etc. Looked like a fun project, give us an update!

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That should do the trick. Looks great!

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That’s what I did seven years ago. A good thing to do is run a wire around the top and tie the fence to it. What happens is the freezing rain and snow will pull down and stretch the fence making it floppy and saggy on top between the post. You need to pin the bottom down too. The deer will get right down to the ground and push their head under and then crawl in. The fawns especially do this! I just tore all mine down. I grew raspberries along the fence which works good for a couple years but they get inter tangled and become a mess that pulls the fence down too. My trees are big enough now that the deer shouldn’t get too much of them. Now I’m back to mowing more easily.

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I found these here in Maryland but I didn’t know what they were

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Morels

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Carmine Jewel is starting to color up.

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Do you grow Juliet? I have heard it is a tad sweeter then CJ.

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Yes I do, but it’s a bit behind in ripening.

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Stan,
My CJ graft just started to to bloom yesterday, 7-10 days behind Juliet.

I hope I could have both to compare. My Juliet still tasted tart after leaving them to ripen fully last year.

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I’m still growing seedlings to eventually use as rootstock. I did graft a few to them this year and hope to have a few more trees for sale. Next spring I should have some fairly good size rootstocks. I’ve got about 4 trees now that I could sell and one of them is spoken for for the fall. This project has really got a learning curve!!! I’ve grafted many more persimmons to sell than jujus and that is mainly due to the availability of rootstocks to graft to…cannot find a source for jujube rootstock that is affordable. So I guess you could say my persimmons are helping finance the jujube project.

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very cool. I may be remembering your grafted persimmons then…i just remember a photo of like 12-18 very small trees that I THOUGHT you said were grafted- though they might have just been seedlings. I have a really bad disease called CRS (Can’t remember Sh#!). haha.

WHat kind of persimmons do you have? Any Asians? You may recall that my favorite fruit I grow is Saijo , but this year I’m devastated because I lost them all to a late frost! But I’m always open to add more persimmons and I’d sure rather buy from you than any of the big online companies.

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I sold all my ones I grafted last year…advertised on Facebook marketplace and people were calling left and right. Most knew what persimmons were but had no clue of Asian vs American or astringent vs non astringent. Some people were looking for certain varieties. Some people just wanted to feed the deer. I only had Asian scion last year and this year I grafted both Asian, Americans, and hybrids. It’s too early yet to tell what’s going to take but I’ve got 65 on the go. Rossyanka, JT-02, WS 10-8 (Barbra’s Blush), Prok, Catawba Treasure (American from @AfterEdenAgroEcology), Giombo, Tecumseh, Tam Kam, Chocolate, and Eureka. The scions from all of these except Eureka belonged to the generous members of this forum…Thank you! Some are chip budded (a new experience for me) but most of the others are looking good so far with swelling buds, green buds, and a couple showing leaves. I like grafting persimmons— for the most part they have nice straight trunks.

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They are called tart cherries for a reason. :wink: I grew up eating tart cherries so I’m used to this flavor and like it. Still, some varieties are quite sweeter than others.

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WOW! What a great story. You may have already posted that here and I missed it, but I appreciate the update! That is so neat to see one of our members actually make a couple dollars off fruit trees…heaven knows we all spend enough. Its also funny that your customers didn’t know Asian from American or Astringent from non. We all talk the lingo so much and are so accustomed to the types that we think the whole world knows…but of course they don’t. I still remember well when I started. My big plan was to save the seeds from my favorite apples so I could grow my own trees just like them! hahaha. Had no idea what grafting even was. I’m still not the sharpest knife in the drawer by any means, but I’ve come a long way, baby! ha. Kudos on the chip grafts, btw. I’ve tried many times and failed every single one (peaches). Oh well.

Anyway, glad to hear you had good luck with your first batch. I really love that. I’d like to get a few of those persimmons so one of these days when you have some I’ll talk to you about it. BTW…do you sell them as potted trees or bare root or what?

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I’ve sold as potted. I’ve only mailed one… most were handed to the buyer. Future will tell.

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I appreciated that persimmon package very much, btw :smiley:

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Very cool! I’ve been thinking of selling my extras as well. I may be counting my grafts before they take, but I digress. Do you sell them the same year, or let them grow a year or two? My impression is that people are less familiar with persimmons around here, so I may just get crickets in response.

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Jay,
If I could grow Asian persimmon here, I would be able to sell them to many people I know. They all want the Fuyu type which, unfortunately, won’t survive the winter here.

One of these days, Cliff England or some of us could come up with non astringent Asian persimmon for zone 6a (better if it’s zone 5). So far, JT-2 is getting close to my dream.

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