Apple progress note. 4.9.15

Prairie Fire Crabapple.  4.9.15

 Most of the apples are blooming.  The Prairie Fire Crabapple that I bought as a pollen source for other apples, is in full bloom.  Using the paintbrush to remove pollen from flowers, there is generous pale yellow pollen, plenty for all of the other trees.

Of the little columnar trees, Golden Sentinel has 2 flower clusters and Red Sentinel has about 6.  Not a lot of apples.  I should prevent them from fruiting so they get more growth, but I like getting a taste.  Karmijn is in full bloom.  The Jonagold, grafted last year onto M27 is 3 feet tall and covered with flowers.  I may want to keep that as a single cordon, looks nice.  Honeycrisp on M27 is blooming.  Honeycrisp is too slow growing for such a non-vigorous, mini-dwarfing rootstock.    I have a more vigorous rootstock start for next grafting year.

Of others, the 3-graft on M106 is blooming nicely.  Pristine is first, and most.  Rubinette is 2nd, then Queen Cox.   With the more vigorous rootstock, these have potential for a lot more fruit in later years.

In the Vancouver yard, North Pole has only 3 flower clusters.  Either due to overbearing last year, or over-pruning of spurs on my part, or both.  Liberty is in full bloom.  Liberty is in lavish full bloom, as is Jonagold.  Both are on M27.  Jonagold is about 8 foot tall, Liberty maxed out at 5 foot tall.


Jonagold 1 year after graft, M27.  4.9.15

 I played the honeybee and transferred pollen from Liberty to Jonagold and North Pole.  I used the meager 3 flowers on North Pole as suppliers of pollen for Liberty.  There may be neighborhood apple trees that I don't know about, to provide more.


Golden Sentinel Bloom.  4.9.15

 Of the apple grafts, in early March I top-grafted from a yellow columnar apple, onto the grafts I made last year from North Pole.  Both have started growing.   One in a container, which had only a tiny tuft of roots, is growing nicely.  The plan for these is a columnar tree with red apples on the lower couple of feet, yellow on the next couple of feet, then another type of red.  The trees would be self pollinating and colorful.


Karmijn on M27.  4.9.15

 The graft from Fedco, of Redfield, onto a home grown M27 rootstock, is starting to grow.  I kept these grafts inside for the past few days to see if I could speed them up.

The neighbor apple graft hasn't started to grow yet.  It is at Battleground.  I moved it into the sunroom.

Jonared at one year old does not have flowers yet.  This is described as dwarf, but the rootstock is not listed.  Given the number of grafts I added from Fedco, I expect at most a bowl or two of apples of each type, in a few years.  That's if the grafts take.  Currently they look unchanged, no sprouting but not dried out.

Liberty on M27.  4.9.15

Yellow Columnar Apple graft on red columnar.  4.9.15

Home Orchard. Progress Report. 2.16.14

Newly moved Karmijn de Sonneville Apple

 As far as I know, this is the last of the movable trees from the Vancouver yard  This is Karmijn de Sonneville apple on M27 rootstock.  From the top, it looks like there might be a large root mass.  Digging it, the rootstock is small, one shovel deep if that.  M27 keeps the tree very small, 5 or 6 foot, and is easy to topple over.  So it always needs a stake for support.   I planted close to the Honeycrisp, also on M27.

I doubt this tree will miss a beat.  Digging, it seemed to have no root damage at all.  I lost one or two buds at most.

It needs a fence.  I can make one in 20 minutes and install today.

Peaches and plums have swelling buds.  It's too early but nothing I can do about it.

First pink, buds of Oregon Curl Free PEach

First Pink.  Buds of Toka Plum

 Charlotte peach.  The same for Q18 and Indian Free.  The fuzzy buds have been visible, with a touch of pink, for a month.  The weather is unpredictable.  If I had more energy and time, I might construct covers for the trees to reduce freeze risk.  But I don't.  So time will tell.

Same for the plums. Toka and Methley are showing a lot of pink.  Less for Satsuma.  None for the European plums.

First Pink. Buds of Methley Plum

Apple change of plan. Disease resistant, multigraft order. 1.19.14

Image source:  Wikimedia commons.

I emailed Raintree and requested a change of my order.  Initially I ordered a crab apple, Prairie Fire.  Later I found the same variety and bought it.  I thought I would let the order remain, for a second one of the same variety.  Then, eating some more apple pie, decided to change the order.

I emailed them and they were happy to oblige.

The replacement order is for a multigraft, disease resistant varieties on M106 rootstock.  M106 should result in a moderately vigorous tree roughly 10 feet tall.  Fine for my little orchard, especially with pruning.    Raintree says a bit bigger, 12 to 15 feet.  Either size is OK.  Probably no concern for planting pollinators, given it is multigraft.  Choices are 3 of...  Queen Cox, Belmac, Rubinette and / or Pristine.  One will be missing - their 3 in 1 are 4 in 1 that had one graft fail.   I did that with an Asian pear and am happy with that.

By going with disease resistant varieties, there should be less frustration in the future, and no need to spray.  At least, that's the plan.

Later, I could graft on other varieties.  This looks like a good start.

Anxious for the order to arrive.  Probably in a month.

Got the little Honeycrisp / M27 back into the ground.  This time it will have support - required for trees on M27 rootstock.  That was my mistake before.  The next question is what to graft onto the second stem.   This tree will probably only grow 5 or 6 feet tall.  This site lists Liberty as an option.  Easy, since we have a Liberty tree to supply scion.  Minnesota lists Jonagold among others.   I thought Jonagold was pollen sterile.  In fact, Spokane site states Jonagold is a nonpollinator.  Maybe graft on a Liberty scion, plus add another small M27 tree, such as Jonared.  Jonathan was my favorite, growing up in Illinois.


Next change - I ordered a dwarf Jonared from Starks.  I have not ordered from them before.  Jonared is a sport of Jonathan, redder skin.  Origin, Penashtin Washinton, 1934.   Jonathan originates 1864.  So this is a true heritage variety.  Not great in the disease-resistance department.  Parentage, seedling of Esopus Spitzenburg, which coincidentally is one of my grafts from last year.  Also the pollen parent of Karmijn de Sonnaville (1949), which I also have in the Vancouver yard.  Karmijn is also a self-sterile triploid, that can't pollinate others.

From Raintree on pollinizers - editing out the trees I don't have or haven't ordered this year.  Most should overlap.  I don't have data for Prairie Fire Crabapple, which should pollenize any of the listed varieties, if there is bloom time overlap.  From OrangePippenTrees.com - "The prolific blossom also makes most crab apples excellent pollinators for all other apple and cider-apple varieties - they typically produce five to ten times more pollen than a typical apple tree. The blossom is also usually more long-lasting than that of normal apples, and spans several of the mainstream apple flowering groups. Crab apples are naturally precocious and will often start producing blossom and fruit in their 2nd or 3rd years."

Early-Mid Season =  Pristine, Scarlet Sentinel, Liberty
Mid Season = Jonagold,  Golden Sentinel, Belmac,  Spitzenberg,, Karmijn
Mid-Late Season = Honeycrisp

Italic = self sterile, requires pollenizer and is not a pollenizer for others.