Apple Harvest So Far. 9.25.2020

 I picked some of the early fall ripening apples.  This year the Liberty apples are some of the first.  I think my approach of grating multiple varieties to each tree had some merit.  Not only does that help with pollination, but there are different varieties in the same space, and they ripen at different times, spreading out the harvest.  I label the Liberty apples for Ning.  They are his favorite.  I like them too.

This year a King David apple graft, a heritage cultivar first grown in Arkansas, had its first apples.  It's not very vigorous, and needed about 4 or 5 years.  They turned out to be quite tasty, good texture, nice in every way.  Small, which is fine.  I don't care for giant size apples.

The King David apples.

Some of the Liberty apples.

This year I'm storing them in a shed, where they should be cooler than when I stored them in the garage.  I'm also putting them on newspaper and trying to avoid stacking them.

 

I found some King David apples on the USDA pomological watercolor website.  As with other images, I edited a little for size and clarity.

This is the description for King David on orange pippin website  "one of the lesser-known apples that were promoted by the famous Stark Brothers nursery at the end of the 19th century... discovered as a chance seedling...but most authorities agree that Jonathan is one of the parents, and it has the aromatic qualities associated with that variety.  The other parent is believed to be Winesap or Arkansas Black, and visually it has a resemblance to the latter."  I usually like any apple with Jonathan genes.  They have a flavor that stands out very nicely.

These are really good.  Maybe I will graft a scion from this graft, onto some super dwarfing scion for my miniature fruit tree mini orchard.

Grafting Apple Scion. 4.1.18

 It was a somewhat chilly and drizzly day.  I had a packet of scion from Fedco.  Earlier this Spring, I didn't have much chance to collect my own scion, due to events beyond my control, but I still like doing some grafting each Spring.

I've been wanting to add some Honeycrisp to the young Winecrisp (plus Milo Gibson plus Sweet-16) tree, so here it is.  I also haven't liked the Rubinette branch on another multigraft (originally Rubinette + Queen Cox + Pristine, but now with a deer-damaged King David + Dolgo + Goldrush + a puny Hawkeye branch).  Rubinette is reputed to be among the best tasting of all apples, but in my hands the apples are misshapen and disease magnets, while other varieties on the same tree are fine.  So I did some pruning and added Prima, another King David to replace the deer damaged branch, and  Fameuse.  I also had a rootstock taken from an underground sucker off an old semidwarf tree, and grafted Fameuse scion onto that as well.

 Over the years, I've dispensed with using wax or Tree-Kote on apple grafts.  I've seen some videos shoing grafters using ribbons cut from plastic bags, which worked well for me last year.  It takes some practice to stretch them tightly around the graft union without displacing the graft, but once in place the plastic ribbons make a tight bandage for the union to heal nicely.  I also wrap the entire scion, but not as tightly.  I do have to watch for growth, so the plastic does not restrict new growth and expansion.

 For the cut, I use a Felco grafting knife.  A lot of modern grafters like using box-cutter utility knife, which can result in a clean sharp blade each time.  I see the attraction but stick to my old Felco.

I cut tags from roadside beer can discards.  I rinse them with lysol in case the people who generously provide the cans (by throwing them out of their cars) have some sort of communicable disease, then cut with kitchen shears and use a paper punch to cut a hole.  I fassten them to the branch, using a loose zip tie.  I watch the tree so growth is not girdled later when the branch expands.  That's not a problem.  I putter around these trees all of the time.

These labels work as well as any mail order label.  I use a ball point pen to emboss the name of the cultivar and date of the graft.

Prima is a Purdue-Rutgers-Illinois hyrid, originally bred to be scab resistant although scab has evolved past that property; best eaten fresh.  Per Fedco, resistant to Fireblight, cedar apple rust, and mildew.

King David is an older variety, info here is from Fedco:  "thought to be to Jonathan x Arkansas Black... 1893. Intensely flavored... Pineapple, tangerine, lemon, sweet, sour, tart, sharp, aromatic and spicy all rush around simultaneously. The medium-sized roundish fruit is very dark solid maroon—nearly black. The fine juicy flesh is firm yet tender and distinctly yellow."

I already had Honeycrisp on M27 rootstock, which restricts growth so much it's never been more than  2 feet tall and has had, maybe, one apple in 5 years.  So I'm trying it on a larger growing multigraft semi-dwaf size tree.

Fameuse is also known as Snow.   I already have a graft of Fameuse on another tree, but it doesn't amount much yet and I want to give it a good chance.  Fedco describes Fameuse as originating in Quebec before 1700. "The 1865 Department of Agriculture yearbook sums it up: “Flesh remarkably white, tender, juicy"…deliciously pleasant, with a slight perfume… Medium-small roundish ruby-red thin-skinned fruit." and possibly a parent of McIntosh.

Grafting Day. 3.20.17

Image via USDA Image Collection.

Thanks to the Scion Exchange and my fellow fruit growing enthusiasts at the Home Orchard Society, some nice guys, I came home with several varieties that I wanted to graft as soon as I could.

Today was drizzling all day, not too bad for some grafting work, so I spent the afternoon in the home orchard grafting. In general, I leave about 3 inches per scion, and try to make sure it has 3 buds, and the diameter matches the understock. I have not learned bark grafting and cleft grafting for large understock, which just seems to expose the tree to too much potential disease due to the large wound, but it does work for others. So, I look for low branches about the same size of the scion, and use those. For young trees that are still a small size, that seems to work very well for me.

 What I grafted, today and yesterday:

1.  To the injured, new, 4-way Euro plum, I added Yakima plum to a branch that appears to be off the understock, and Yellow Egg plum to replace the Italian plum branch. .

Yellow Egg Plum.  Via USDA Image Collection.

2.  To my Stanley plum tree, I added Jefferson Plum.  I have been unable to find info about that variety.
3.  To the old green plum that came with the Battleground place, which might be a green gage plum, I added Yellow Egg and Yakima.  I usually cut the scions into pieces with 2 buds, so one scion usually gives me a couple of grafts.
4.  To the Rebecca's Gold pawpaw, I added grafts of Wilson pawpaw.  Those were so delicate, and they have flower buds, and I'm not sure they have leaf buds, so who knows if they will take,
5.  To the Illinois Everbearing mulberry, I added Noir de Spain mulberry, 2 grafts.  The internode spaces were very long, so I made those as 1-bud grafts each.  There is a bit if scion remaining, so might add more.
6.  To one multigraft apple, I added Fameuse apple.
7.  To other multigraft apples, I added Dolgo crabapple, Firecracker red flesh apple, and to Jonared, I added Jonathan, which I am curious to see if the redder sport is a sacrifice in flavor compared to the original.
8.  Yesterday I also grafted scion from Fedco, Sweet-16 apple, King David Apple, and Opalescent.  The first 2, I already grafted, but they had so little growth that I want to try again.

Fameuse Apple.  Image via USDA Image Collection.

9.  To an Asian pear tree, I added Chojuro.
10.  To Aromatnaya quince, I added Crimea quince. 
11.  I added spare pieces of scion to the hawthorn thicket, Crimea quince and Chojuro Asian pear.
12.  I also planted cuttings from Limon quince and Aromatnaya quince to see if they grow from Spring planted hardwood cuttings.

That's it for playing in the orchard, grafting.  I did not cut myself - always a good thing.  I know I don't "need" any more fruit varieties, but no harm in grafting on new varieties to see how they do and maybe get a taste in a  couple of years.  They may also help with pollination.  I got to try my hand at grafting some species that I have not tried before - mulberry, pawpaw, quince.  If any - or all -  do poorly or are not good, I can always prune the bad ones off, without losing a tree.  Ditto if one is way to vigorous and takes over a tree.

I'm using images from the USDA image collection.  They are public domain.  I don't know if the USDA will have funding cut and drop the collection, so it's nice to peruse them while there is a chance.