Apple Seedings. 3.12.2021

 It's interesting comparing the seedlings.  All three are from the apple that resulted from Redlove™ Calypso™ X Golden Sentinel™.  (I think the nomenclature is seed parent X pollen parent.  In this case, Calypso™ was the seed parent).  

Seedling #1.  First to germinate.  Leaves with quite a lot of red coloration.  By far the tallest so far.

Seedling #2.  Second to germinate.  Almost as tall as Seedling #1.  Leaves mostly green but with red veins and stem.

Seedling #3.  Quite a bit behind the other two in germinating.  Almost as red as Seedling #1.  Interstems seem much shorter.  Is that because there is more sun now, compared to when Seedling #1 germinated?  Or, is that because Seedling #3 has naturally shorter internodes, as expected for a columnar growth habit?

It's interesting to speculate.  #1 might be taller because of a lighting issue when it started growing beyond the cotyledons.  Being later, #3 may not have had that problem.   In the future, for brevity, I'll refer to these as CalGo#1, CalGo#2, CalGo#3.  These have grown 4 internodes in their first month.  They will be pampered and coddled.  If they can do that for the next 6 months, they could be 24 internodes, which might be enough to know.  If they get some momentum and speed up, maybe they could get up to a graftable size by the end of the year. Wishful thinking.

I'd like to try some more crosses this year, mainly the Redlove™ Era™ X a columnar. Era™ because I think it's sweeter but has as red flesh as Calypso™.  Top choice for columnar would be North Pole, the largest apples, sweetest fruit so far among those in my yard, vs. TastyRed™ which has red skin, reportedly disease resistant, but I haven't tasted them yet.  Alternatively, aim for a sweeter red flesh using Jonagold, my sweetest apple (but is there a problem using a triploid?), Gravenstein (ditto), Beni Shogun Fuji (not doing that well for me and I haven't tasted one, but Fuji are quite sweet).  I probably can't grow them all out, but maybe make the crosses, first priority being red flesh X columnar, then whatever I want to try, see what takes and what grows.  This will depend on multiple things, such as weather, blooming times, and me.

This Year's Orchard Additions & Changes. 3.19.19

During the winter, I ordered some new fruit trees, scion, and rootstocks.  Some varieties were lost in 2018 as well.  Plus I like to experiment.  Despite saying I want and need to slow down and have less to take care of, which is true, I still find it hard not to try new things.  These changes are already in place, with plantings spread out over the past 3 months and grafting spread out over e past 3 weeks.

 New trees.

Persimmons - Coffeecake (Nishimura Wase) and Chocolate (Maru).  These are planted at te opposite end of the property from my other persimmons  to redice pollination of those (Saijo, Nikita's Gift, Yates).

Shan  Xha (Chinese Haw, Da Mian  Qui)  Red Sun

Jujubes - Li and Winter Delight.

Apples - Redlove (TM) Era (R) Redflesh Apple, Columnar "Urban" Apples Tasty Red and Golden Treat.

Figs - I planted Lampeira Preta from my friend Ram. This tree is fenced and in my main fig row, should do great there.

Grafts onto Existing Trees

Plums - Beauty, Black Ice

Kiwi - Hayward Fuzzy (to pollinate female Kiwi)

Quince - I made a multigraft from the resurgent growth of my young quince tree that I ran over with a lawn mower by accident, in 2017, I think.  Smyrna, Aromatnaya, Crimea, Limon.

Apples - I added grafts of Prima, Honeycrisp, Bill's Redflesh, William's Pride.

Pear - Rajah Asian Pear.  This will replace the last major branch of Maxie Pear, which was hard and not flavorful.  There are still some spurs and small branches remaining in case it is better thisyear.

I grafted some scion from my Northpole onto purchased Bud-9.  Some of these might be container trees.

The new apple trees went into a protected bed, so other than more watering the first year, no extra care or protection needed.  The Jujubes went into one deer cage alreadynset up and mulched.  The persimmons got temporary small cages but I need to make larger cages.  Those come from fencing I just removed from another garden.  The new grafts won't need care beyond normal puttering, removing binding when appropriate, and pruning / tying that I do for the trees anyway.  The auince may need a larger cage, but wasn't much harassed by herbivores this year despite being taller than its existing short cage.

So despite a long list of changes now, during the off season, I dont think much extra care will be needed during the main grow seasons.

Trees that died - Sweet Treat Pluerry, American Plum grown from seed.  I think both died due to canker.