Weekend project
- Thread starter emetzger
- Start date
Very impressive! The photos really tell a story. Can you tell me more about growing fruit trees from seed? I see a tag for Arkansas Black (apple) . . . did you plant it from seed?
emetzger
Active Member
Swat,
I've grown apple trees in tubes and shorter, wider, wire cages but never in these tall ones. Now I have grown jap persimmon, I will try and take some pics. This may or may not work, but I cut every branch off inside the cage and am planning on starting the branching out of the top.
With these cages, there is no way to try and train the crotch angle. Not that I would do it anyway, maybe if I had time. At this point, I'm trying to use what I have and at least protect the bases from rabbits and mice girdling the bottoms and deer the tops.
What I'm thinking is let everything grow over the summer and continue to prune lower branches during dormant season. I will probably have to stake the tree, depending on how well they grow. I found the Jap persimmon cage. it is the same size. Little tight but there working out. Thanks for looking.
emetzger
Active Member
Benja,
I grew some rootstock from ordinary apple and crab apple seed in 18 cell root maker trays. I moved them into 1 gallon root builders around June of the same year. Then in the spring, I cut scion wood off of know variety trees I had growing and grafted them on my rootstock. I grew those for the summer in 7 gallon bags and voila.
emetzger
Active Member
I don't know about you guys but when I'm logging time in the stand all I'm thinking about is what else I can do to get more deer under my stand. For this spot, It was an older blueberry field that I have been struggling to keep alive for years.
I have some good deer traffic passing through here and all the blueberries are gone during deer season, so I decided, instead of filling in the holes with more blueberries, I will fill them in with fruit trees. Hopefully it will be productive In 5 years. I sure do love planting trees.
I have some good deer traffic passing through here and all the blueberries are gone during deer season, so I decided, instead of filling in the holes with more blueberries, I will fill them in with fruit trees. Hopefully it will be productive In 5 years. I sure do love planting trees.
Nebraskaz71
Active Member
Those roots look incredible!
emetzger
Active Member
This past weekend I pruned some blueberry, muscadine and apple tree. With the blueberries I'm trying to cut some old wood to promote new growth.
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emetzger
Active Member
With the muscadines I'm cutting all vines except the main ones down to 2 or 3 buds. These are late fry purchased from iscons in GA. Late dropping in Oct/Nov.
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emetzger
Active Member
I pruned my apple trees this year with a new sthil pole saw. That thing really sped things up and I would suggest for anyone with a lot of trees. I had to aggressively prune some hard learners, hopefully they will bounce back. If I didn't they would be on the ground eventually.
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emetzger
Active Member
Also tried bottling a couple jars of honey from a bee hive I had that didn't make it. I scrapped into some mason jars and placed in boiling water just long enough to float the wax on top. Turned out pretty good.
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emetzger
Active Member
Forgot a couple pics with the fruit trees. Last year I put 5' tubes on a bunch of apple and pear trees. Make sure you remove these and prune each year. I'm cutting everything below the 5' tube. Some I have to cut open for easy access. Check out these weird roots growing and early bud growth in Feb 
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emetzger
Active Member
Forgot a couple pics with the fruit trees. Last year I put 5' tubes on a bunch of apple and pear trees. Make sure you remove these and prune each year. I'm cutting everything below the 5' tube. Some I have to cut open for easy access. Check out these weird roots growing and early bud growth in Feb
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DrDirtNap
Active Member
Looks like you've got a lot going on. Are your trees producing? That look big enough to be producing. Those root pictures from the trees in the tubes look like bur knots. Was the rootstock M111? I've had some bur knot issues with that rootstock myself. Thanks for the update.
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emetzger
Active Member
Those trees are about 10 years old and have been producing good for about 4 years. Here's a 2014 pic of them.
The rootstock is from seed. So no m111s, although I did get some in today.
Not sure what to do with those roots, I'm sure nature will sort it out.
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The rootstock is from seed. So no m111s, although I did get some in today.
Not sure what to do with those roots, I'm sure nature will sort it out.
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emetzger
Active Member
This weekends project was trapping. We ran it Saturday and Sunday. Not a lot of critters but we had fun.
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emetzger
Active Member
We set mostly flat sets and also did some snares. See if you can pick the snares out.
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