What did you do in your orchard today?

[frustratedearthmother]

Love a good mulberry!

 

[murphysranch]

Never have grown them. Interesting...

 

[CrealCritter]

Never have grown them. Interesting...

Mullberries, like pawpaw and passion fruit are native to the midwest, so they grow wild here. When you find a good mulberry tree, it motivates you go to the extremes that I did today. I'm curious if I can identify it when it leafs out. It's most likely some kind of natural hybrid.

AI Generated Text
"Mulberries come in various flavors depending on the variety. The white variety is often very sweet, while the darker varieties tend to be tart-sweet. The black mulberry, in particular, is known for its unique sweet-tart flavor and is often considered the tastiest of all mulberries. However, the flavor can vary significantly among different trees, and some may produce berries that are bland or lack flavor."

Internet Picture

Jesus is Lord and Christ

 

[CrealCritter]

Love a good mulberry!

I obviously do also

Jesus is Lord and Christ

 

[CrealCritter]

My first free cherry tree. Mazzard root cutting grew into a nice root stock, Utah giant sweet cherry scion wood from a friend. I grafted it via cleft graft technique. It's busting out of the parafilm, the bottom bud developed into a flower cluster.

Jesus is Lord and Christ

 

[CrealCritter]

Trying a new approach with cherry trees, instead of potting and babysitting the first growing season. I'm setting them out in their final location, as soon as they break bud after grafting. It's a step of faith. But mazzard root stocks seem pretty resilient to me. I'll need to stay ontop of watering their first season. Seems mazzard root stocks establish well their first growing season.

That little newly grafted utah giant is trying to give me cherries already.

Lessons learned...
Utah giant and bing (both self sterile) are good pollinating partners since the bloom within days of each other. I thought stella (self fertile) would be a good pollinator for bing. But in my area stella bloom period does not over lap enough for my prefrence to be good pollination of bing.

For good measure, I'm going to throw in Black Tartarian (self sterile) that blooms around the same time as utah giant and bing. That should give me good pollination coverage for the entire bing, utah giant and black tartarian bloom time frame.

Lastly I'm going to add lapkins (self fertile) as pollinating partner for stella to maximize pollination of both.

Sweet cherries need some planning to maximize crop yield.

P.S. pie cherries are easier. They are mainly self fertile. But yield will increase with a differnt varieties placed in close proximity of eachother if they are in the same bloom group.

Bring on the honey bees

Jesus is Lord and Christ

 

[CrealCritter]

My little fig starts made it through the winter, in their insulated feed tub time capsule. I didn't water them or open up the capsule. Today I opened it up to have a look see. All the green wood has harden off and have buds swelling.

They will stay in the barn tack room with sunlight from the window until the last frost around April 12 - 15. Then I'll transplant them into larger containers and set them out.

First sunlight in almost 4 months, I can only imagine they are happy to see some sunlight.

Jesus is Lord and Christ

 

[LaurenRitz]

Trying a new approach with cherry trees, instead of potting and babysitting the first growing season. I'm setting them out in their final location, as soon as they break bud after grafting. It's a step of faith. But mazzard root stocks seem pretty resilient to me. I'll need to stay ontop of watering their first season. Seems mazzard root stocks establish well their first growing season.

That little newly grafted utah giant is trying to give me cherries already.
View attachment 29376

Lessons learned...
Utah giant and bing (both self sterile) are good pollinating partners since the bloom within days of each other. I thought stella (self fertile) would be a good pollinator for bing. But in my area stella bloom period does not over lap enough for my prefrence to be good pollination of bing.

For good measure, I'm going to throw in Black Tartarian (self sterile) that blooms around the same time as utah giant and bing. That should give me good pollination coverage for the entire bing, utah giant and black tartarian bloom time frame.

Lastly I'm going to add lapkins (self fertile) as pollinating partner for stella to maximize pollination of both.

Sweet cherries need some planning to maximize crop yield.

P.S. pie cherries are easier. They are mainly self fertile. But yield will increase with a differnt varieties placed in close proximity of eachother if they are in the same bloom group.

Bring on the honey bees

Jesus is Lord and Christ

If I remember correctly, Tartarian is the direct ancestor of Bing and the Utah Giant was a seedling from a Bing. The self sterility would appear to be genetic.

 

[CrealCritter]

If I remember correctly, Tartarian is the direct ancestor of Bing and the Utah Giant was a seedling from a Bing. The self sterility would appear to be genetic.

Yes one can deep dive a parentage but all I'm really interested in at this stage is bloom grouping pollination to maximize yields.

It's going to so much fun when I start working on plums.

Jesus is Lord and Christ

 

[R2elk]

Yes one can deep dive a parentage but all I'm really interested in at this stage is bloom grouping pollination to maximize yields.

It's going to so much fun when I start working on plums.

Jesus is Lord and Christ

Many varieties cannot pollinate themselves but a second tree of the same kind can pollinate each other. I have a prune type plum that if there is only one tree, it will not produce but when there are multiples blooming at the same time, they all get pollinated.