What did you do in your orchard today?

[CrealCritter]

The Russian Almonds decided to start blooming today.

Those are beautiful pictures there. You should post the in the Picture of the Week POW thread.

Meanwhile... ole granny smith is still blooming. I don't know what's up with that tree. But even if a small precentage of the flowers set fruit, the tree will self destruct from the apple load. I'll have to wait and see what sets. I'm already thinking I may have to thin to only king fruit, that will remove 4 apples per cluster. IDK... not complaining at all... some apples are better than no apples. But one would think the tree should know when to stop.

Also another oddity... several of the peach trees bloomed a second time also. Maybe it was the 12 inches of rain we recieved, IDK... maybe it's going to be a big harvest to.make up for being robbed by cicadas last year.

Jesus is Lord and Christ

 

[CrealCritter]

I discovered I have a relience and red haven peach scions dried up, meaning the grafts didn't take. So I re-grafted them this evening. I did the thumb nail scratch test and nothing but brown under the bark of the scions. But green under the bark of the lovell root stocks.

I have a lot to learn about grafting peaches to increase my graft takers. 100% sucess with apples, pears and cherries but peaches are like 40%. That tells me I need to go back and study about grafting peaches. It's probably a couple of things I need to do differnt, to increase my takers.

Dried up peach scions.

See green cambium layer under the bark on the rootstock. There is absolutely nothing wrong with the rootstock.

Re-grafted with whip and tounge method and fresh from the refrigerator dormant scions, harvested mid February. The whip and tongue grafts were spot on also, some of my best cutting with a grafting knife yet. If these don't take, then I'm using the wrong grafting method.

I have 4 more that haven't broke bud yet but the scions and rootstocks are still green under the bark. Maybe they are just slow to take? IDK... but I may have to re-graft them also. 4 takers out of 10 is 40% sucess rate. I can do better than that. I just need to figure out how .

Jesus is Lord and Christ

 

[The Porch]

The Plumb it blossomed so full this year, So is the pear.
Now that I see the plumb blooms, I think the small tree is plumb, maybe.
The apple is just about to flower.

 

[CrealCritter]

I started studying peaches a little last night. I did not know this, it seem important. Something I need to understand so I can select the right sicion wood or bud wood for grafting purposes.

Short but informative video on the three different peach bud types.

Jesus is Lord and Christ

 

[CrealCritter]

Here is a red haven peach graft taker. The piece of scion wood only contains vegetative growth. I checked it and yes only single buds along its length. This is another clue...

Now I need a way to able to distinguish single vegetative vs single flower buds when the peach trees are dormant. Common sense is telling me... to only graft vegetative budded scion wood. Evidenced by this sucessful grafted taker. But I need to verify my suspension.

Jesus is Lord and Christ

 

[CrealCritter]

Why not... use AI to help me distinguish single vegetative vs single flower buds when the peach trees are dormant.

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Still more studying to do... but atleast I think I'm barking up the right tree now

Jesus is Lord and Christ