Archive for December 1998
APPLE WINTER SURVIVAL IN MINNESOTA
—David K. Wildung (Horticulturalist, North-Central Experiment Station, Minnesota) (This article is from the North-Central Quarterly) The winter of 1995-96 will be remembered as the coldest winter on record in Minnesota. The all-time state low minimum temperature of -60° F was recorded at Tower, MN on February 2, 1996. While the official low temperature…
Read MoreESPALIERS, CORDONS, AND OTHER SPECIALIZED PRUNING AND TRAINING TECHNIQUES
CORDONS (from The Complete Guide to Pruning and Training Plants, by David Joyce and Christopher Brickell, 1992, Simon & Schuster) The cordon is a restricted form consisting in essence of a main stem furnished with short growing fruiting spurs. Apples are normally grown on dwarfing or semi-dwarfing rootstocks (vigorous rootstocks are only…
Read MoreANNUAL ALASKAN-GROWN APPLE TASTING
—Dwight Bradley 1998 Results The annual Alaskan-grown apple tasting was held at Bradley’s in Peters Creek on Sept. 26, 1998. About 25 people were there, and 17 rated the apples. We tasted 31 varieties of apples, a dozen repeats of these same varieties, two varieties of pear, and one each apricot and plum.…
Read MoreOREOLE APPLE TREE UPDATE
Tom Marshall provided some new information on his Oreole tree, which is topworked with 19 other varieties. The tree bore 350 Oreoie (of which 66 were blown off in a bad August windstorm), 74 Geneva Early, 37 Novosibirsk! Sweet, 26 Trailman, 19 Parkland, 15 Yellow Transparent, 21 Centennial, 7 Whitney, 1 Norcue, 7…
Read More1998 ORCHARD TOURS
—Kevin Irvin This past summer was the first year (since I’ve been in the Fruit Growers anyway) that we had a tour every month. In May we toured the Mystery Trees in Anchorage as well as making stops at Bob Boyer’s and Tom Marshall s to see then trees. Anyone who hasn’t seen…
Read MoreBYFLUI NALIV: A PROMISING ANTIQUE RUSSIAN VARIETY
Dwight Bradley In September, we had a visit from a geologist who spent his 40 or so years in Russia, then moved to Colorado a few years ago, when the standard of living in Russia started to spiral downhill. Like many professionals from Moscow, he owned an acre of land about an…
Read MoreA NOTE ON “BACCATA”
I have one tree I began growing for a pollinator. This past season was the first year it blossomed and it was of no use as a pollinator. The cold spring weather had no effect on it and it was the first to blossom. It set very small crabs no bigger than the…
Read MoreMAKING CUTTINGS? USE WILLOW WATER
(This article is from Pome News) Many times when I take cuttings the directions indicate that I should use a rooting hormone to increase the rate of rooting. Many rooting hormones on the market are synthetic preparations of indolebutyric acid (IDA). You can use the teal thing by mixing a batch of…
Read MorePETERS CREEK orchard report 1998
PETERS CREEK —Dwight Bradley This was the best year yet for our apple orchard in Peters Creek. The fall of 1997 was a late one, which allowed just about all trees to harden off nicely. There were no severe fall ice storms when the leaves were still on — one of the two worst…
Read MoreSoutheast Apple Tasting 1997
by Joe Orsi During the first week in October, Ed Buyarski, myself, and portions of our families participated in an apple tasting session from apples grown at our test orchards located north of Auke Bay, We collectively tasted 36 varieties of apples and recorded many of their attributes (Table 1). Although the…
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