North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[Lucky Pittman <lucky.pittman@murraystate.edu>]

At 02:49 PM 3/24/2003 -0500, Bruce wrote:
> Piece of cake. I have about 400 trees and they all have that acacia look. It
> is really kind of nice. I use tree tubes for my young stock. Now the only
> problem I have with deer are the city folk who hunt.

We have friends who live about 90 miles south of us.  We both started 
planting some fruit trees about the same time('95-'96).  He was and is 
involved with the American Chestnut Foundation, and EVERYTHING he planted 
got a 5 or 6 ft tree shelter placed on it.  We had purchased a number of 
grafted apples, on M9/M111 rootstocks, and I was surprised to visit his 
place 2 or 3 years later to see his apple trees branching out above their 
5-6 ft tree shelters, whereas mine, grown in a more conventional manner, 
were not a great deal taller than the 5-6 ft height at which his started 
branching.
These tree shelters were staked with fairly substantial stakes, but I 
wonder about trunk strength, as my own experience with oaks grown in tree 
tubes is that if you remove the tube 2-3 years down the pike, they often 
flop over on the ground, almost like a vine.  I've not been back to visit 
in several years, so I can't comment on what his apples are looking like now.





Lucky Pittman
USDA Zone 6
Hopkinsville, KY