North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

["Michael Glassford" <glassfordm@hotmail.com>]

I bought 1/2 bushel of "utility grade" Spencers from a local orchard, along
with smaller quantities of many other kinds of apples for storage in my
in-basement root cellar. Every single one of the Spencers (that I haven't
eaten!) is in as good shape today as it was when I bought it. Better, in
fact, since they have ripened a little and the flavor has gotten both
stronger and sweeter. It has been my favorite eating apple all winter.

Spencer has some of the flavor of Golden Delicious (one of its parents; the
other is McIntosh), but isn't cloying like Golden Delicious sometimes is. If
they're this good picked slightly green, I wonder how they taste picked
ripe?

Anyway, I'm wondering in particular: are there any notable problems growing
Spencer (e.g. high susceptibility to scab, hard-to-train tree, etc.)?
Anything else anyone can tell me would also be appreciated.

Mike
>From lucky.pittman@murraystate.edu  Fri Apr  4 11:11:20 2003
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Date: Fri, 04 Apr 2003 10:11:55 -0600
To: North American Fruit Explorers <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
From: Lucky Pittman <lucky.pittman@murraystate.edu>
Subject: Re: [NAFEX] bleeding grafts
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I've had moderate success grafting walnuts with the 'sap-stopper 
modification of the Gray graft'.  It's really just a simple bark graft, but 
rather than completely beheading the rootstock, you just cut 3/4 to 7/8 of 
the way through the stem and break it over, leaving the top attached to act 
as a 'relief valve'.
However, I still think I'll give Lee's technique a shot - even with pecans, 
I've occasionally encountered excessive bleeding and drowning/blowout of 
newly placed grafts.

Fred Blankenship, who taught me to do 4-flap grafts, makes a couple of 
quick 'girdling' cuts around the stem of the rootstock below all his graft 
placements, with the thought that it may act as a 'relief valve' to 
diminish bleeding,  as well as helping to keep auxins concentrated in the 
region of the graft, to help enhance callus formation.   You're not 
actually removing any bark when you make these ringbarking cuts, just 
slicing through the bark.


Lucky Pittman
USDA Zone 6
Hopkinsville, KY