North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[Tom Olenio <tolenio@sentex.net>]

Hi,

Why don't you want starndard sized apple trees?  I have 3 reasons for you...

Just finished pruning three old, standard sized apple trees planted in 1918.  My legs are exhausted from being on the ladder for hours, my thighs and legs are bruised, from leaning against the ladder, and I pulled a muscle climbing to the crown of one of them to get suckers inaccessible by ladder.

A standard tree can reach to 40-45 feet.  I was only dealing with 30' trees.

Unless you keep a standard sized tree trained low, it takes all the fun out of keeping them.

Plus, who knows how much spray gets to the top of the tree, or the reduced/spoiled fruit production you cannot reach for harvest.

Hmmm...  That is 5 reasons;

• exhaustion from pruning
• bruising from pruning
• cuts/scrapes/strains from pruning
• spraying 40' up
• unreachable fruit

That doesn't go into the sense of joy you feel, way up on a wobbly ladder. 
(smile)  I tried not to think about how long a broken bone would take
to heal while up on that ladder.

I hope to convince my inlaws to remove the old trees this summer, and put in more dwarfs.

Later,
Tom

tanis cuff wrote:

I've discovered that "carefully selecting" based on available & accessible
info, often doesn't supply enough info.   If the graft is rejecting, and
more scionwood isn't available, and wrong time of season to graft or bud
onto other 'stock, why not try own-rooting?

----Original Message Follows----
From: Tom >
To: North American Fruit Explorers <nafex@>
Subject: Re: [NAFEX] Re:Need opinions...
Date: Mon, 05 Apr 2004 12:03:42 -0400

Hello,

After carefully selecting scion and rootstock, to achieve the variety and
sized tree you want, why would you toss that away?

Also, on more mature trees even a shift in grade of a few inches can kill a
tree.  Once a soil depth is set, it is usually permanently set.

Young wood (whips/seedlings) can tolerate changes in soil depth on the
trunk, however mature wood suffers and dies.

That is my experience anyway.

Later,
Tom

tanis cuff wrote:

 > <snip>The only problem I've found is, what if I decide I want the topwork
to grow
 > its own roots?  Then I have to dig a trench in order to get all the
 > rootstock below ground. <snip>

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--
Thomas Olenio
Ontario, Canada
Hardiness Zone 5b