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nafex - Re: [NAFEX] apple questions - espallier distance

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  • From: "Thomas A. Beckett" <thomas@tbeckett.com>
  • To: North American Fruit Explorers <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [NAFEX] apple questions - espallier distance
  • Date: Mon, 24 Oct 2005 16:57:39 -0400

Thanks so much, Pete! That's a great introduction for me.

Thomas

Pete Tallman wrote:
> For the question from Thomas on how far apart to plant trees for espallier,
> I don't think there is necessarily one answer. It depends on what you want
> to accomplish. The only way I know to help is to describe my orchard. Hope
> this note doesn't come out too long. My whole orchard is on post and 4-wire
> trellis, top wire a couple inches short of 7 ft. The plan was to avoid
> ladder work for the most part and fit in as many different apple varieties
> on their own rootstock as possible. I planted a lot of Mark rootstock and
> others to be trained as oblique cordon with bamboo stake support to set the
> angle. Mark was the hot rootstock of the day at the time I grafted, and I'm
> still very happy with it 10 years later. Also have some Ott-3, Bud-9 (both
> very nice), M7, Bud-9, Antonovka, and a few other random rootstocks and
> interstems. P22 and M27 samplles were found to be far too weak for my use
> here in Colorado arid conditions, even with vigorous variety. Initially I
> planted the Mark oblique cordons 4 ft apart, but found this wasn't filling
> the space well, so I grew a second oblique arm for each of these trees, and
> some of these second arms are now grafted to second varieties. Later trees
> were planted at 2.5 feet for the oblique cordons. Trees are usually willing
> to fill the space on Mark. Some varieties are more vigorous, need a lot of
> pruning (even on Mark), others quite happy in the space. Constant pruning
> struggle to keep the Antonovka and M7 in oblique cordon form. Good thing I
> like to prune. One attempt at formal espallier on Mark grew the 4 arms on
> each side but didn't have enough vigor to fill out the upper arms to 6 feet
> long apiece before it runted out. M7 with 6ft arms is probably going to be
> fine, giving a row spacing of 12 feet. I have one "production" row with
> trees formed as informal espallier, kind of a cross between formal
> multi-arm
> espallier and fan forms. Most of these are at 10 to 12 feet apart. One tree
> on Antonovka had no problems filling a 20 foot space and woud probably have
> taken more if I let it. In hindsight, if I were to do this over, I would
> run
> cordon for the entire production row instead of informal espallier, which
> would allow fine tuning of production volume vs. interest. Fully oblique
> cordon would also probably give more production. My 20-footer was Black
> Oxford that I had a lot of hope for, but turned out not interesting enough
> to grant the whole 20 feet. That tree is in process of being changed over
> by
> topworking to Bramley's Seedling which is very interesting here. Leaving a
> couple branches Black Oxford too. The other hindsight is that the trees on
> oblique cordon get heavy, and the oblique trees aren't helping much to hold
> up their own weight, so attachment to the wires is critical. Maybe I should
> have run vertical cordons so the trees themselves can help the support. Way
> too late to make that adjustment now.
>
> Hope this discussion helps a little. Jackie can pick this up as an article
> if she likes.
>
> Pete Tallman
> 5690 Steeplechase Dr.
> Longmont, CO
>
>
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