North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

["tanis cuff" <tanistanis@hotmail.com>]

Good points!  Discussion in CAPS.


----Original Message Follows----
From: dwoodard
To: North American Fruit Explorers <>
Subject: Re: [NAFEX] apple & pear seeds to share
Date: Sat, 28 Oct 2006 03:16:57 -0400 (EDT)

Tanis, the pollen parent affects the hardiness of apple tree offspring
as well as the seed parent. If it's not too tedious, it might be
helpful if you could tell us the names of the cultivars you have
growing near your Beautiful Arcades, and maybe something about
the climate in your part of Wisconsin.
WINTER ZONE 4; I THINK IT'S TECHNICALLY 'HUMID', BUT SUMMERS CAN GET 
DESPAIRINGLY DRY.  THE BEAUTIFUL ARCADES' NEARBY POLLENIZERS ARE MOSTLY NOT 
NAMED, THO ONE HAS TOLMAN SWEET NEARBY PLUS A MCINTOSH OFFSPRING; OTHER HAS 
A SNOW/FAMEUSE W/IN REACH.  ALL OTHER TREES ARE UNKNOWN NAMES, & A FEW 
CHANCE-SEEDLINGS. ALL HAVE LASTED HERE BECAUSE OF ENOUGH DISEASE-TOLERANCE 
TO HELP SURVIVE THE WINTERS AND ENOUGH FLAVOR IN THE FRUITS THAT PEOPLE 
PROPAGATED THE TREES.

I understand that in Nova Scotia where the practice of using seedling
Beautiful Arcade trees as rootstock originated (their BAs are planted
with Antonovkas) it is considered necessary to rogue the BA seedlings
and discard about 20%, the ones that are unusually big or small.
I would guess that they take care to grow them in uniform soil and
sun and at uniform spacing.
THANKS!  I'VE BEEN GARDENING & WEEDING ALL MY LIFE, SO IT WOULDN'T HAVE 
OCCURRED TO ME TO TELL SOMEONE "YOU'LL HAVE TO WEED"!
ESPECIALLY THE PEAR SEEDLINGS SHOULD BE ROGUED, TO REMOVE THE HIGHEST-VIGOR 
SEEDLINGS: HIGH-VIGOR ROOTSTOCKS WILL TEND TO GROW HIGH-VIGOR MONSTER PEAR 
TREES.

If anyone hasn't heard of them, Beautiful Arcade is an old Russian
summer apple, fairly hardy. The Kentville Nova Scotia station of
Agriculture Canada found some decades ago that selected Beautiful
Arcade seedlings made a satisfactory semidwarf apple rootstock for
the Annapolis Valley soil (clay I believe) and climate.
I CAN CONFIRM MINE ARE SEMI-DWARF ROOTSTOCKS, W/ A GOOD RANGE OF 
COMPATABILITY FOR APPLE (I'VE HAD SOME REJECTIONS AFTER 3, 4, 5 YEARS).  BUT 
MINE PRODUCE A SMALL RED APPLE-- MIGHT CALL THEM APPLE-CRABS-- LATE-SEPT, 
EARLY OCT.  GOOD TART FLAVOR.

I ACQUIRED MY BEAUTIFUL ARCADE ROOTSTOCKS IN LATE 80s OR 1990 FROM A 
NAFEXER, OR 2ND-PERSON THRU NAFEX.  SORRY, I DIDN'T THINK TO ASK ABOUT 
POLLEN PARENT!  THEY ARE PERFORMING WELL IN SANDY-LOAM, AND DON'T SEEM TO 
SUFFER WHERE SPRING SNOW-MELT OCCASIONALLY FLOODS 1/2 THE ROOT ZONES.

Doug Woodard
St. Catharines, Ontario
Niagara Peninsula

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