North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

["TIM INMAN" <TIM@HISTORICINTERIORS.COM>]

An old-timer taught me to graft (my Grandfather).  He had plenty of space in 
his 'town' orchard, so he didn't really need to graft for space 
conservation.  So why did he graft?  Pollination!  He taught me to graft a 
limb of the 'best' pollinator cultivar onto each apple tree in the orchard. 
That way, he figured, the best possible cross pollinisation could occur. 
I've read about other old timers doing the same thing to increase home 
orchard production.  Don't know if it holds scientific water, but we always 
had tons of superb apples.

Tim Inman
Randolph, IA
Zone 4

----- Original Message ----- 
From: <nafex-request@lists.ibiblio.org>
To: <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Friday, July 27, 2007 11:00 AM
Subject: nafex Digest, Vol 54, Issue 69


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> Today's Topics:
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>   1. Re: Make a four-on-one apple tree (Steve)
>   2. Re: Make a four-on-one apple tree (Lon J. Rombough)
>   3. Re: Bali vs Evans (Steve)
>   4. Re: Bali vs Evans (loneroc)
>   5. Re: Bali vs Evans (Steve)
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Thu, 26 Jul 2007 23:41:03 -0400
> From: Steve <SDW12986@aol.com>
> Subject: Re: [NAFEX] Make a four-on-one apple tree
> To: North American Fruit Explorers <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
> Message-ID: <46A9694F.8040504@aol.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
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>
> I saved this post so I could reply when I had time.
> First, my long ago experience trying to buy a 4 in one apple tree.....
> I may have ordered one twice but this was in the early 80s and I'm not
> sure now. Now that I think about it, I think that second one was a pear.
> When I first owned my own house and yard, I wanted to have fruit trees
> but didn't have a vast amount of space. I saw four-in(on?)- one apple
> trees in a catalog and thought that is what I needed.  In the spring,
> the tree arrived and I planted it. This was long before I learned how to
> graft and before I had much of a clue which cultivars might be hardy in
> the Adirondacks. Maybe it was a 5 variety tree because I seem to
> remember 4 side branches with grafts and the top remaining the original
> tree.
> Early on, I knew the tree was going to be a problem. The side branches
> had obviously been budded with the bud placed on top of the branch near
> the trunk. The reason for that placement was obvious. They could shove
> the tree into a box with the branches bent upward and not break off the
> grafts. The thing was going to be a nightmare to train. Since it was
> small, the branches were all lower to the ground than I would want, but
> I had to save those low branches to have all the cultivars. Also, since
> the buds had been placed where they were, the branches were growing
> straight up parallel to the main trunk.
> In the end, all that didn't matter because the whole tree was killed on
> the 2nd or 3rd winter. Not too many years later, I read up on which
> apples were very hardy and then I learned how to graft things myself.
>
> Today, I have 3 trees grafted to multiple cultivars. One must have at
> least 8 different types on it. I selected very hardy trees for the
> trunk. The two I purchased with multi grafting in mind were Norland and
> Rescue apple crab. (Both came from St. Lawrence Nurseries)  I didn't cut
> the trees back or do anything to them. I just grew them and trained them
> to a central leader with the lowest branch high enough to easily mow
> under it. As the side branches developed, I would place grafts that
> started a foot, to nearly 2 feet, from the trunk. I mostly just used a
> simple splice graft though have have also used bark grafts when I wanted
> to graft a branch that was much thicker than the scion. This has worked
> out very well and I have had no problem keeping things in balance by
> pruning. I leave a side branch, or 2, ungrafted to keep the original
> cultivar and I have tried to graft the very top with a cultivar that is
> not too vigorous.
>
> I do worry a little about viruses. What if one of the grafts carries a
> virus that doesn't badly affect that cultivar but is damaging to the
> tree chosen for the main trunk? I may possibly have had that happen.
> Before I grafted these trees, I had a young Haralson tree. I grafted 4
> or 5 branches as I described above. One early spring, I noticed patches
> of bark all over the Haralson parts of the tree that had puffed up.
> Large areas were raised up an eight of an inch or so. Those areas felt
> spongy to the touch. I never saw winter injury like that before or
> since. As the tree leafed out, the ungrafted branches wilted and of
> course, the grafted branches eventually dried up too. The trunk had died
> right from under the grafted parts. Haralson SHOULD be hardy here. I
> always wondered if an introduced virus was not tolerated by Haralson and
> lead to that kind of injury. (If anyone has any insight into what caused
> the puffed up bark, I would be interested.)
>
> Last, I can't figure out why anyone would plant more than one tree in
> the same hole. Also, cutting the tree short so that all branches come
> from near the ground doesn't sound like a great idea. Of course, mine
> are standard size trees. Perhaps on a dwarfing rootstock, the idea might
> make sense.
>
> Steve Wilson
> zone 3/4
>
>
> jfruth@tds.net wrote:
>
> >    Some of us don't want a whole tree full of apples all ripe at the same
> > time.  I wanted an apple tree that started ripening in late July and
> > finished ripening in October.  Here is how I accomplished it:
> >
> >                                        From a local nursery, I bought two
> > apple trees that were growing in nursery cans (bare-root would have been
> > fine but nurseries near here don't offer bare-root tree).  These were two
> > varieties that I wanted to have fruit from.   I planted them 20' feet 
> > apart
> > and, the following Spring, I sheared both off at about 18" above the 
> > graft.
> > The tree's immediate response was to produce a flurry of new sprouts and,
> > throughout the following growing season, I continually removed any sprouts
> > that grew from below the graft.
> >    The following Spring, I ordered scion wood.  My objective was to have
> > fruit ripening starting in Late July, then Early August, Mid-August, Late
> > August, Early September, Mid-September, Late September and Early October
> > (Here in zone 3 we can expect really hard frost in October so later 
> > ripening
> > apples are out of the question).
> >    First, I selected the branch that I wanted to keep, the original apple
> > variety.  Then I selected three other branches that were as close to 90
> > degrees apart from each other as possible and grafted the scions on these
> > three.  All other branches/sprouts were removed.  It took a three tries to
> > get one scion variety to take.  Now I enjoy ripening apples for over a two
> > and one half month time span.  I have since planted other apple trees but
> > these two are my favorites and the branches are all 4" in diameter.
> >    One potential problem with making a four-on-one tree is that each 
> > branch
> > is very close in height to the others and we are warned that high winds
> > could easily(?) split such a tree.  That hasn't happened (yet?) even 
> > though
> > a nearby maple tree was snapped in half by straight-line winds.
> >
> > Jim Fruth
> > Brambleberry Farm
> > Pequot Lakes, MN  56472
> > For jams, jellies & syrups:
> > www.bberryfarm.com
> > (877)265-6856 [Store]
> > (218)831-7018 [My Cell]
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 2
> Date: Thu, 26 Jul 2007 20:52:48 -0700
> From: "Lon J. Rombough" <lonrom@hevanet.com>
> Subject: Re: [NAFEX] Make a four-on-one apple tree
> To: North American Fruit Explorers <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
> Message-ID: <97792f49d50d62d1a14b6cac05df4eb9@hevanet.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
>
> Most nurseries in this area won't sell multiple variety trees any more.
>  One of the biggest problems was that one variety would almost always
> outgrow the rest and either leave the tree unbalanced, or the weaker
> ones would get pruned off.
> The best multiple variety dwarfs I've seen were grown by Prof. Albert
> Heinrich in Corvallis, OR.  He espaliered all his trees with a total of
> six arms per tree, and each arm was a different variety.  He had over
> 100 varieties in his yard in an amazingly small space.  He did his own
> grafting, mostlly on M9 as smaller rootstocks didn't work well enough.
> He was very diligent in his summer pruning.
> -Lon Rombough
> Grapes, writing, consulting, my book, The Grape Grower, at
> http://www.bunchgrapes.com  Winner of the Garden Writers Association
> "Best Talent in Writing" award for 2003.
> For even more grape lessons, go to  http://www.grapeschool.com
> For growing supplies and more;  http://www.grapegrowersolutions.com
>
>
>
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