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nafex - Re: [NAFEX] How small can European plum, peach, and apricot be maintained at (without a dwarfing roostock)?

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  • From: Scott Smith <scott@cs.jhu.edu>
  • To: North American Fruit Explorers <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [NAFEX] How small can European plum, peach, and apricot be maintained at (without a dwarfing roostock)?
  • Date: Fri, 13 May 2011 09:16:07 -0400

Steve, I have found 4' to be about the minimal convenient spacing. On my
trees at this spacing I get a few gallons of fruit off each tree. The main
issue with closer spacing is the careful attention to pruning that is needed.
Any time I see a congested part of a tree I thin it out, and I summer prune
to keep the overall size down - I use a powered hedge trimmer and hedge at
about 9' - nothing grows above that for long. Sometimes thinning entails
removing large portions of a tree, and it took me several years to learn to
do this properly since I did not want to reduce my fruiting wood. For 8'
-spaced trees it should be a whole lot easier. I am using more than a dozen
different rootstocks, many non-dwarfing, and they all can work. If you are
putting in multiple rows, I would recommend 11-12' between rows. I used 10'
and while that works it is a bit more congested than I would like.

Scott z7 MD

On May 12, 2011, at 11:24 PM, Steven Covacci wrote:

> Group:
>
>
> How small can stone fruits such as European plum, peach, and apricot be
> maintained at (without a dwarfing roostock), and still be productive?
>
>
> Would 8 feet be too short/narrow?
>
>
> Thanks,
> Steve; NJ 6b/7a
>
>
>
>
>
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>
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