North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[Kieran <holycow@frontiernet.net>]

Lucky sent me 2 little starts of Timm x Success about 8 years ago. They 
have done pretty well considering where they are, and have cropped for 
several years.   The flowers are different from the local species, not 
as showy, rather downy looking, and earlier to bloom.   They never had a 
hint of rust till this past year, when some berries had rust.  The 
native bushes do poorly, when they do have berries they often lose the 
entire lot to horrible masses of rust.  Like so many successful pests, 
rust doesn't hurt the trees, merely destroys the fruit.  I've found one 
bush that has very small berries and almost no rust on them.
    Any of you who remember my Red Clay Blues article will be amused to 
hear that my husband came across the statement that The Highland Rim has 
the worst soil in Tennessee.  Just my luck.  But I had kind of figured 
that out by now anyway.   Still better than Florida sugar sand though, 
as given enough organic matter and extra minerals, it will grow garden 
veggies and pears, hazels, blueberries and blackberries.   The 
Micromalus apple rootstocks are still holding up to their reputation for 
tasting bad to voles.  I lost 2 big rabbiteyes, one each of the last 2 
winters.  When I called David Lockwood, UT's horticulture expert, he 
asked if it could be voles. So I've pulled a lot of pine branches etc 
out of the blueberry patch.      Donna