Thread: Fruit, Nut, and Vine Grafting, Tree Propagation, Tree Care

Awesome, hopefully it works out well for you and is a tasty variety. No buds yet on the Bartlett pear tree I bought.

Originally Posted by SuperDave336

Awesome, hopefully it works out well for you and is a tasty variety. No buds yet on the Bartlett pear tree I bought.

I had what was supposed to be a Southern Bartlett. It never bloomed much less grew very well so it got the Backhoe treatment and a volunteer root shoot came up from its location. That whip is to the left of the multi graft pictured. By stacking all the Pears together pollination has a much better chance.

In backyard Permaculture different planting approaches can be used for fruit tree production. I do 3 - 4 - even 5 trees per location to take advantage of different ripening dates, flowering dates for pollination, different growth habits (upright to spreading growth habits) , etc. Also the Fig trees I planted last fall need extra water, figs need lots of water.



Feeding one rectangular block of Plum trees I'm trenching from the main line down to the Plum trees.



I also have a single Fig tree on each side of the Plum block. A shallow trench was cut for the 1/4in line to feed the two Figs. You can run a Emitter with 1/4in Irrigation line up to 30ft. I will tap the Drop line from the Main line with the 1/4in tubing and then bury them just so I can mow over the top without issue.



This rental Trencher is a manual Push Trencher so if possible I go downhill as much as I can. The existing buried Mainline was just stubbed out of the ground for future expansion last year. Now I will dig it up and connect the new irrigation lines bringing water to more fruit trees.



I do this when my yard needs mowing so I can use the push mower to mow a layout so to speak for the new lines to be installed.



Where needed the depth can be adjusted so since I don't have to worry about cutting another line I can trench a little deeper. I have a Pecan tree I'm passing to the left of and want to miss as much roots as possible so I have a shallow hook to this trench.



This line is the trench in the previous picture. This is a 105ft retaining wall we installed numerous years ago that can dry out with droughts. Plum, Peach & Nectarine trees line this wall so I will "T" off this line to water all the trees at one time.



3 more blocks of fruit trees now have automated water ran to them. From the 1/2in line I will run 1/4in lines to each tree. Using the precision 1/2 gallon per hour watering Emiters just to keep the soil moist. A moisture percentage of 25% is optimum for tree fruit production. I have found soaker hoses use too much water and is a big reason why I made the move to a precision watering method.



Here is a picture of where I Teed off the Main line to feed one of the blocks. If I don't run the riding mower over the area I just stake the lines down on the surface and allow grass to grow over them.

I can’t remember if I kept my irrigation lines or not. I might have thrown them away. We used them on our garden for years. I never did like soaker hose.

I decided to open up a few of the Fig Pop bags with cuttings that had stalled in growing. started loosing leaves, or the bark was discoloring. On the up side for my first attempt at the Fig Pop method I have less than 10% failures (actually at this time about 5% failure rate) of my cuttings rooting. For the lack of attention needed the Fig Pop cutting rooting method is going to be my "Go To" method going forward. It is just too easy but this post is about failures.



Several examples here of failing or failed cuttings. All have roots as you can see but time got the best of them. In the first pictures the dark spots in the bark is where the cutting started rotting from within. Now all failures are from 3 trees, I happen to think reasons for the failures are different. The biggest failures not pictured here was from a very old tree I harvested cuttings from & shared some with SuperDave. Those we have discussed but the tree cuttings already had some form of mold on the outside of the bark. I believe if I had washed the cuttings in a disinfectant solution as soon as they were harvested no failures would have occurred since the cuttings were thick enough. The last picture is a cutting that just didn't have enough carbohydrates in my opinion stored to provide the energy to complete the root development process for Fig Pop rooting. So Fig Pop rooting needs a viable cutting to start with for very low percentage of failures.

I have some that look like that too. I noticed on one when up potting the fig pop the soil sorta broke away there was a bud forming in the soil which would come out from soil. I still have hopes it survives and growth comes up. I think the top wasn't viable but below possibly will survive. It appeared to have good root growth. Don't know I haven't given up on them yet.

That is understandable. I'm over 100 rooted cuttings now with more still rooting. I think Fig #4 is a Magnolia Fig. I was looking at the fig fruit and leaves online this morning. The fruit was delicious last year but the tree was young. Stan said it was some form of Turkey fig but he didn't say it was a Brown Turkey looking right at the tree with fruit on it. He did say he wanted one of the cuttings I rooted by Air Layer so I think he thought it was possibly Magnolia too. I do not see a Magnolia offered by him and as soon as I told him it was ready he was here the next day.

So you think the cuttings labeled "turkey" are Magnolia? I need to look that variety up, I'm not familiar with it.