AppleTesters.net - Golden Supreme, 21-September, 2011

IFTA 2011 Europe Study Tour, Day 5, Belgium

During the last day of the IFTA 2011 Summer Tour, and after an overnight stay in the City of Brussels (right by The Grand Place), we first visited a commercial pear orchard in the Sint-Truiden area (east and north of Brussels) with Tom Deckers, PCFruit Researcher. The V-form pear orchard seen here with Deckers appears to be the norm with trees planted app. 2 meters apart using the dwarfing Quince rootstock. (Which apparently is not particularly winter-hardy, limiting it’s use in North America.) Production of 60 tonnes/ha is expected at maturity said Deckers, as well as “the good fruit size essential in the pear business.”

Next stop was Carolus Trees, where Koen Carolus showed us his “sprinter” trees which are spring bench-grafted and planted 1-year nursery trees pushed hard (hence “sprinter”) with fertigation. Koen claims the sprinter trees are nearly equal to 2-year knip boom trees and it allows Carolus to be swift in production of varieties in-demand. 15-25 tonnes/ha in the 2nd-leaf.

Carolus is also an apple grower and Koen was clearly enthused with his mechanized fruiting wall ‘Fruit Management System.’ Based on a single summer hedge-prune (with a custom-built tree hedger) and blossom thinning with the Darwin string thinner Koen achieves many ‘fruiting outlets’ and has increased yield (by 20%) over the conventional production system (which is similar to a tall spindle). Fruit are more equal size and it has not been biennial. But, says Carolus, “some dormant pruning of weak and strong wood by hand is necessary every 3 years.” Carolus says a fruit grower can come to them and they supply the apple and pear trees and system(s) that allows them to “grow to spec for their customer.”

During the afternoon we visited the nearby PCFruit research center, pcfruit.be, where “research with expertise in crop protection is directed to growers.” PCFruit is non-profit with funding by grants (50%), industry and consulting (30%), Province (10%), and growers (10%, each paying 100 Euros to be a member and receive newsletters, etc.). Applied research is intended to be industry-directed and demonstrative and informative. Here, Scientist Jef Vercammen goes over a rather large pear systems trial at PCFruit. Turns out pears are an bigger crop than apples in Belgium.

For more pictures of Day 5, visit my Flickr photo album. JC

UMass Video Fruit Advisor, June 27, 2011. Super-spindle-axis sweet cherry

E-mail to 'appleman'

Huge cracking problem on my [sweet cherry] fruit. Picked and evaluated 7 cvs. today.
Black Pearl looks best among the Pearl series (vs. Burgundy, Ebony).
Black Pearl would be wonderful under covers. Birds are minimal on hill
where I put the plastic hawks. (But cracking real bad.) Birds becoming
a problem in my super-spindle cherry, I am going to Tractor Supply
tomorrow to buy more plastic hawks. Will see if that helps. I think I
am going to close-hedge super-spindle cherries with hedge trimmer
after harvest -- why not?

Hedged Silken today, look good. See: http://yfrog.com/h2v6paqj. Scab
already on Silken fruit. Have to do the rest of my apples tomorrow or
they will wait until next Friday.

Raining again here right now (Saturday night) -- this is the kind of year when cherry covers
would pay for themselves pretty quick.

Pommier, Le Mur Fruiter (aka 'Apple, Fruiting Wall')

I was in Belgium last month where Koen Carolus of Carolus Trees in the St. Truiden region showed us their 'fruiting wall' method of producing apples. (Video.) In a nutshell, all pruning is done with a hedger, and usually just once a year. Huge labor savings. Does it work? Growers claim higher yields of medium-size, above-average quality of fruit are produced on dwarf trees spaced app. 3 ft. apart. Otherwise, the trees would have been managed like a tall-spindle.

Of course I had to try it myself, so I split a row of Silken apple trees on M.9 rootstock going into their 4th (5th?) leaf up into 2 groups -- either fruiting wall or tall spindle. I bought a B&D battery-operated, hand-held hedger at Home Depot and gave the fruiting wall trees their first haircut just after bud-break. They will receive another hedging when about 8-10 bourse shoot leaves develop.

Here you can compare the bloom density of the two systems -- fruiting wall or tall spindle. What do you think?

JC

Why we hate to love Honeycrisp

Honeycrisp is notoriously biennial if left to it's own. Look a the return bloom (or lack of it) on May 12, 2011 on this group of Honeycrisp apple trees (top picture) on Bud 9 rootstock at the UMass Cold Spring Orchard in Belchertown, MA. These trees bore a crop of about 740 boxes per acre in 2010. A good crop. Too good a crop apparently if I want to pick any fruit in 2011. I failed.

Compare that to the return bloom on these McIntosh (bottom picture). These trees yielded 1,385 bushels per acre in 2010! And, they will have a good yield in 2011. You got to say one good thing for McIntosh -- return bloom is generally not a problem. (In fact, it is a very productive apple year-after-year.)

So, what's a Honeycrisp grower to do? Thin early and heavy during the on year and start adding Fruitone-N at the rate of 2 oz per acre with cover sprays (after thinning is done). That should help even out production. Oh, and pay attention to dormant pruning when you can do some spur pruning to start the process of producing consistent crops with Honeycrisp. Note also that this biennial bearing problem is worse on young trees and some growers report (anecdotal) more evening out of the crop as the trees age.

JC

MassCon Project: Maiden Voyage of the Tunnel Sprayer

MassCon Project: Maiden Voyage of the Tunnel Sprayer: "April 27, 2011: We hooked up the tunnel sprayer and ran it for the first time over trees.  All worked remarkable well. Observations: ..."