My orchard is beginning to blossom. First are the peach and the pear trees and then the apple trees with some earlier than others. I noticed that my little peach tree which last year provided its first delicious peaches (unfortunately inhabited with visitors since peach is tough to grow without ‘cides) was dead! The other peach tree, a shadow of the first, was doing fine. I feared root nematodes or some other nasty affliction which would spread to my other fruit trees, so I hauled the tree out of the ground. I could have dug it out but it was easier to chain it and lift it vertically out with my bobcat and this way get most of the roots out at the same time.
And then I noticed why it had died. When I planted my trees I engraved their salient details on thin aluminum plates which I loosed tied around the trunks. With time the string loops (actually nooses) were buried by mulch and disappeared from sight and the trunks expanded. Of course I used synthetic long lasting string which does not deteriorate and so, as the tree grew bigger it slowly strangled itself. The nutrients could not pass between the roots and the above ground tree and the tree died.
I was somewhat upset! And then immediately began examining my other trees and found 5 other restricting nooses which I cut with a chisel and pulled loose with pliers. These trees had not fruited last year and I had assumed it was because of competing growth from weed thickets which I since removed. So easy to draw the wrong conclusions – it was possibly because they were deprived of nutrients. I hope they will all now do well. I had to gauge one so deeply to remove the name plate that I left a sizable hole which I decided to douse with with antibacterial spray and plug with grafting wax to keep out invaders.
Since peaches are tough to grow organically I decided to replace the peach tree with 2 apple trees. I wanted low chill varieties since, despite this recent cold weather, I believe the long term trend is to warming and a low chill variety requires fewer cold hours. My googling produced 3 varieties – Dorsett Golden, Fuji and Pink Lady aka Cripps Pink. Gilmer county is just north of my farm and is apple country in Georgia and has a decent nursery where I previously bought some of my apple trees.
The manager (he may also be the owner) was very helpful and confirmed that peach trees are self pollinating and my remaining peach should be fine, but got a little upset when I said I wanted low chill varieties and mentioned Dorsett Golden. Heated because he felt my logic was faulty and also because he said, with a smile, that he did not carry Dorsett Golden. But he approved and had in stock Cripps Pink and Fuji. I boarded his golf cart and we drove to the Fuji and had wide ranging discussions on growing topics – he is trying to adopt organic practices and uses neem and spinosad (I occasionally use neem and have never used spinosad) and he makes his own compost. But he says for his container plants he has to use a slow release fertilizer and will not call himself organic because that would be misleading.
The Fuji was in a container, the Cripps Pink was bare root and in a moist indoor location and looked very vigorous – he said it was a 2:3 which he explained meant the the scion was 2 years old and the root was 3 years old. On the way back to the office he elaborated on his global warming views that if it was happening (he stressed the “if”) then he was sure we on earth would act to limit it and anyhow, in his view it would take many years before it became an issue. I did not want to debate and upset what was a pleasant visit, so we settled up and parted harmoniously and a few hours later the new arrivals were bedded in their new home.