What fruit trees?

[DFB]

DFB, that was a great video. It put a smile on my face at several different points. Tomorrow, I plan to show it to my wife. She will love it.

Thanks for saying, glad to know you enjoyed watching it and hope your wife does too.


I was down at the orchard today winter pruning started this week and will probably run thru most of Feb.

Mild weather right now with very little snow accumulation so far this year at all so decent for the guys, several years back there was over 40"

 

[DrRod]

I have a friend from China and he says he misses the taste of DDT on apples. I can remember when a jeep with a fogger would drive through our town on a summer night spraying DDT in a fog based on used motor oil to kill mosquitos. It had a decidedly acidic quality to it and I can see how that would bring up the taste of apples -- sort of like lemon juice on a sliced apple or peach. So I can see how it would become the "normal" way to taste an apple. Ahh -- those were the days.

 

[teejk]

I have a friend from China and he says he misses the taste of DDT on apples. I can remember when a jeep with a fogger would drive through our town on a summer night spraying DDT in a fog based on used motor oil to kill mosquitos. It had a decidedly acidic quality to it and I can see how that would bring up the taste of apples -- sort of like lemon juice on a sliced apple or peach. So I can see how it would become the "normal" way to taste an apple. Ahh -- those were the days.

Guessing you are talking about "fogging" from probably the mid 60's...Was that DDT? I thought it was something else?

 

[WoodChuckDad]

I have a friend from China and he says he misses the taste of DDT on apples. I can remember when a jeep with a fogger would drive through our town on a summer night spraying DDT in a fog based on used motor oil to kill mosquitos. It had a decidedly acidic quality to it and I can see how that would bring up the taste of apples -- sort of like lemon juice on a sliced apple or peach. So I can see how it would become the "normal" way to taste an apple. Ahh -- those were the days.

I was a little kid, in florida at the time. My brother was 10 years older than me. My dad was in Vietnam at that time and when the spray trucks would come thru the neighborhood in the evening, we would get behind them with our toy guns and plastic helmets and pretend we were following a tank in combat. Nowadays people would go into shock over that kind of exposure. I should have 3 eyes by now....but I still can't see what's behind me.

 

[widefat]

I visited the Virginia Extension site and downloaded several good papers on fruit crops in Virginia. Good Stuff.

 

[DrRod]

Guessing you are talking about "fogging" from probably the mid 60's...Was that DDT? I thought it was something else?

We always thought it was. And I can remember when they stopped doing it everyone said it was because of the DDT. But people say a lot of things and I have no way of knowing for sure. But it would be interesting to look into the records and see if we could find out.

 

[2ndhalf]

I planted 4 Peach trees today.. planted apple trees last year and they area all still ok. I got the trees I planted today at TSC and they were ok trees but very root bound. So I used a technique I saw on a garden show to shear off the root bound parts that are circling the pot to leave only roots that are shooting out away from the tree... Apparently if you plant it with those roots circling it will have very retarded root system.

See pics. We will see... I am no expert... I just listen to them. The last ball that has been trimmed you can see that it doesn't have cicular roots.. just the tips show up which will grow out.. which is what you want.

 

[2ndhalf]

Then I pruned them back to just 4 Scaffolds.

 

[RalphVa]

You want to either tease the roots out of there or cut them from the outside vertically a few places around the circumference.

Another technique is to use a water hose to remove all the soil from the roots. Then you'll be able to see to untangle them.

Ralph

 

[2ndhalf]

You want to either tease the roots out of there or cut them from the outside vertically a few places around the circumference.

Another technique is to use a water hose to remove all the soil from the roots. Then you'll be able to see to untangle them.

Ralph

I saw the cutting down the side approach on the web too... I thought about trying that on one just to see if it made a difference.