January-March 2011 was a busy time for us. We had lots of trees to plant on the community orchard. Challenging weather conditions November-January meant that our planting window was quite small.
All the trees we had to plant for the 2010-2011 dormant period are now in the ground and florishing. We planted 30 trees, 17 of which are cordon trees - they will grow along a fence line as a way of demonstrating how fruit can be grown in smaller spaces. So, we currently have 13 trees planted in the top half of the orchard. All but 9 of these are trees we grafted.
The trees we grafted ourselves (in March 2010) and planted are:
(Pollination group in brackets)
Lord Derby D
Yorkshire Cockpit C
Lemon Pippin D
Allington Pippin C
Bossom (Mid)
Stripped Beefing C
Queen Cox B
Minshull Crab C
Lord Lambourne C
Burr Knot C
D’Arcy Spice D
Crispin (10)
Downham Pippin D
All the above are cordon trees
Ashmeads Kernel D
Bee Bench ?
Eccleston Pippin ?
Laxton‘s Superb D
Lord Suffield B
Plot 52 ? This is a tree on our site (on plot 52) yet to be identified.
Tydeman’s Early Worcester D
Withington Welter C
And we purchased and planted:
Duke of Devonshire B
Fillingham Pippin B (grafted by Peter Nichol locally)
Flower of the Town B
Grandpa Buxton B (grafted by Peter Nichol locally)
Greenup's Pippin B
Keswick Codling B
Ladies Finger of Lancaster C
Ribston Pippin D
Tydeman's Late Orange D
Showing posts with label heritage. Show all posts
Showing posts with label heritage. Show all posts
Grafting Workshop
On Sunday 13th March OTAGS hosted a grafting workshop. This is how new fruit trees are made. You use 'rootstock' supplied from a specialist grower (so its disease free), with the rootstock chosen based on how small or large you want the tree to be. Then join material pruned from the tree you want to reproduce on to that rootstock - with a graft.
Peter Nichol from the Northern Fruit Group came to show us how and a very productive time was had by all. After spending an hour or so practising how to join the two pieces together, we set about the task of making trees for the orchard. By 3 pm we had grafted 40 trees.
It will take a few months before we will know if all of these have taken, but Peter re-assured us by saying that if any don't work he will show us how to bud - using the same rootstock.
For our orchard it was important to learn how to do this. Buying local heritage trees is expensive, and often they are not available. The idea is that a group of us will be able to continue to practice this skill, pass it on to others and make more trees for the orchard and to sell during our events, raising money to develop the allotment site.
We grafted: Allington Pippen, Ashmeads Kernel, Bee Bench, Bossom, Burr Knot, Crispin, D'Arcy Spice, Downton Pippin, Eccleston Pippen, Lemon Pippin, Laxton's Superb, Lord Derby, Lord Lambourne. Lord Suffield, Minshull Crab, Queen Cox, Stripped Beefing, Tydeman's Early Worcester, Withington Welter and Yorkshire Cockpit. All of these are apples which we grafted on to MM106 rootstock.
We also grafted some unknown apple and unknown plums, damsons and greengages varieties growing on our site. Later in the year we will host an apple identification workshop, where some of these varieties can be identified.
Peter Nichol from the Northern Fruit Group came to show us how and a very productive time was had by all. After spending an hour or so practising how to join the two pieces together, we set about the task of making trees for the orchard. By 3 pm we had grafted 40 trees.
It will take a few months before we will know if all of these have taken, but Peter re-assured us by saying that if any don't work he will show us how to bud - using the same rootstock.
For our orchard it was important to learn how to do this. Buying local heritage trees is expensive, and often they are not available. The idea is that a group of us will be able to continue to practice this skill, pass it on to others and make more trees for the orchard and to sell during our events, raising money to develop the allotment site.
We grafted: Allington Pippen, Ashmeads Kernel, Bee Bench, Bossom, Burr Knot, Crispin, D'Arcy Spice, Downton Pippin, Eccleston Pippen, Lemon Pippin, Laxton's Superb, Lord Derby, Lord Lambourne. Lord Suffield, Minshull Crab, Queen Cox, Stripped Beefing, Tydeman's Early Worcester, Withington Welter and Yorkshire Cockpit. All of these are apples which we grafted on to MM106 rootstock.
We also grafted some unknown apple and unknown plums, damsons and greengages varieties growing on our site. Later in the year we will host an apple identification workshop, where some of these varieties can be identified.
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