- We have Mario Miranda Sazo.
Again, he's the fruit extension specialist
at Cornell Cooperative Extension
in the Lake Ontario Fruit Program.
And he's talking about how to avoid mistakes
when establishing and training a tall spindle orchard.
- Okay, so I'm going to...
I see, so...
Kinda' few guys were not able to hear me very well.
So I'm gonna, make a major step
just by doing this, it's a big difference.
Okay, so hopefully...
Do we have more people coming?
I don't know,
If somebody could sit down that could be great.
I just want to give an intro about this
just to kind of show you a typical
nursery tree.
It's a typical nursery tree
it's a beautiful nursery tree
that perhaps only thing that we're gonna remove
pruning that we call corrective pruning
is gonna be that feather that is there.
That feather shouldn't be there.
Because the crutch angle is too narrow.
And sometimes it's difficult to make that decision
because you are buying a tree
and sometimes you want to keep everything
but sometimes you can help the tree
to grow better by just doing some very smart
kind of cut after pruning.
After planting.
So in this case perhaps the only tree,
the only feather that I'm gonna remove is that one.
Those are long, long feathers.
Okay?
Like those feathers that we had five, six years ago.
Today we are looking for short feathers.
No more than 16 to 18 inches.
Okay, very well detailed with a very wide crotch angle
hopefully more than 60 degrees.
Sign rooster, you're gonna start seeing
some of the rooster are gonna start seeing you
or giving you more opening with those feathers
and because those feathers are more well-open
those one are gonna be induced early on.
And it's gonna be a more natural cropping.
So in your list we're having like I say
in the morning we're having planting
at different density, we have been using whips
and with them we know how to grow those whips
we can really fill this page very quickly.
So that's kind of my method.
Most of the time we have been pushing a lot a lot
just to start with highly-feathered trees
but sometimes you can do a good job with also with whips.
And we're gonna see the case how we do it with whips.
Here is a grower that perhaps
doesn't use irrigation.
This is a grower who grows his own nursery tree.
He growing 60, 70, 80,000 trees
for a tall spindle system.
Very successful planting.
Again another shot of this
this is a very high planting density two by eleven
with two wires and a wire stabilizer
that we call,
that is gonna be supporting those trees.
But this is a mistake.
I think so. (laughs)
Sometimes, this is a big mistake.
You can try to avoid this situation.
The guy that did this is an extreme picture
that sometimes I want to put this kind of situation
because in our industry don't forget
40% of our industry in Wayne county
is still 40% processing blocks, okay?
Because we have MOTS they are in Wayne county
in Williamson next to Lake Ontario.
So those growers are still growing kind of big trees
and we are still kind of moving to a more modern
semi-process, semi-high density planting.
But still we are seeing this situation.
So it's very kind of still confusing
for those kind of growers who are kind of transitioning
to semi or high density plantings
to see or they are so used to kill the wood
permanent wood and we are just trying
to renew that wood and make those trees
more productive.
So it kinda helps picture just to say
I want to put this picture,
it's a sol axe system.
This system is a very complicated,
very beautiful perhaps the more kind of amazing
way to grow an apple tree
and make a system very efficient.
Able to produce,
originated from France
by Lespinasse, and it's a lot of philosophy
behind this system but we use today
many of the concepts that are here,
Lespinasse is also the person
who developed the diverticulaxe.
And today I have there that's a typical solaxe
where you keep the long, long fingers
and you do a lot of the spur extinction.
So everything that you see at the base
will remove through the years
all those feathers that you need
to leave there were removed
so they need the first long finger
or long branch with several fingers
is gonna start the meter,
and very long and you have different fruiting unit
it's called centrifugal pruning,
you have expert extinction
you have a tree that is gonna be something
like that hanging over
and we use many of these concepts.
We really manage crop log branch by branch.
So we have rulered that we use
in Europe there is a green ruler
that I saw there in the trade show
that we use branch by branch
just to regulate the crop log that we need
in each of those branches, okay?
For a planting system like tall spindle
we just measure the trunk above the ground one time.
Just to measure the crop log.
So we have that kind of system
but this is another you know way to do it, you know?
It's a two-dimensional way to grow an apple tree.
Just the height and just the length.
And we manipulate everything with seven wires
in the case of five-wire, six-wire, or seven-wire.
And if we start moving the angle we are gonna start seeing
the kind of v-trellis that there's another level
of precision that is the cool way
of how things are moving in Washington.
Just to see like it's the same idea
like you manipulate everything
to the perfection like in this picture like I showed you
in the morning.
This is Honeycrisp.
Okay, but tall spindle that is the concept
that we have been introducing in the last
perhaps 10, 12 years.
It's a combination of the slender spindle
that you need to leave the ground in Holland and in Belgium.
Okay?
What's that shorter tree, to start keeping
some permanent wood at the lower tier.
And they start doing some kind of renewal
in the upper section of those trees.
And at the same time,
if the combination the tall spindle combination
of the slender spindle with the super spindle who
that was developed in Germany.
So you start seeing these kind of systems
and you start seeing diverticulaxe
and you start seeing solaxe,
and from all these systems
like amalgam-H and the we call
that is the result of what we are seeing
today for that kind of more simple tall spindle.
The tall spindle is a tree, dimensional tree,
where you have height, you have depth,
and you have the length.
Also manipulated like in a two-dimensional system
like I showed you before.
That was a two-dimensional planner.
Oh with an angle that you start moving that
vertical element, or vertical trunk
whatever direction you want.
One of the important things
it is that I mentioned that
those are bi-axis trees that is something
kind of I don't know why I put that picture there
together with you I just want to
talk about this you start seeing
this bending of feathers
but I don't know if from behind of the room
you can see wires.
You can see those wires.
It's a lot of work that was in Italy done
in this tree just to bend down
all those original feathers with wire.
So we use the wire against the wire of that feather
against another feather or the wire against the trunk
or the wire against, or loop against
one of the wires that you have in your trailings.
And we're gonna see that then
I'm gonna show you a bunch of different ways how we do that.
So that is gonna give you some kind of
how you start kind of edging later.
These are a more mature planting
of tall spindle that we have in Walcott
that hopefully in the future
if extension want to organize a trip
it's an area that we always have trips
with growers for educational study
that could be great too, in the future.
If you want to see something like this in the future.
This picture of a kind of traditional gala,
tall spindle, very tall you can see the person
you have one tier, second tier, and a third tier.
These trees are not pruned yet.
We are gonna prune this tree
by the end of February,
but the picture doesn't really show
the amount of renewal that we had conducted
already in those three years before.
Okay so,
this is the result of pruning,
just by pruning we ended up producing
all these kind of highly productive branches.
Fruiting, shoot up three or four years old.
Okay, this is
very important. (laughs)
This is very, very important and here
I put a bunch of pictures,
a kind of promblemic, still this kind of concept.
The traditional way to kind of bevel cut
or the Dutch cut perhaps is gonna be that one.
Okay, but sometimes when you are asking
your employees to do the perfect bevel cut
or Dutch cut, it's the same issue
that I mentioned in the morning.
Sometimes they're very afraid
to make the wrong cut.
And by doing that sometimes they ended up
doing a very short cut.
Or even removing or without even leaving any stuff.
At all.
Sometimes not all the time.
Most of the times some growers do that
sometimes you ended up without any stub there
and you start losing the wood.
But it's very tricky.
So, in some cases this is an extreme situation
because gala really shoots like crazy.
Okay but in more weight cultivars like Honeycrisp
for example, mainly Honeycrisp we're gonna show you
I was thinking with sweet tango I was thinking about
New York one is now dragon.
If you just give to that staff
the option to be a little longer
I'm not saying they have to be so long like this.
Of course you have to choose any bud
that is coming underneath.
That's the best physics for the fruit weight
that is gonna be there.
Okay that's the best can be
on a limbification that is gonna happen.
In that kind of part.
But also here it's already coming
one or two shoots that are gonna be coming above
and perhaps the only thing that I want to stress here
is that by giving
bigger amount of wood
but you're gonna increase your probability
to get the response that we want.
And later, your crew or yourselves
you're gonna remove what you really want to remove.
But at least you increase the probability
to get the renewal that you need, okay?
You can cut that later,
you're gonna get the shoot growing there
later you can cut but this is an extreme situation.
I just want to emphasize that,
I'm not saying that all the cuts should be done.
With gala, you can go very short
and you're gonna get a good response.
You have good soil fertility,
good light penetration,
a good rooster that is gonna, should respond.
For the weight cultivar is gonna be more difficult.
For this kind of presentation
that there's no roosters, there's no
troubled management and no precision
chemical thinning,
nutrition irrigation perhaps one of the important things
is the management of the branch management zone.
The way how we manage the feathers.
Or how another very important topic
is the way how we grow the tree
and how we support the tree.
And another one is the correct pruning zone.
That area that is gonna happen in some cases
after planting for whatever plant material you got.
And you're gonna start moving that
as the tree starts growing.
As the tree starts growing,
you can let the tree grow magically
and it's gonna start producing those short shoots
that you want.
But in some cases you need to do some things
just to correct the growth of that shoot.
So you sometimes you have to use
more correction pruning.
So this is a drawing that I have
Just to kind of show you if in case
you start with a whip.
Like in that case,
many growers are gonna start with a whip.
We prefer to apply Max Cel.
And we apply Max Cel after bud break.
And we try to delay the application of Max Cel.
But we don't recommend you to head the feather.
Don't do the heading please
because that was a big, big fight in our industry.
I just think that in the last two or three years
no more growers are doing this step
at least in New York.
Instead, of heading we ask you
to put an application of Max Cel.
A late application of Max Cel to start branching hopefully.
You need to have some kind of material,
green material there to get that kind of response
that we want.
The other one is just the typical
start with a tree, and that tree
is gonna grow at the end of the first growing season.
Okay I put this picture because I am talking
or trying to talk about corrective pruning.
And in this case,
the response of the angle
the crutch angle that I had there
that is very important to have a good crotch angle
to help early spearing and fruits.
It's gonna be highly related to the rooster that you use.
So most of the Geneva material.
Most of the Geneva material, gela and G-41, G-95
is gonna give you some of those traits.
But G-95 is one of my favorites.
That is gonna give, it's very obvious
how the science developed that kind of it's
kind of wide open.
Regardless of the cultivar.
Even a very narrow scion is gonna be affected by
the rooster in that case.
This is kind of an ideal tree it had two long feathers
in that case this is an old planting.
But beautiful trees I cannot say
there are no beautiful trees.
Those are one of the few orchards
that we have in New York that we produce
in the way how the trees are produced in Europe
is the "knip-baum"
technology.
Okay we don't produce that kind of tree,
nobody's producing or asking to grow those trees
with that kind of nursery technology.
So we just grow or bud the trees
at the end of the Summer.
And the following season when that shoot
starts growing or we start the shooting
if somebody here is a nursery man
we start the shooting.
We get until around 28, 29, 30 inches above the ground.
And that is the moment when we start
using Max Cel or pinching the terminal.
Just to get the branching that we want, okay?
But we don't do pinching anymore.
If you have a nursery with 800,000
or 1 million trees today because
a good guy just to pinch cannot do more than
7,000 or 8,000 trees per day
in a nursery manually.
A good guy.
So you need to really do chemical branching.
And that work, we have done a lot of that work
with Max Cel.
Max Cel is kind of tricky.
You can use Max Cel if you are growing your own nursery tree
perhaps you're gonna leave that whip to grow
and there have been a whip.
But you can pinch, you can do chemical branching
with Max Cel
or combine,
and you have to be kind of careful in the way
if you use a Streptomycin also.
That is another thing perhaps.
We have a lot of information I'm more than happy
to share all that.
So a cultivar like this,
which I blocked here the tag because I don't
want to say anything about this cultivar.
But it's a cultivar there with a more narrow crotch angle.
And if you have a tree like this one,
already that is feathered even though
it's a nice feather,
it's coming to you but it's perhaps
a little out of balance,
it's telling you that it's a little out of balance
need to be removed.
Okay so don't hesitate to do that kind of decisions.
Because if you walk the post between posts
you have 20 trees, you're gonna have
two or three trees that require
some kind of pruning.
Not all the trees but some correction
you need to do and you're gonna,
by walking those rows you're gonna start seeing
get used to what are those feathers
that you should start kinda removing.
Sometimes you have to remove something
that is too crowded.
It's just there and it's just knowing the right place
because you're gonna bother that feather
that is in a better angle.
You have to remove that from the get-go.
So in the nursery sometimes we produce too much.
In the nursery here in the US they are not doing pruning.
Pruning of those trees in the nursery,
can you imagine?
They're not doing that stuff.
In other countries in Europe they prune
at the nursery level.
So what they give you is the perfect tree.
But here we have to prune those trees
because they're coming with whatever they can produce.
So we have to be a little more
to work with a little more precision.
This is another kind of shot
I just got this one when I was working
when I knew that I had a little more time.
I found this picture.
From a planting in Nova Scotia.
And I don't know if you can see something like that.
It's totally obvious that I need to go out
everything below 24 inches
I recommend the grower gone.
Everything below 24 inches we remove, flush.
We don't keep that wood there.
Doesn't make any sense.
About five, six years ago
our recommendation was to leave feathers 20 inches
above the ground but we started learning that
we have to start removing that later.
Because the way that the fruit and the equipment
and every side doesn't make a lot of sense.
So you have to start leaving 20, 21, 22, 23, 24,
today we are leaving feathers starting at 27, 28 inches
above the ground but our recommendation
is around 24, 25.
So all of that should be removed.
Don't leave that step because that is taking energy
also from the tree from the main lead
that you want to grow.
You have to single your leader,
you have to remove the stuff,
those are start there but you need
just to grow the short shoots.
Okay here I'm going to make a little bit.
This is another direction, okay?
We are not even close with our orchards
to this kind of technology.
But I just want to mention this.
Because it's very important that you pay attention
to why we are talking today about this.
With a Fuji culture, that is going to be the best example.
If you try to grow a Fuji in one single stem.
And you put Fuji in a very big root stock.
And on top of that you plant a Fuji
with a rigorous root stock in a very
highly soiled fertility,
and you start doing a lot of soil fertility,
what is gonna happen?
It's gonna fire up,
it's gonna grow a lot you know?
Because Fuji tends to grow very vigorously.
The same with Macoun.
Macoun and Fuji they tend to grow that,
as soon as you diffuse the bigger with two stems
by-axis, or be-bound as it's called in Italy,
you're gonna (blows) let the tree
to be a little more mellow.
And that is the way how you can control bigger
with more highly bigger cultivars.
It's as soon as you start producing that
those short shoots,
you start producing almost a more instant wall.
Fruiting wall, okay?
Our more short shoots,
more imbalanced, not so out of balance
when you are trying to grow a very bigger cultivar
like any McIntosh in general.
Any McIntosh here, we put McIntosh are different.
Difficult for us, for us have been very difficult to grow.
Macintosh in a tall spindle system.
Because this kind of system were grown in Europe.
They can have any McIntosh growing there
and we are the guys that have been dealing
with that kind of situation.
So that here is a three-stem or a four-stem situation
or two-stem situation where what you can really see
is just very fine fruiting wood.
And that is what we want.
Okay, we can do it with one single stem
like I have been saying all day today
just through pruning.
Okay, we can do that.
But with two-stem or three-stem or four-stem
it's more natural.
So again I come back to the single-stem situation
just to kind of explain this
the way how the tree grows
imagine if you didn't bend the feathers
by the end of the first year
or by the end of the third year
you're gonna start seeing this tree that oh my God
I cannot control the growth.
And you start getting you know, worried.
You say oh my God what should I do?
It's too close, and all the feathers
are growing and gala is going, going, going
and they're growing.
Okay in some moment,
because they have been spearing,
they're gonna start producing apples.
And by the weight of those apples,
hopefully I don't know your soil fertility here,
okay and the bigger those apples start to settle down.
It's a bunch of things,
crop load management also.
Sometimes cultivars cannot be cropped right away.
Or some trees we had to crop early on.
It's based on the way
we manage different cultivars.
But at the end, the typical tree
that we shoot and draft
should be something like this
if we have already fruit on the trees
and we start doing the renewal.
In this situation we have been already doing
renewal pruning.
This is another interpretation.
We just recommend the bending down of the feathers
at least in New York just in the lower tier
for the initial feathers for Fuji,
especially for Fuji, but in Italy
they continue doing the bending down of those feathers
in the second, even in the third tier of the tree.
They have even more bigger in some situations,
in some blocks.
So this is another drawing that I want to share with you.
So this is a block, a typical block,
a typical, mature block that went through
very aggressive pruning.
We had to make that decision in some moments
was overdue, it's a bunch of stubbing backs,
sorry a bunch of stubs that are there
to be able to come out with that kind of canopy.
That you can see there.
It's the result of a lot of pruning.
And here we haven't pruned yet but it's the result
this is a mature tree, a mature Gela
with a lot of spurs that we are going
kind of remove the main,
expensive side wood that we had there
in those trees.
Sometimes like I will mention in the morning
sometimes we have so much wood
that we have to start the process
and we have to remove you know more than two or three
long branches in some cases we had to sacrifice
the tree that is too small.
We shouldn't be doing perhaps that too early.
That kind of pruning but in some moments
we had to balance the tree.
And we cannot let the tree to go too much
with those long feathers or too thick.
So we have to start doing the pruning
sometimes we start doing this kind of pruning
in Honeycrisp even though are producing feathers
because we want short feathers.
Sometimes we have long, long, long, long branches
that need to be pruned from the base.
Not just start doing things or shedding back
or doing things, need to be removed to be able to start
producing more jam wood in that tree.
Or even in this case,
this is a ginger gall,
that we have been manipulating the feathers.
In some cases like there we start already pruning
to columnarize those feathers.
That is another concept that we use for tall spindle
that we start removing all those shoots.
That are above those kind of feathers.
Okay so here it's just to enforce
this concept of a tree
like Macoun where I bend down the feathers
and that winter I am counting the spurs.
So for each spurs I am putting a tennis ball.
But here, in this Macoun tree
I didn't bend feathers.
And after I count the spurs those are
the apple potential apple that I have there.
So what I am trying to say that we are able
to increase the potential, fruiting potential
of any cultivar by doing these kind of techniques.
And on top of that we have to start removing
renewing the wood too early.
We shouldn't be doing this in three or four,
with that kind of, never we should be
with that kind of wood too early.
So here I put something I had a little more time.
3:45 okay so here I have some time
because I thought it was at 2:15 but I was able
to put this together.
We are moving I want to share this with you
we are moving from a kind of three-dimensional tree
to a two-dimensional canopy.
So it's less depth.
We are doing that through mechanical edging
in this orchard that are transitioning fruiting walls
by edging them, by forming this box
this box in the dormant.
During the dormant pruning season.
So we go there,
assuming that we had been able to renew
the wood that shouldn't be there.
We kind surgery and we remove the wood
before doing mechanical pruning.
We set the box and later from that box
in the during the growing season
we had the shoots growing from that structure
from that permanent kind of permanent structure.
And we run again,
the edger.
So here I have a tree a gala tree
just to show you the dormant cut
that is there.
From the main trunk.
And I want to show you the length of that shaft
we made the decision to run the edger
around 18, 20 inches from the trunk
in a case of a super spindle
we are doing this situation at 12 inches from the trunk.
But this is a tall spindle so we decided to do it
between 18 to 20 from the trunk.
Here what I am trying to show you
is that is the dormant cut.
That with the shoot that was growing during the season,
that shoot was growing during the season,
and was cut upside from the main cut
during the Summer four to six inches.
With the Summer cut so we have in this case
those branches that are good branches
they are not too thick, 18 to 20 inches
we let those shoot to grow, to develop,
and in some moment in the Summer
that we should see when we can do that
here in Wisconsin but a least for us
it's at the end of July and early August,
we'll run with the edger and we do the Summer cut
four to six inches and we start
seeing this kind of situation.
So by doing that you have a dormant cut,
you have Summer cut,
a Summer cut but behind,
many times you're not gonna have a regrowth.
You're not gonna get that regrowth.
What is gonna happen many times,
you're gonna get a floral bud that is gonna stay there
and is gonna be induced.
That is the Summer cut there,
that's the floral bud there that's already there.
So I ensure that by doing that cut in the Summer,
I am able to induce,
or start producing little kind of productive units
in that wall that is gonna start be filled in the future.
So again I had a dormant cut,
I had a Summer cut, a Summer cut but behind
is the floral bud that has stayed there.
Okay that is not gonna be a shoot,
that is gonna be a floral but sometimes we get
behind those cuts a shoot.
You're gonna be a shoot a long shoot
but we want a floral bud and that happened most of the time.
Again in that picture,
another situation with a kind of more sure
shoot in the Summer and with the floral bud.
So that is a picture what you can see during the Summer.
Another super spindle situation this is at 12 inches
from the main trunk where we did the dormant cut
and in the interior of the canopy
in the dormant pruning system,
we are doing a dormant hand-pruning cut
just to start working with the wood.
So those are cuts that we don't do with the edger.
We go out there with people to make those kind of cuts.
Okay don't this is another, another situation
this is a more tight, narrow canopy.
This kind of tree that I am showing you now
are not,don't be confused here.
This is a canopy of 12 inches.
12 inches from the trunk where we are doing the dormant cut.
Here I cannot show you yet what is gonna happen
but in the interior, of that canopy
we are also doing manual pruning.
And it's for extinction also.
To try to control the crop load that we want
with those trees.
Again the dormant cut at 12 inches
and there I just want to show a dormant hand-pruning cut.
We can be this kind of very dirty, pruning.
We call this short pruning in a super spindle
when these trees are 2 by 11.
This is short pruning, don't be confused with long pruning
that the kind of pruning that we apply
to a tall spindle tree with more longer fruiting branches.
Okay two totally different things.
And the same thing with the spear extinction there.
Renewal cut and a dormant cut in a spindle tree.
Why we do this?
The only reason that we are doing this stuff
is because we are moving the orchard
to full mechanization now.
So we want to run the machines
very close, very close to those canopies.
This is Honeycrisp
to be able to have the light that we want
inside of that canopy and be very efficient.
And to have those bins next to the workers.
So if we talk about mistakes,
perhaps those are the mindset mistakes.
Okay perhaps, I don't know if those are valid or not
in the Wisconsin fruit industry still.
I seen some these were the mistakes that when I came here
there in New York and they were saying Mario
this idea is too crazy.
It's too much wire, it's too much work,
it doesn't make any sense.
This is not for me, they were saying.
Okay, it's, you don't want to try
what I told you in the morning
let your grandchildren try.
But the agriculture management mistakes
are gonna be several of these ones.
And I don't know if I'm gonna have more time.
Little or no advanced planning
before planting the spindle orchard.
That is a mistake.
Inadequate soil and poor drainage preparation,
late planting,
growing your own nursery trees without much care,
producing a whip, planting whips and heading them,
planting the tree with a few and long feathers,
planting trees with many but long feathers,
planting a spindle orchard with short posts.
We can talk about training and addressing that concept.
Installing the tree support system too late
and getting minimum leader growth,
planting a high-density orchard without irrigation,
deer fencing,
little amount of time invested and none effort
to manage feathers of a young and vigorous apple tree.
So those are kind of from my point of view
one of the most important there are many, many more
little details.
So let me,
I can continue but I want to at some moment stop
because one kind of the decision made
now on the method that you're gonna use
are gonna influence
the success of your orchard okay?
And what we are learning is that engineer of the tree
and of the training system.
And the trellis support.
So it's so important that you really list
these critical steps had to be very clear.
Or you need to be exposed to those critical steps
way in advance because it's too much money
that is gonna be invested in this new planting.
Okay this is what I was telling somebody in the morning
to Honeycrisp, why maximum leader growth
is so critical in a modern apple system?
You know Honeycrisp is a weak growing cultivar.
So for us, it kind of challenges to get to the top
of that wire very soon.
And it's a lot easier with gala or Fuji or with McIntosh
to do it by the end of the third season.
So you really with this kind of weak growing cultivars
growers need to intensively manage the trees.
So you have to babysit the trees.
Intensively manage the trees.
The first three years to achieve the desired growth.
You have to do it.
You have to spend and be on top of what
you are trying to achieve.
So I have this figure just for some of the Cornell
root stalks and this is important
try to pay attention because I know
many of you perhaps have been working
for a long time already with the M.9 clones.
If you analyze the main clones, the M.9 clones
M.9 you're gonna have a low vigor that is gonna be
the 337.
You're gonna have another one that is gonna be
a little more poochy and is gonna be the Nic 29
and you're gonna have the Pajam 2 that is gonna
get you more bigger.
After that you're gonna have the M.26.
Just if you start working with G.11, G.41, and G.94
G.11 is gonna be in the low vigor.
Okay, G.11 is a little depending on the situation
of the soil fertility,
but it's gonna give you a little less push
than G.41.
And G.41 in some situations is gonna work for Honeycrisp.
But for Honeycrisp, a more weight cultivar
we definitely are gonna recommend G.95.
G.95 is gonna give you the push of M.26,
it's gonna give you the push of G.30 like years ago
like many growers still love G.30.
Many growers.
Even though it's brittle, it's this and that,
and still the Geneva is serious.
It has a bunch of problems in the nursery still
but we are still trying to figure out
how we're gonna grow these trees in the nursery.
Okay we are doing a bunch and here I want to disclose
we know that exactly what is happening with the Geneva
but you cannot compare the Geneva with the M.9's.
It's like trying to compare apples with oranges, okay?
Not what worked for an M.9 in a nursery
is gonna work for what we do with a Geneva in the nursery.
So we are adopting different technology
even the grafting technology that we are using
and all the trials that we are doing
perhaps are gonna be changed in the future.
You have to stake all the Geneva material.
All those trees in the nursery have to be staked.
All those trees.
Okay that is mandatory.
If you are not staking and you are growing your own
nursery trees and you think that you
don't have to stake those trees are brittle.
They can break.
Okay and we are seeing that so
that is an important thing to say.
But 95 is a monster.
It's gonna give you a huge production
and we are finding today that in order of our Genevas
coming in the future not still available is 890.
890 is working very well in our trials in Washington
and in New York also.
So we are gonna have more things.
355?
Okay, so,
one important thing is that we can select the leader.
When we're growing the tree.
And for many years we have been saying
hey remove the buds.
Remove bud number two, three and four
below the main leader when it's growing.
But to be honest with you when I came here,
it's not real data telling me
that by doing that you're gonna get
two or three or four more inches of growth
compared with untreated.
Okay so as soon as you do it,
so as soon as you do it, the better.
Whatever the labor that you have.
But as soon as you can cut that with clippers
it's also good.
Most of the growers if they cannot remove the buds,
you can do that stuff by clipping those shoots
and selecting the main leader
by selecting the main leader and pushing that leader
to grow and fill the space.
But the other important thing is that leader
that shoot had to be well-supported.
If that shoot is not well-supported,
you're losing, you're losing.
Okay you're not gonna get the 18, 19, or 24 inches
or in some cases 30 inches of shoot growth
that we should get per season.
I don't know how much your shoots grow here in this area
but you start, you can
you should get that stuff.
The other one is irrigation, okay?
Many growers they don't irrigate.
And it's very, very important.
The tall spindle planting,
planting is gonna need at least 500 gallons of water
for irrigation per day per acre.
Okay and later when they get to maturity
they're gonna use more or less between 4 to 5,000 gallons
per day per acre.
So you have to irrigate.
You have to babysit
those roots are very shallow, okay?
I don't know your precipitation here
but if you see the weather pattern for the last ten years,
every of those ten years two or three years
are dry Summers.
I don't know how was your Summer in 2011,
I don't know how was your Summer in 2012,
but those were very dry Summers, okay?
And you are establishing a very highly
demanding cultivar you need to put the irrigation, okay?
So that is very important
to have irrigation available there.
So you have to babysit your trees
all growing season right away.
So important those trees taking care of them
as much as you can.
You have to apply calcium, calcium nitrate.
We recommend one quarter per pound
around the tree and about three or four weeks after
we apply again and we start seeing
by magic that it was just a whip.
But the tree start to respond and start producing
those shoots.
Another one is the wire, the support,
the one-wire or two-wire or three-wire
but you have to support that tree all the way.
So we have the four-wire, we have the five wires
the three wires plus the stabilizer that could be
bamboo a piece of bamboo I kind of
we have been doing a lot with the wire stabilizer
but it's a lot better to do it perhaps with a piece
of bamboo, this is still very popular
one wire with a conduct you can grow a nice tree anyway.
But this is I think so the key.
If you put those wires, don't let those wires be
no more than 25 or 28 inches between space.
Because every time that you ask that shoot
that is trying to grow to go beyond that distance
you're not gonna be able to reach that wire.
That growing season and you're not gonna be able to support
that tree where it should be.
So don't do it more than 25 inches,
25, 25, 25, 25.
And as the tree starts growing vertically,
de fruit that section.
The last section.
Just de fruit in those weak trees,
especially in a weak tree like Honeycrisp.
De fruit that section.
Make sure that you don't expose that tree
to have any additional weight.
Okay de fruit that tree until it's able
to get to the next wire.
Support that tree there until it starts to lignify.
And produce wood.
But don't ask, never ask to that shoot to crop.
That is the biggest mistake, you're gonna break
that shoot there.
You need to at least give the opportunity.
This grower that put four wires
okay and he figured out oh my God this is Honeycrisp.
He went a bunch of growers from Wayne county
went to China and got this stuff
they brought this fiberglass stakes
and they put in those ones just to support
with that machine that they showed you in the morning.
There's a machine that is above the two rows.
Just to put those fiberglass just to support
the terminal because those trees were moving
back and forth and you get the growth.
Okay so,
branch management.
I think so you need to invest the necessary time
and especially for Fuji.
Especially with Macoun you have to use
the wire you have to use the Avis-strip
that I know you have that one here.
So you can use the wire, you can use the Avis-strip,
the Avis-strip is very nice you can do whatever you want
to do with that.
Move it one direction and another one.
You can attach to the main trunk
and start bending down all those feathers initially
with that angle below the result.
That is the key, it's a very ugly angle
below the result.
Okay you start using rubber bands
that is another thing it's more difficult
especially if we have the lip
but you can start this rubber band six-month-life with 880.
And we start doing and we ended up
with a very ugly tree, okay?
But definitely are below our result.
That is why we want with the rubber band.
Okay don't do that don't get the feather
just look around with the wire against the trunk.
Whatever you want to do don't do other stuff
just turn it around and you're gonna end up
with that kind of feather.
So final thoughts to avoid unnecessary mistake.
I seriously say everything with higher density planting,
the impact of a mistake on your part
or the lack of not doing the important thing
is higher than with lower planting density.
Okay that is saying a lot.
And everything had to be done early, early.
Good support is critical.
Early, good irrigation, and a bunch of things.
It's a lot of reading there I don't wanna really--
I wanna have time for questions.
Fencing I think I mentioned something in the morning.
It's very important we can really justify
a job by the amount of planting
that we have there with the losses that we had
25% more by deer fencing.
We really can justify the deer fence
in our industry with more than
kind of 600 acres planted
in 2013 and 14.
We were able to justify 70 miles of deer fence.
So we are really convinced that the deer fence
is a very important thing that had to be included
in the budget from the beginning.
And with that I am done.
Okay thank you so much.
(applause)