Grow and Graze

Episode 109-Fruit Tree Production

• Douglas Clement

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Douglas Clement:

Hello and welcome to the Grow and Graze podcast. This is episode 1 0 9. You're listening to Cherokee Cooperative Extension in Cherokee County in Murphy, North Carolina. And we thank everyone for being with us today, and we're going to be talking a little bit about production of. Small apple plantings in North Carolina, in Cherokee County. And today we have Jim with us. Jim Wilcox is a master gardener, and thank you for being here today.

Jim Wilcox:

Happy to be here. It's an exciting topic,

Douglas Clement:

Doug. Yeah, and we once again kind of got a little excited about this because at our fire we had we had Apple. Cider Apple making. They were actually taking apples and pressing them and getting the, the juice out of'em. And we just thought we'd talk about this a little bit today.

Jim Wilcox:

You know, that was a fun exhibit there, Doug. I don't know who enjoyed it more, the kids or the adults watching the apples be squeezed down into apple cider.

Douglas Clement:

We actually went through about three

Jim Wilcox:

bushels of apples, one apple at a time. So, So, but we're just gonna talk a little bit about today, about this is not a bad environment or area in Cherokee County to have some apples and fruit trees.

Douglas Clement:

So we're just gonna talk a little bit about it today, and of course we'll have some information in the show notes and some links for you to go to. But let's talk a little bit first, Jim, I guess one thing we need to talk about is site selection.

Jim Wilcox:

Well, you're right. For our trees to do well, and I think if we, like you said, we'll talk about apples. This applies to peaches and pecans as well. You're gonna wanna have a site that has good sunlight for optimum production. The more sunlight, the better and what it relates to that is of course your, your sunlight and then the pruning of the tree itself to allow the sunshine into in there. And you can do that by pruning and training your tree appropriately. Temperature. Is also gonna be important of your area. Temperature extremes will impact your production. Too cold, late in the season or, or actually late in the spring, can impact how fruits will bloom or not.

Douglas Clement:

And, and you know, there's not a lot you can do about temperature except be aware of it. Because even if you, we don't have cool nights fruit will not riping and we had some incidents like that this year too as well but people just need to be aware that temperature has a big, big thing to do with growing fruit trees.

Jim Wilcox:

Well, it does. And the way it flows around your land, you. That cold air runs down those hillsides. And if you've got a big tree at the bottom of your hillside, it may hold some of that cold air up around your trees. So there's information online that can help you kind of scout out how you might even look at the air drainage on your land.

Douglas Clement:

Right and, and another thing, and I know people. Probably thinks this is a broken record. But the other thing that's really important is type of drainage that you have, what your pH is and once again you know, this is something we tell everybody is to take a soil sample and find out what your soils is before you get started and it will come back and tell you exactly how much lime and fertilizer that you need. The other thing that's really important is the selection of what we call the cultivars or the varieties that you grow and we have old timey varieties and we've got the new varieties that's been developed, and there's a lot of information on that out there and there's no way we could hit all those in, in a 10 hour podcast.

Jim Wilcox:

Really, It, there's a lot. And the good news is they can surf through that online and there's a lot of good selections within there. Unlike planting other trees like an oak tree or a maple tree, the root stock is important on our, on our fruit trees and what that means is the, the tree may produce great fruit, but the roots of that tree may not enjoy the soil or may be prone to diseases, so they graft the tree onto an appropriate root stock that will do well in our area and be less prone to diseases. If you buy from a reputable location you'll have a good root stock that's been butted on there. What's important to you though, knowing that your tree is grafted onto a rootstock is. When you plant that tree, that graft and you'll be able to see it on the tree, should not be below the soil line.

Douglas Clement:

That's correct. And the other thing that's really important is knowing whether you're buying a dwarf for semi dwarf for a full growing tree and what you can handle as a person. What fits best for your lifestyle? What, How big a plant, how big a tree you want, basically. That's true.

Jim Wilcox:

And you know, as building on that, even. The nice thing about these fruit trees is, you know, the, the small homeowner can have a, a single apple tree and the person with some acreage could actually plant themselves a grove and have a lot of a lot of fruit coming out of that, or apples.

Douglas Clement:

Yep. And our neighbors in North Georgia you can go in North Georgia and visit almost tons of apple places. And it's just a, a fun time to be had, basically.

Jim Wilcox:

It's a lot of fun.

Douglas Clement:

Just great, great times. Of course there's also pest and diseases and weed management that you can talk about on these. Once again, we're not no pun intended, get in, getting into the weeds on this but there's some really great information available on the website for this.

Jim Wilcox:

You know, one thing I'd say that's slightly unique, And planting that fruit tree is, Well, we'd already mentioned that the root graft should be above the soil line, but you'd plant it like any other tree. Ideally, your hole should be twice the size of the root ball, but the unique thing here is you don't want to add fertilizer when you're planting this tree as it could burn some of those young roots. But fall is a great time to be planting these, which is why we're recording this now. It's an, it's an ideal time to plant those trees.

Douglas Clement:

Right. And, and we we get that question a lot and, and fall allows those roots to get established in the fall and wintertime. So when springtime comes, they're ready to take off.

Jim Wilcox:

You've got a jump start on that. Yeah, that's right.

Douglas Clement:

Well, we're going to finish, Jim, can you think of anything else that we might want to add to this?

Jim Wilcox:

You know what a, what a fun thing is, you're gonna get apples. You're gonna get peaches. You're gonna get pecans from this, and all you have to do is build a good hole, put it in the right location. Don't, don't bury that root graft. And obviously there's some complications with pest management and pruning, and good news is we've got a lot of resources online to help you study and navigate through that.

Douglas Clement:

Well, once again, Jim, we thank you for being with us and we thank everyone for being with us today and listening to our podcast and if you have any questions, feel free to look at the show notes or visit cherokee dot ces dot ncsu dot edu. Thank you for being here today.

Jim Wilcox:

Thanks so much all.