Apple seeds are now available in the webstore. Patrons bought up a bunch of them during early access, but there are still quite a few cross pollinated and open pollinated seed left. Shipping should start around early next week. Happy growing :)
What I Would Do Now In Apple Breeding, Part 5, Assessing Fruit
At some point, the trees begin to fruit and the real fun part starts as we get to taste the fruits of our labors. One thing I’ve learned is to give the trees a few years to fruit before judging them too harshly. The first fruits are often different and not typical or exemplary. They can be small and stunted, have very different texture and different ripening times than they will later. I’ve also seen several cases where red flesh development improved over time. In general, quality is likely to improve as the tree establishes and fruits over several years. If the apple is super good the first year, that is usually a good sign and it will probably only get better.
It is hard to say all the things that go into deciding whether something is worth propagating or not. One thing I do is compare to what I already have growing. If it fills some niche that nothing else seems to, then that is valuable. I have a couple of seedlings, Twang and Integrity that in some ways are not that exciting. They are not sensational in any way, but they fill a role that other apples in the season do not. They are very similar when cooked and both hold their shape very well in a pie, which is an uncommon trait. Some of the most famous pie apples are much softer and collapse into a saggy pile when cooked. They also both appear to be scab resistant and Twang is unusually dense fleshed for an early apple, ripening in August. Twang can also make for decent eating at that season, again, when there are not a lot of apples to choose from. Twang is earlier and Integrity overlaps and follows it. They make a good set for beautiful, healthy cooking apples that have some use for eating as well.
I think these apples have potential for market, either selling at farmer’s markets, or especially directly to chefs and bakeries as early cooking apples that are probably superior to anything they could get in a store. Either could be better for eating, or be more exciting with more different flavors or red flesh for instance, but they fill a role that other apples don’t at that season. Having collected hundreds of varieties, I have stuff to compare to. They also have much potential for improvement by crossing with other apples. Those are the reasons I released them.
With red fleshed apples, we are still in the infancy of their development. I’ll release red fleshed apples now that will probably not make the cut in another 15 or 20 years, though I am already being more selective based on my results alone. Those apples are still exciting, delicious and fun given the current state of development for red fleshed apples. They also have great potential for further breeding and I want them out there being used for that. My best red fleshed apple so far for overall dessert quality is probably a certain King David x Rubaiyat cross. It is likely very susceptible to scab though. There are always things that can be improved in any apple.
One thing I would not do is compare your apples too much with commercial apples in terms of marketability. Those apples are chosen to perform in the industrial food model for many reasons, only one of which is flavor. As home and small scale growers, we can choose from a much broader range of traits like size, season, storage ability etc. The bottom line for me is do I want to grow it and eat it and if I do, others probably do too. A few of them I’ve released more for breeding purposes, like Appleoosa. In the case of Black Strawberry, it is just too intriguing in flavor and appearance to keep it to myself, and again, it has high potential for breeding. A friend in Canada has fruited both and loves them. It sounds like they are actually going to perform much better up there as dessert apples than they do here, and I suspect that will be true many other places as well. There is only one way to find out though, grow them everywhere and see what happens.
We will all probably end up discarding fruits that may do much better elsewhere. That’s okay, just keep growing more and we’ll end up with plenty of good varieties. My success rate seems to be similar to others I’ve talked to. There are smaller percentages something like 10 to 15% on either end that are either horrible on one end, or worth grafting and growing on the other, A smaller percentage of those good ones are really special. In between are a bunch of take-it-or-leave-it apples that are okay, but don’t distinguish themselves enough to bother propagating.
When tasting I use a balance of analysis and instinct. Analysis is good for detecting flavors, noting texture and stuff like that. It is easy to get lost in analysis though and an apple is more than the sum of its analyzable parts. At the end of the day, the most valuable assessment is your own instinct, or natural response to the fruit. Do I want to keep eating it? Sometimes an apple can seem very interesting, like I should want to eat it, but I could take it or leave it.
When I get something that I want to finish, or want to take a second bite of before I even finish the first bite, that ranks the highest among every other factor to me. After going through the rows tasting, I will think back to what seedlings I was most compelled to eat, or that I wanted to stand there and finish before moving on. This can even be true for cider apples, maybe more so. If you have a cider apple that has some bitterness, or a crappy texture for eating, but the flavor is compelling enough that you just want to eat it anyway, that is probably a good sign. Black Strawberry is a good example of something that is so delicious that it is easy to ignore its shortcomings.
I hope someday that we will have a place online to showcase our apples, tell our stories, allow others to review our fruits, link nurseries that carry our trees and accept donations in some way. It is certainly possible to come up with an apple that has real commercial potential, especially when breeding with modern varieties. Few of us will want to engage that process in any way that is going to make an apple famous though. It is more likely that we would work with an established company that would be licensed to test, grow and distribute it. I would consider this if for no other reason than that a lot of people would actually get to eat them. It is more likely that our apples will eventually be used to breed new commercial varieties, but that is okay too. I have no problem with anyone using my varieties to breed commercially if it means that apples improve and people get to eat something interesting and delicious.
I have been approached by quite a few people now that offered to collect a small voluntary royalty for me when grafting and selling trees of my varieties. I like that approach and I think a more social solution like that has advantages over legal solutions. Legally, no one can patent a variety that you create and release into the public domain. It doesn’t mean they won’t do it anyway, but it is outright patent fraud. Anyone can use the pollen or seeds to grow new varieties though and that is how it should be. I don’t want to be restricted to what pollen and seed I can use and no one else should either.
As far as patents go, the standard plant patent is only 20 years and does not protect the genes, just the actual cultivar. There are big companies out there trying to claim ownership and patent and control specific traits and genes. That is a very bad development and should not be allowed to happen. That doesn’t mean that patenting itself is bad though. Patenting a plant is really no different than patenting a product. In fact, it is better, because plant patents expire quickly. It is just a way for breeders to get paid for their work. No one can do large scale breeding, involving multiple generations without some kind of income. The knee jerk response to basic plant patenting has no real basis in reality as far as I can tell. I have not heard a single interesting argument for forgoing all plant patenting. If fact, I’m not sure I’ve heard any arguments other than patenting any living thing is bad, without an actual argument for the position. This is self referencing logic, like- It is bad. Why is it bad? Because it is bad. I am personally more interested in releasing everything into the public domain, but I would consider patenting a few things, with allowance for anyone to graft it for non-commerical home use. People will anyway.
So that is the end of this series updating what I would do now and am doing now. The future is bright for amateur and small scale plant breeding in general, and certainly for apples. What we really need to happen is for average people to understand that they can do this and don’t need a lot of information or skills or permission from anyone. It is so much fun and such an ongoing adventure that the rest will take care of itself. We really will need a central place for us to showcase our work though and that could also serve as a breeding ground to create more breeders with forums and tutorials. I don’t think I have written down my ideas on that. If anyone feels compelled to take up that challenge, I’ll work with you, but no way can I actually create that myself at this point or probably ever.
Our food system has given us a lack of diversity and a lot of low quality food. An overlooked and important part of taking back our agency in what we eat is breeding and selection by the people who actually grow and eat it. Everyone who engages in breeding and selection on any scale furthers that agenda. Good luck. I look forward to hearing about and maybe growing and tasting what you all come up with in this adventure. Just the seedlings I have growing here and all the seed I’ve sent out and the pollen I’ve sent out, will yield a lot of amazing new fruits. Combine that with other people that have been also doing this for a while and new people going their own ways with it and things are going to get very interesting. Eventually this work we are doing will have to work its way into commercially available apples too. Thomas Jefferson said “The greatest service which can be rendered any country is to add a useful plant to its culture.” I might say that the greater service would be to somehow foster more people into that work and create a self perpetuating culture of breeding and selection that will blossom into a plethora of plant diversity. That is the long game. Individual breeders die off, who will replace them and take the work in new directions? That is what we should be interested in. The rest will take care of itself.
What I Would Do Now In Apple Breeding, Part 4, Growing Out Trees
Once seedlings have grown to a decent size and seem ready to transplant, I put them in the ground. I would prefer to put them on about 8 to 12 inch spacing in the rows, with rows a foot or more apart, but that can take up a lot of space. I’ve planted as close as 5 inches apart in every direction, in blocks, but some slower growing seedlings get overshadowed by the more vigorous trees and can become stunted. If planted out early and well cared for, they can make a lot of growth in one season and the more the better.
One could put them into large pots instead of the ground. Just make sure they are getting very regular food and water. It is easy to stunt a tree in a pot.
In the beginning, I used to grow seedlings for one year, and then graft a long section of the seedling onto a dwarfing rootstock in the spring. I’ve grafted scions over two feet long, basically grafting almost all the growth that was made in the first year. What I observed is that the early growth of the plant is juvenile and fruit usually forms at the top of a seedling tree first. This juvenile growth is basically worthless, so I ended up with a long stem of useless non-fruiting wood. Others have made this same observation. I was told early on to grow the seedling out as fast as possible, very tall, then take just the tip to graft out. I think that is good advice and it is what I’m doing now.
My approach now is going to be to grow the seedling trees on their own roots up to 6 or more feet tall, then take the very tip to graft onto dwarf stock. I have a feeling this will work better and apparently it is what a lot of breeders do. In my case, this will probably take two years of growing seedlings on their own roots. Under better conditions, with an early start on fertile soil, lots of fertilizer, very regular, timed watering and reasonably large spacings between trees, that time might be reduced to a year. One thing that will help with this is getting the earliest start possible. Stratifying and planting early and growing under lights in a greenhouse if possible could really help that along, so that good sized plants are ready to go in the ground when the weather is warming up. Using larger starting pots could help with that as well. I would consider using a pot larger than the 2-3/8” x 5” I’m using now, but that will only be useful if I can start early enough and get very fast early growth somehow.
It is supposed by many that grafting to dwarfing stocks will make seedlings fruit more quickly. I’m not convinced that is true yet, but will probably continue to do it, because it seems likely. There are those that say growing trees on their own roots will give more typical fruits of better quality than those grafted onto dwarfing stock, or any stocks at all. I suspect that fruiting will take much longer though and the trees would be expected to be larger and require larger spacing. I might experiment with that in the future, doing rows of each to see how quickly they fruit etc. For now, I’m likely to stick with dwarfing stock in closely spaced rows. If I can get good land with plenty of water, I may plant them a little further apart. My original trial rows were planted just 12 inches apart with the rows 6 feet apart. That works but I would not plant any closer than 12 inches and 18 inches seems much better if room is available. If you do the math though, you’ll find that the extra 6 inches per tree will translate into a lot more space.
I have used multiple dwarfing stocks and don’t have a strong preference. I like working with BUD9 and would choose that over M9. I’ve also used some Geneva stocks, but they had poor roots. I’m now using BUD10, which has excellent roots. It is bigger than BUD9, which may be good or bad, we’ll see. The BUD10 trees make excellent rapid growth so far.
If at all possible, trellis the trees up to wires. A simple way to do this is to pound a tall, strong Tee fence post at either end of the row and then one every 10 feet or so along the row. Brace the end stakes by driving a post at something like a 45º to 60º degree angle as a brace, and wiring it tightly to the vertical end post. Just one strong wire at about 5 feet is enough to hold them upright and that is all you need. Use a turnbuckle so you that can tighten the wire as needed. This is a loose and ramshackle arrangement, but it is good enough. Investing in anything more substantial is not necessary and is just a waste of time and money for these simple trial rows. We are just trying to keep the trees from falling over. They can grow for two or even three years without trellising, just don’t put it off for 13 years like I did!
Of course food and water will probably make them grow faster, unless you are on very naturally fertile soil with good summer rains. I fertilize randomly. I tend to lean a little more heavy on nitrogen and potassium in the early years and then phosphorous later on when they are getting closer to fruiting age. I’m not sure it makes much difference though.
I’m not sure what to do about pruning. My tendency is to just let them grow, but I would avoid growing multiple stems, so some training is necessary. I have no idea if training branches to downward angles to encourage fruiting would be useful or not. It is very different to grow a seedling to fruiting for the first time, vs growing a scion from an already fruiting cultivar to fruiting size. The new seedlings are somewhat on their own schedule as to when they decide to fruit. Like any organism, they have to reach sexual maturity and that is a process that can take time. It is said that growing a lot of buds on the tree will help, I don’t have enough data to confirm or deny that.
Another option is to graft onto already fruiting trees. In my observations so far this has not caused them to fruit more quickly. I asked Freddy Menge about this and he said he hasn’t notice them to fruit more quickly either. I’m not saying they won’t, or that they may not be able to be tricked to fruit more quickly in some way on an established fruiting tree. I just haven’t noticed that myself. One thing that is clear is that seedlings are different and there is an effect of them just taking their own sweet time to come into fruiting. If grafting to established trees, I would shy away from overcrowding the tree, but rather giving each seedling enough room to grow a substantial branch with a lot of buds.
If I had an established orchard of standard varieties that I was not very interested in, I might take this frankentree approach more often. More likely though, I would save those foundation trees for grafting out new selections that seem promising from the seedling trials. I think it is important to graft promising seedlings onto their own trees or onto foundation trees right away, to see how they perform in the open on a normal healthy tree, vs in the crowded trial rows. I never really anticipated how much space and resources growing out selected varieties was going to take. I have selected 21 apples now and more are coming. I want multiple trees of each of those for testing and for fruit and scion wood production. That math grows pretty fast. If you have a sizable project, keep that eventuality in mind. One option is to plant foundation trees when you plant the seedlings, or soon after, so that you have fruiting trees to graft those promising seedlings out to when the time comes. You would probably want those trees to be dwarf or semidwarf to encourage rapid fruiting. That way the trees will be fruiting well by the time you need them. If they have grown enough to have a nice articulated framework, they will offer lots of places to graft on new scions, which can provide substantial fruit pretty quickly after grafting.
A possible issue with growing frankentrees of seedlings like this is that if the tree gets a virus, the whole tree and all those new seedlings will have the virus. Avoid putting seedlings onto trees that are housing random varieties from random sources. A better way is to use certified disease free rootstocks for foundation trees, or even just random new seedlings. Seedlings do not carry virus from the parent. At the least, if you use some established variety, try to be sure they are not infected with apple mosaic virus.
Currently, I’m growing out my selected seedlings on BUD10 for stand alone trees. I’ll put these on something like a 6 to 9 foot spacing in the row. They should be big and healthy enough to grow good trees and fruit, but not take up too much space. Interstem trees and other mid sized rootstocks up to M26 size should give similar results.
Another option for growing out selections is to use the diagonal cordon system. Diagonal cordons fruit very fast and are very space efficient. I planted mine at 18 inches apart in the row for trialing varieties to see if I want to grow them or use them in breeding. I would plant seedling selections on a 2 foot spacing instead. There are many other systems out there to choose from these days, but I don’t know much about them. Apple growing is now largely done on trellises in these intensive systems, so they are getting it down to a science with the training, pruning and maintenance. That information is available out there if you want it.
There are a lot of options with this part of the process. I’m still experimenting and probably always will be. Growing seedlings out for two years, then grafting the tips out to dwarfing stocks on as close as a one foot spacing will certainly work. What is best, who knows at this point. I have been told of a system that uses lights 23 hours a day in a C02 enriched environment at a constant temperature in the 70’s. Apparently you can trick them into fruiting the second or third year this way by getting through that sexually immature juvenile phase very fast. I’d love to try this, but it would be expensive and probably create new problems like fungus and pests. It is appealing though, considering how long it takes apples to fruit.
The next and last post in this series will be on assessing fruits.
What I Would Do Now In Apple Breeding, Part 3, Germination
I have changed quite a bit about how I store and germinate seeds and grow seedlings. I definitely do not have this all figured out. There are a lot of options to choose from, depending on climate and resources. I’ll tell you what I’ve done and what I’m doing now.
I used to put the fresh seeds into the refrigerator to sprout in a damp medium. I would also store fresh seeds in small zipper seal bags to sell later in the winter. At some point, I decided to dry seeds, because sometimes I’d have mold in the bags. I found the germination seemed better in seeds that were dried, then re-soaked, so that is what I do now. It is also much more convenient for storage and sale of seeds. Dry seeds allow a lot more leeway in when they are planted and can even be kept over for the following year. I’m not sure how long they last, but probably a few years at least in decent storage conditions.
Apple seeds need cold stratification, also known as vernalization. Apples originate from cold climates and the way they know it is time to sprout in the spring is when they have been cold for a while. This process can happen in a fresh seed, or a seed that is dried and re-soaked, but not in a dry seed. If seeds are dry, either re-soak them overnight, or plant them in damp soil and they will take care of rehydrating themselves.
Your two options are basically to stratify in the soil where it is cold, like outside, or in an unheated garage etc., or to stratify in a refrigerator before planting. These methods can also be combined of course. I’ve had the best luck so far by germinating in pots outside. We have enough chill to easily take care of stratification if they are planted by early winter. In a colder climate, I would be thinking of maybe putting them in a garage or the like, where they will not get extremely cold, but cold enough to stratify. You could also stratify in a refrigerator for the winter and plant in the spring or as they sprout in the storage bags.
Either way, avoid getting them very warm before they germinate, or they can go into a secondary dormancy. Temps in the 70s are great for germination, but into the 80’s and above may stall them and you’ll have to wait until the next year to start over. Once the sprout, you can put them in a warm area to grow. It is just getting them to sprout that is the trick.
For large plantings of random seed, such as for growing a bunch of rootstocks, you could sow into an outdoor bed, but for valuable seed that is a pretty risky approach. I’m using Anderson tree bands that are about 2-3/8” x 5”. These are like pots, but the bottom is mostly open. They fit snugly into a plastic tray made for them which has a mesh bottom. This is a space efficient system that is easy to manage, but requires some investment. Anderson pots and bands are also not widely available. GrowOrganic website has decent prices and shipping, but they don’t carry the big square heavy duty trays. Steuwe and Sons carries most of the anderson line, but shipping can be more than the pots. Anderson themselves sell wholesale only.
Most can get away with scrounging up some random small pots. Most pots are made to fit in the common standard 2 inch deep nursery trays, and or 10/20 trays. For a larger project, anderson bands might be worth the investment. They are really nice and very durable so they can be used over and over. I inherited a bunch, but I have bought some too for certain nursery projects and will probably invest in more and more trays. They are a very space efficient and convenient system for situation where the same pots are used year after year for nursery work. Pots are all made in fractions of each other, like 1/2, 3/4, 1/3, 1/4, so that they will fill out the same tray system.
The advantages to pots are many. If the pots are in trays, it is easy to move and manage them. Try moving hundreds of little pots that want to fall over, vs a few trays. 36 of the pots I’m using now fit into the 15 x 15 inch Anderson trays. Each tree gets to grow its roots without competition and can be planted out with minimal root disturbance. If the seeds don’t sprout, they can be allowed to dry out and the pots stored for the year to see if they sprout the following season, which they not uncommonly will. My best year ever for seedling growing was last year, when I planting into these small pots by mid winter and leaving outside to stratify naturally. There were still quite a few pots that did not germinate, but I saved them and we’ll see how many come up this year. Those plants also performed well after transplanting for the most part.
2-3/8” × 5” anderson bands in trays. These are the ones that did not sprout, which are now back out in the rain to see what will stratify and sprout this winter. I would not use any small size than this band. Larger might be better in some situations, such as if you got an early enough start to grow the trees out larger under artificial light before planting in the spring.
If stratifying in the refrigerator, I prefer to put the soaked seeds into a medium. I’ve used wood shavings, charcoal, potting mix and crumbly rotten wood from old logs. You can use anything along these lines, but make sure it is damp and not excessively wet. I would avoid any kind of paper though, as it often grows mold much more easily than natural materials. If you use zipper lock bags, they should not dry out at all. You can either wait until the seeds actually sprout in the bags, or keep them cold in there for a while, then plant out in a cold area.
All in all, I’ve had patchy results with germination. I suspect that is just how it is with apples. Some varieties and species probably require much longer stratification times. I have noticed some crabs and crab hybrids show poor germination. They probably just need especially long cold stratification. Just try to give all of them the longest stratification time you can before the weather gets really warm. Avoid putting them in greenhouses before they are sprouted, unless it will stay in the mid 70’s and lower. One thing I read basically said that they will germinate faster when it is warm (up to a limit), but more reliably if slower in the 40’s.
If you have grow lights, you could sprout them under those, either in a cold garage or similar spot if they have not stratified or sprouted yet, or indoors at room temp if they are already stratified well or sprouted.
I would say minimum cold stratification time should be 6 weeks, but more is probably needed in many cases. If using baggies in the fridge, you can look through them once a week and plant any that are sprouting. Even the slightest root tip emerging is enough to know they have broken dormancy. This is not an exact science. There seem to be a lot of variables at play, some of which we probably will not ever figure out. Producing extra seed when you can to offset germination failures and planting in pots so that you can hold unsprouted ones over til the next year may be about the best expedients we can come up.
What I Would Do Now In Apple Breeding, Part 2, Pollination
I’ve changed how I pollinate apples quite a bit. Originally I would cut off all the male parts with tiny scissors. That is insanely slow. I’m pretty sure it is not necessary, so I quit. I also didn’t isolate blossoms for many years. I figured bees would not be interested in the flowers if I pulled off the petals. Then I saw a bee visiting some flowers I had just pollinated, so I began using isolation.
My current method is very simple. I use nylon mesh organza bags, which come in many sizes. I use 7 x 9, 8 x 12, 12 x 14 and 16 x 24. The smallest can hold up to maybe three small apples and the largest can cover a good section of branch. For most people, the large size is much too large. I produce extra seed for sale, so they are great for that. For a small project producing seed for your use only, I’d probably get the 8 x 12, maybe add some 12 x 14 too. Those sizes are not actually the bag size, but more like the fabric cut size. 7 x 9 is fine too, but if you get two or three large fruits in there, they can be too crowded. I buy them in different colors for the different sizes as well, to make them easy to fish out of piles of bags in the field.
Bags are left on for the season and can last a couple of seasons if not in direct strong sun. Full sun here will sometimes destroy them in a season, or at least enough that they will make it just part way through the next season. For tagging I use brightly colored flagging tape, link here on my Amazon Store Page. Use a regular sharpie permanent marker to write on the flagging tape. Do not get suckered into buying the sharpie extreme pens. In my and other’s experience they are worse, not better. Sharpie Extreme, Extremely Lame. You can also write on the apples with regular sharpies when needed.
The bags are applied to the branches before the flowers open. If any flowers are already opened, they are picked off before the bag is applied. When the flowers open, I apply pollen. I now use small micro-brushes made for applying makeup. They are very cheap and can be reused. The ones I buy cost $6.50 for 400 brushes. They are 2mm size. See my Amazon store page for a link to the ones I use.
I use these small brushes, because they waste less pollen. One problem they help solve is cross contamination. Since I’m pollinating blossoms which still have the male parts, pollen from the flowers gets on the brush while pollinating. If I’m double dipping a lot into the pollen packets, I’m putting pollen of the flower being pollinated into the packet contaminating the pollen. If I use the same brush to pollinated another variety with that same pollen, the brush is contaminated. With many hundreds of little brushes, I can use just a little pollen and not be wasting as much when I have to grab a new brush to move to the next variety.
Application can also be done very carefully so as to minimize contamination by carefully trying to touch the female parts only. In some varieties this just doesn’t work as the female parts are buried in the flower. I will still double dip sometimes, but I do it more carefully now, usually by swiping the side of the container lightly to add more pollen to the brush. A vigorous flicking with a finger can knock off a lot of loose pollen before picking up more on the brush if there seems to be a lot of contamination. There is waste of pollen, but that is usually not a problem when the waste is so small on these tiny brushes.
As I go, I toss the used brushes in a container. At the end of the season, I wash them all at once by shaking in a jar of soapy water and dry them out to use again. It is very easy to clean them them, so wash don’t toss.
I pollinate the flowers daily if possible until I feel like the branch has been covered pretty well and most of the flowers have opened. If one is just pollinating for personal use, it does not require that many bags or pollinations. Since I’m trying to produce a lot of seed, I’ll revisit the bags several times to get as much fruit and seed as possible. Results are patchy, so it is definitely best to make too many pollinations, especially if the cross is important to you. In the future, if we are better connected, I would think there will be opportunity to sell and trade extra seed with others.
I also re-pollinate more throughly and frequently if the pollen is old. Timing on pollination does not always work out the way we want it to. Putting pollen of a late blooming variety onto an early blooming one requires using old pollen. At the end of the season, I put my pollen into a jar and freeze it. I don’t know that this method is really any better than room temp storage, maybe it is worse, but I figure it is likely better as long as the pollen is very dry when frozen. When using old pollen, use more and revisit the flowers a couple of times to re-pollinate if possible. Old pollen definitely seems to work, but also seems weaker.
You can of course make a pollination of an early bloomer onto a late bloomer, but sometimes you might want the cross in the other direction. there will also be other cases where you need to use old pollen, like you got pollen from me previously that is not available now, or your bloom season is super early, so you can’t get pollen through the mail in time to pollinate the same year. Some years I just don’t have any pollen at all of some varieties and just have to use old pollen because it is all there is.
To gather pollen, I pick unopened flower buds that look like they will open within a day. The petals are pulled off and the male parts, the anthers, are combed off with a hair comb onto a piece of paper. I put the pollen straight into small origami paper packets to dry and store. The paper seems to dry them at a nice even rate, but quickly enough to use some pollen the next day, or even by the end of the day if collected in the morning, depending on environmental conditions. I have quick dried pollen even in the sun to get pollen fast, but it is not a good idea. It seems to be better to dry the anthers more slowly.
In the past couple of years, I’ve done some control bagging, where I leave a few of the bags of blossoms un-pollinated. Usually they don’t make any fruit, but I have seen in some cases significant fruit and seed production. Information I’ve heard seems to indicate that apples almost never produce viable seed from self pollination. I have germinated some of this seed and it grows fine. I don’t know what is going on. It may be that some pollen is drifting on the wind through the mesh bags. I have also seen bees try to get to the flowers through the bags. They may be getting pollen on the anthers that are pressed against the bag sides. That is very feasible, almost likely. Or, maybe they are self pollinating after all and information about that is incorrect. In some cases I’ll get an isolation control bag with a whole lot of apples and seed, so that makes me think that maybe they are actually self pollinating. Again, these seeds grow.
Whatever the case, it is not a perfect system and nature has a way of getting female organisms pregnant as we all know lol. If one has time and wants the most isolation, I would open the flowers, remove the anthers with tiny sharp scissors, pollinate and then double bag, with one smaller bag, and one larger bag over that. Personally, I think it is okay and even beneficial to have some wild cards in the deck. A little contamination resulting in a seed here and there pollinated with something else might create a happy coincidence. I have apple seedlings which I really like that appear to very likely be accidental pollinations. Dutch Master is one of them The level of work required to insure complete isolation is just prohibitive on any scale, but you can eliminate almost all of it if you are extra careful.
While I am very much about controlling parents in my own breeding work, I do think that blending pollen is a very fun and useful idea. By blending pollen, we can get many different pollen parents in one bag of apples and even in one single apple, where different seeds can be pollinated by different daddies. I sell pollen blends sometimes and it is a good way for a person to get a lot of diversity with just one or two packets. It doesn’t let us know what the parents are for planning in generational work, but that can be okay. I offer targeted blends, like red flesh, savory, late hanging and such, and also collect bits of pollen through the season to put into a season blend that contains a little of everything.
Another benefit to bagging is that I can just tag the branch with one tag and I know what is in the bag. I place the tag so that I know that every blossom below the tag is pollinated by me and covered with the bag. The bags also protect the apples from bugs and birds to an extent. If you don’t have a lot of apples in the orchard, birds and animals will still get into them. But if you have a lot of fruit in the orchard, they will leave them alone, because it is just more work for them. I’ve even seen bears leave bagged apples alone, in preference to apples that are easy to eat off the tree. Once the easy fruits run out though, it’s game over.
When harvesting, I pull the tag off and put it into the bag of apples. I cut around the apple circumference wise, dividing the top from the bottom. Cutting just almost to the core and then twisting works well and no seeds are wasted by being cut with the knife. In most apples the seed cavity is slightly below the center line of the apple, so cut slightly below the equator. I put seeds directly into small paper coin envelopes to dry. I like to dry the seeds before germination now, which is the next step and the next chapter in this story…
What I Would Do Now In Apple Breeding, Part 1, Collecting and Testing Parents and What to Cross With What
This is part one of a series on what I would do now after a dozen years of amateur apple breeding. In this part, I will discuss collecting parents, testing them and choosing what to cross with what.
Breeding apples is a long game and requires a lot of input on our part. Because of this reality, it pays to select parents carefully. I really prefer to choose both parents and will very rarely grow out seedlings that were open pollinated. If you have at least one good parent, then you can get pollen from me and I hope others will be offering pollen for sale in the future. Best case scenario is that we personally assess a lot of varieties and choose from among a bunch of good parents that do well in our area. I am the only one I know currently selling intentionally cross pollinated seed, but again, hopefully others also will in the future. Planting crosses someone else made is a better option than planting open pollinated seed, but it is better yet to breed with stuff you know does well in your area and inspires you in some way. I know it is exciting to get started right away, but consider the benefit of delaying a bit to be working with the stuff you choose yourself as inspired crosses based on personal experience. This opens up more possibility for breeding to your taste and to solve problems you have in your unique environment over multiple generations.
I spent untold hours researching and obsessing over apples to collect stuff. I have lots of notes and still have a very long wish list. If I were to do it over, I would be more focused and collect more apples. I collected a lot, probably hundreds. Most of them are not very good, and not of any use to me in breeding. Research is useful and it is a way to find apples with specific traits like extremely long storage, disease resistance, hardiness, unique flavors etc. When I was doing most of that research over a decade ago, there was less information than there is now, so you are in a good position to ferret stuff out. For old varieties use search engines like googlebooks or archive.org that will search through old periodicals and books. For other general info and modern apples, just use a regular search engine like duckduckgo. I use the keywords apple variety, i.e. - Tewksbury Blush Apple Variety - I hope someday we have a truly extensive online apple database, with linked references. I’m happy to share all of my compiled research if someone actually does that.
It can also be extremely useful to ask other growers. This is especially useful when you have climate issues that are limiting, like disease pressure or extremes of weather. Yes there are apples that will grow in Alaska and apples that will grow in the desert and in the tropics. If you can contact any local growers that actually grow a lot of different apples, then do that for sure. Usually heirloom and diverse orchardists are stoked to talk shop and will probably be interested in your project. Don’t hesitate to ask, they can only say no. Another great resource is fruit forums. My favorite is growingfruit.org I’m sure there are others as well. The North American Scion Exchange on facebook is another good resource and you know those people are collecting lots of different stuff. When I am ready to start collecting again, I will spend some time in those kinds of places asking for recommendations on things like specific flavors, people’s favorite apples, season, disease resistance etc. Such a data base should allow for people to leave reviews and talk about their experience with apple cultivars.
The truth is though, that there are only so many people that have collected, and actually fruited, a lot of different apples. Chances are you will not find one in your area. There are also so many apples that who could grow and actually assess them all? Then there are also the matters of microclimate and personal preference. If you have room, collect a lot of apples and vet them yourself. Narrow it down with research unless you are totally insane, but at the end of the day, you won’t know until you grow. While it can be useful to get stuff that you know does well in your area, don’t assume that an apple from one place can’t perform in a place with very different weather. Apples from Ireland and England will likely not thrive in the desert, but there will be acceptions and some apples are very adaptable.
The ideal apple for breeding would have multiple desirable traits and be great for your purposes. If you are breeding for cider, you have a lot more leeway and might be looking for traits that make apples less eatable. I look for edibility and interesting traits. I especially look for unique traits, because that is where the future is and it is the funnest part. Once I have some idea of what the traits are, I stack traits between apples when possible, like red flesh on red flesh, or disease resistance on disease resistance. Think down the line a generation or two and start putting traits into lines now for use later. For instance, I do a lot of crosses with red fleshed apples and disease resistant apples. In a second generation, I could cross something like Grenadine x Goldrush with Rubaiyat x William’s Pride. That gives me two RF apple crossed with two different scab resistant apples and possibly some other disease resistance traits. I can take an offspring of either which has inherited scab resistance, and cross it with any random apple, and I do, but I figure stacking traits like that will probably increase my chances and the offspring from stacked traits might be very useful in the future.
There are a lot of different traits to choose from and the fun part is deciding how to mix them up. My tendency has been to minimize back crossing, which is using the same parent, or apples with a common parent, but backcrossing is a staple in plant breeding. A lot of plant breeding is actually just inbreeding. Instead I tend to stack traits from different apples. For instance, I could back cross Cherry Crush (Grenadine x Cherry Cox) back to Cherry Cox, but I would rather cross it to Chestnut Crab, which can have significant cherry flavor in some years. Chestnut is a better apple here over all than Cherry Cox and I get cherry flavor from an entirely different genetic line. The gene may be the same, I don’t know, but I’m just going to look for similar traits from very different lines and make the cross.
Some of the lines of breeding I’m most interested in pursuing are small highly flavored snack sized apples, savory apples, apples that hang in excellent eating condition into winter and eventually spring, red fleshed apples, disease resistance, unique specific flavors, very strong flavors, fruity flavors, musky flavor, and very early apples that are actually useful and good to eat out of hand.
Disease resistance is worth an extra note. There are only so many well known disease resistant varieties. If disease is a big problem in your area, which it is generally not in mine, do the research and get as many as you can that sound interesting and as many as possible from multiple breeding lines. I would take the best of these and pursue them all. So if you want disease resistant red fleshed apples, I would take multiple good red fleshed apples and cross them to multiple disease resistant apples as a first generation investment. Some will turn out great, but the real value will be in the improved offspring that you can take into the next generation. Because I hate reading research papers and I take a very dumb approach to breeding, I don’t know anything about dominant traits and how they are supposed to express in multiple generations. While that information may be very valuable and is surely available, I would avoid believing in any of it. You can still use it, but keep an open mind. More of that kind of information is unvetted than you might think.
Bringing disease resistance into apple genetic lines is a great service to many. Much of the world is plagued with serious apple diseases that cause untold amounts of extra work and losses. Keep your eyes out for heirlooms and any random apples that show disease resistance or are known to be disease resistant. Again, this is about bringing more diversity of genetics into the breeding stable. For instance, Court Pendu Plat is supposed to be scab resistant, but has probably been used very little in breeding work. Asking growers that have large collections in high disease pressure areas will probably yeild a few heirlooms and other random apples that are not going to show up on disease resistant apple lists.
Here are a few links to info on disease resistance that took me about 10 seconds of searching.
https://blogs.cornell.edu/applevarietydatabase/disease-susceptibility-of-common-apples/
https://www.mehrabyannursery.com/growing-guide/apple-trees/what-are-the-most-disease-resistant-apple-trees/
https://www.orangepippintrees.com/search.aspx?ps=35
Pursue whatever inspires you or seems like it might solve problems you have in your area. I like crosses the best when they feel inspired and I can’t imagine that something good will not come from them. Sometimes though, you might have an exciting trait in an apple that otherwise just sucks or needs a lot of work and you’ll have to imagine that great apple a generation or two down the line. The more primitive and inedible the apple, the longer it will likely take to get something good out of its offspring. If you make the investment now, it may be someone else that can take advantage of it in the future. Some of the most exciting eventual developments are sure to come from taking chances on primitive apples that have unique traits, such as orange fleshed crabs.
Collecting scions has become easier and easier. There are groups and forums online where you can buy, sell and trade them. Eventually we will surely have a group for small scale breeders where we can communicate and exchange genetic material. The best places for trading I know of are again growingfruit.org and the North American Scion Exchange. I don’t spend a lot of time on forums or searching for stuff anymore, so if you know of resources I should include here, leave a comment and I’ll add them. (Someone suggested adding The Seed Savers Exchange) There are also an increasing number of sites offering scions for sale and that trend is likely to continue.
The fastest ways to test apples for breeding are to graft to an already fruiting apple tree or by growing in closely spaced systems on dwarfing stock. Apples on dwarf rootstocks can fruit quickly. I have had good luck with bud 9, but there are a lot of different dwarf stocks out there now. If you need bulk rootstocks, willamette nursery and copenhaven sell in bundles as small as 50. Buy B stock if you can, they are cheaper and perfectly fine. It is also easy to grow your own rootstock. If starting a breeding project, you can save a ton of money by growing your own. You can also pull suckers out of your trial rows if they show up and use them. Avoid using random suckers from trees that may be diseased. Starting with certified disease free stock from a good supplier and growing just seedlings on them, you are pretty much sure they are clean, even when using suckers.
Video from Kuffle Creek on growing your own rootstocks.
If working over a fruiting tree, see my videos on that below. There are some mistakes you want to avoid making. For trialing a lot in a small space, I really like the diagonal cordon system. You can plant them as close as 18 inches in the row with rows 6 feet apart. You can also grow them half way up and graft a second variety on. Once they start fruiting, you can add scions to the side branches, which can fruit very quickly, often in the second year. All in all, it is a convenient, very space efficient and adaptable system that fruits very quickly.
In the next section, we’ll talk about pollination.
Apple Trees of My Varieties Available For The First Time Ever
Cummin’s Nursery contacted me and offered to graft some trees of my varieties. I sent them budwood and trees are available for pre-order now, shipping next winter/spring season. The trees were budded late this year to heal and will begin growing in the spring. A certain number are listed now, but more will be listed when the full survival rate is assessed next year. We decided on 8 varieties. If they sell well, they will likely graft more and other vareities in the future. This time around they have Pink Lemonade, Cherub, Amberwine, Dutch Master, Cherry Crush, Sugarwood and Clarion.
https://www.cumminsnursery.com/search.php?keyword=skillcult
Up to this point, pretty much the only way to get trees of these varieties was to graft them yourself. A few friends operating on a smaller scale have contacted me about grafting some trees to offer as well., including one in Canada. All are collecting a small voluntary “royalty” to support my work. I didn’t ask any of them to do that, they offered. I hope this makes growing these apples accessible to a new group of people out there.
Apple Breeding Presentation For North American Fruit Explorers Is Available
The presentation I did on grassroots apple breeding for the Nafex virtual conference is now available on youtube. There is not too much that I would change as it was not that long ago. I don’t talk a lot about the nitty gritty of actual breeding, but it is covered in a brief way. It is more about the genesis of my project, ethos and philosophy, parent selection, categories of apples to pursue in breeding etc.
It was gated for members only, but it is public now. NAFEX has a lot of useful videos on their channel about fruit and nut trees and culture. Check them out. https://www.youtube.com/@NAFEXTV
https://youtu.be/xphXO5pz0lk?si=95SjRWkCeGtXSUde
Apple Scion Auctions and Sales Open- New Varieties
It’s time again to ship little genetic packages out into the world to see if they have what it takes to spread and multiply. I’m talking about apple scion wood for grafting. Auctions are set up and scheduled to start and the webstore is open to the public after the past week of early access for Patrons.
This year I dropped a bunch of new stuff, a whopping 8 varieties actually. It surprised me honestly. But I have reasons for all of them, which you can read more about in the previous post and also on this page. I am quite excited about some of them. Others fill a niche that nothing else does in my little world here and probably can elsewhere as well. Several hint at new possibilities and directions, like Jellybean Cider, the dwarf juice apple and Musketeer, which it turns out probably tastes of Black Currant.
Auctions are much larger this year. I found myself with quantities of a number of varieties that were sort of right between store numbers and auction numbers. I figured let’s just put these bigger numbers on auction and find out what happens. Because there are so many, the auctions also overlap each other this year. There are a bunch starting late Saturday and another group on late Sunday, and ending a week later. Auctions are on FIGBID.COM You should see my auctions once they start by searching - skillcult - It is easy to sign up and use. Since I have a lot more wood listed, competition should be less stiff and prices lower. All auctions will be running by 10:00 pm ET on Sunday February 25th 2024 and all will be finished by 10pm ET on March 3rd at 10:00 pm ET.
The webstore is now open to the public after early patron access this past week. I put two new varieties for 2024 in the store because I just had a lot of them. Integrity is a solid late summer pie apple and Clarion I’ve been trialing for years trying to decide what to call it, so I’ve got a ton of wood for that one. There are other familiar older seedlings in the store now that may not have been in the past, and some in greater numbers.
Yesterday I went to our local seed and scion exchange, which was dedicated as a memorial to my late friend, colleague, teacher and fellow plant nut Mark Albert. It must have been over 30 years ago when I went to this same seed and scion exchange and learned about grafting from Mark, Pat Schaefer and the local crew. Those connections and a few others have obviously had some major ripple effects. Don’t underestimate how powerful mentoring and education can be. Anyway, got to take some of my new varieties to share and help inspire the next generation of new plant enthusiasts. Very graftifying :)
I hope that this scion season will go well, and that through Patron support, cactus sales and other miscellaneous incomes, I might have enough to get serious about looking for land by late summer or fall. Land prices have plummeted here in Northern California in the past half a year or so. I’m hoping that keeps up long enough for me to get the resources together and find a worthy spot to get busy on. I could get an okay mountain homestead for cash right now, but I’m holding out for something great that I can expand into and involve others in. The amount of stuff I can get done quickly on some flat farmland with plenty of water is much greater than if I’m scrabbling around on hillsides covered in thin mounatin soil.
Wishing you all a successful grafting and growing season <3
New Seedling Apple Varieties for 2024
It was an amazing year for apples! I got to taste some new things and re-taste others, many seemingly at their best. Here are the 8 new seedling varieties I will be making available this year.
Jellybean Cider
This apple has amazing flavor, like artificial fruit candy. I was delighted to find, as I had hoped, that the flavor comes through very well in the juice, even when canned. I’m not sure I have ever tasted apple juice that good. It is also a semi-columnar type dwarf! It is a cross between Maypole and Chestnut Crab. Learn more about Jellybean Cider
Clarion
Clarion has been referred ot as Ice Princess for some years now, but I finally feel like I have collected enough experience with it to give it the right name and let it go. It is a long season apple with a very clear light flavor and a clean finish. I have eaten it off the tree from sometime in early to mid fall into the winter. It is an unusual apple and I’m a fan. Learn more about Clarion.
Black and Red
This one is a cross of Rubaiyat and King David. The skin is very dark red, certainly in the category of what are commonly called black apples. It can look very striking on the tree. The interior can get quite red and tasty. It has the berry-like aromatics of some red fleshed apples. It is fairly tart early in the season. Striking appearance inside and out, nice flavor and well above average for a red fleshed apple. Learn more about Black and Red.
Musketeer
Sorry, no photos yet. Musketeer is a cross between Rubaiyat and Pink Partait, two red fleshed apples. It does not have red flesh however. What it does have is a unique flavor that I have only been able to describe as “musky”. It is not just musky though, it is also very fruity. It is just weird, but it works. Those very different flavors seem to harmonize. I think I will be eating quite a lot of this apple in the future. Learn more about Musketeer.
Hella Kitty
Born to be wild, Hella Kitty is a tart little Wickson x Rubaiyat cross with a true pink flesh. The day glow intensity of it has to be seen in person to be appreciated. If you commissioned a group of mad scientist little girls to make the perfect pink, they would probably come up with something like the color of Hella Kitty. But this kitty is not all unicorns and rainbows, this is an apple for the people that like sour candies, the people that take the lemon out of their drink and chew on it. For anyone that doesn’t know, Hella is colloquial for something along the lines of “Hell of”originating here in Northern California i.e. Steven grows hella apples, or I’m hella excited about Hella Kitty. Learn more about Hella Kitty.
Red Winter Pie
This Grenadine x Lady Williams seedling was the very first of the 2011 trees to bloom in my trial rows. It has always looked good and hung well, and ripened late. It is not much for eating, though it is okay I guess when at its peak in the winter. The texture is somewhat “foamy” like Lady Williams. It is really good for cooking though, and at a time when options are limited. Or course you can use stored apples, but these are ready to use off the tree from around thanksgiving into as late as the end of December. This year I made pie with them on New Years day and the last two years for thanksgiving. It can grow quite large if thinned. Flavor is fruity, though not strong. Learn more about Red Winter Pie.
Integrity
Williams’ Pride x Vixen. This is a new early pie apple. Like Red Winter Pie, it seems to be the best cooking apple on my place in its end of summer to early fall season. It is good and tart and holds its shape in cooking, thus the name. It is very pretty. Learn more about Integrity.
Twang
Twang was fruited a while ago, and has been in assessment for some years. It is not much for eating, but at its season in August (as early as late July here occasionally) it is the best cooker going. Like integrity, it is tart (thus the name) and holds its shape in cooking. They are very similar when cooked and as Twang ends, Integrity begins. Most early apples are thin and watery, this is a solid apple. Also a very pretty apple. Learn more about Twang.
I think that is all the ones I’m releasing this year unless I change my mind on something. I’m honestly surprised I decided to release so many. The reason is that most of these apples do things that other apples either don’t do at all, or nothing else beats them in their season. That of course is just comparing to what I have growing here, both seedlings and grafted varieties, but I have a pretty big collection. Also, the bar is set different for rare characteristics. If there is not a lot of competition, we want to distribute the best we have of a particular style or trait, especially to other breeders.
I think most of these will be on auction rather than in the store. I won’t know for sure until I cut scion wood, but most are in limited, to very limited supply this year. Clarion I have a lot of, so that will be in the webstore. As usual, patrons get early access to scion sales for about a week, then I announce here on the blog and on social media.
Once I get this first wave of apple seed orders out, I can start cutting and sorting scion wood. Look for scions in the store and on auction in early February. If you are new to grafting, check out the grafting series playlist below. Let’s just say it is quite thorough.
Happy Growing
Apple Seeds Now Available for 2024
Apple seeds are now available in the webstore. It was an exciting year for cross pollinating apples. I think each year is basically better than the last. I am still increasingly using more and more of my own seedlings in breeding. I also keep refining and clarifying my goals. I was really pretty blown away this year by my successes so far and I have only fruited first generation crosses. I’m also pretty blown away by the interest in this project and how many people are growing out seeds, both mine and those they have collected or pollinated themselves.
Judging from the results I’ve had so far, the number of good and interesting apples in the world is about to make a precipitous climb.
Check out this year’s seed offerings HERE. (if you want me to send seeds overseas, contact me using the contact link on this site and I’ll tell you what to do.)
New seedling varieties are coming this year as well. Scions will be cut mid January and probably listed for sale in early February.
New variety for 2024, Black and Red
P.s. the reason you may not have been getting blog post notifications is that my email handler disconnected my account because I had too many contacts. I guess that is a good problem to have. There are some posts on the blog page that most of you probably missed.
HAPPY GROWING :)
Long Hours Assessing Apples
I have been MIA for a while. Some of the few posts I published did not send out to the mail list, but I’m fixing that. I just published three videos taste testing apples. Two are on seedling apples and the third is on named varieties. I’ve collected some new varieties over the past 3 to 4 years and have to assess them. It has become quite a job to get through all of these fruits and keep track of what is what. This season and the next maybe are important as I have to decide what to take with me if I get a new place. I’m sort of looking forward to purging and taking just the stuff that I really am interested in for breeding, or that I like eating. I may at some point grow stuff I’m less interested in for scionwood sales, but at first it will just be the cream of the crop.
I have some new seedlings that are either very interesting for further observation, or definite keepers. I’ll be talking about those more in the near future. In the mean time, I have three apples in the process of being named. In most cases, I end up with numerous good names and have to choose between them. I will also strategize a little for the future sometimes, by using the most obvious names that someone else might snag early or saving a name for the perfect apple. I already named one Muskmelon this year and then found out there is already an heirloom apple by that name! Damn. That is one of the most interesting fruits to come out of this project for sure. Distinctly musky, but also fruity, crisp, fine grained and juicy. Some suspect a few might hate it, but no doubt others will love it and find it intriguing as I do.
The thing I’m really doing different this year is marking trees for culling. I’m finally taking out a significant number of trees in the trial rows. Some will be removed completely to make space for what remains and some will be cut to the ground and grafted over to multiply the best varieties and provide scion wood. One reason I’m antsy to move is that I need to get a lot more of the best seedling varieties in the ground producing fruit, so that I have fruit and plenty of scion wood to send people. I am sending apples to two people this year for their projects documenting and testing, but I really barely have enough. But going forward, think reviewers of various kinds, food bloggers & chefs, big garden and orchard channels etc. It is a good way to get some attention and make a real impression.
Everyone asks how property hunting is going. I’m not looking too seriously yet, until I can save more for a down payment. Prices are still dropping, so timing may be just right. I have two main jobs right now, improve my health and save money. Everything else is secondary to those and a lot has to be put on the back burner.
Don’t Preserve Foods That You Don’t Actually Eat
My friend passed away recently and his wife gave me some jars because they had so many. She says he was a hoarder and indeed there is a lot of stuff, including many jars of very old home canned foods that never got used. Their huge chest freezer is also stuffed with all kinds of bags of old frozen stuff. It reminded me to write this blog post I’ve had in mind for a while.
There is a common phenomenon in canning and preserving, where people preserve things they don’t actually end up eating. I have been through this issue myself. It is an ongoing process to figure out what I am and am not going to actually end up eating and how much, but I have a pretty good idea now.
Canning is actually kind of expensive. If you use gas for fuel, there is that expense. It adds up boiling big pots of water over and over. Then there are those stupid disposable metal dome lid/seals that most use. Those things are not cheap. Then there is the storage space that the goods take up for years if you don’t actually use them. Eventually you have to empty the jars and wash them, and all for what?
There is a psychology that if there is food and you don’t preserve it, it is wasted. If you can it then don’t eat it, you not only waste the food, but also the time, energy and materials involved. Giving it away may not be any better. If you aren’t going to eat it, whomever you give it to might not either! I never give away canned goods that I don’t want to eat myself, that’s not gifting, it’s foisting. The concept of waste is a little different in gardening and subsistence anyway. Stuff gets cycled back through the compost. You can give extra produce away to a food bank or to neighbors and friends if you have too much. Get chickens or pigs, they can dispose of a lot of extra food.
Here are the foods I will eat if I have them, with links to any content I’ve made on them. Some I can use a limited amount of and some I can use more than I can ever manage to produce.
Canned tomatoes and sauce: I usually put up whole canned tomatoes instead of sauce, but either way, I end up using them and wishing I had more.
Canned tomatoes wih a fresh basil leaf and a piece of roasted pepper are a staple. It is hard to make anywhere near enough of them. I can open a can and just eat them they are so delicious. Canned tomatoes and sauces from the store are just sad by comparison.
Frozen tomato salsa: I can eat a lot of salsa if it is good. I don’t can tomato salsa, because it just isn’t that good. I’d rather wait until tomato season comes back around. I may someday try to figure out how to make the one tomato salsa brand I like out of a can, Herdez.
Tomatillo salsas": I make two kinds of tomatillo salsa, one brown with dried California chilies and the other green with roasted green anaheim peppers. I can use quite a bit of both. Those I heat can even though they are better fresh. There is only so much freezer space.
Marinated artichoke hearts: these are canned. I will use a lot in a year and they are appreciated as gifts. It’s hard to make enough, let alone too many.
Canning artichoke hearts is a production. A years supply is a significant investment in time, but worth it.
Berry jams: Raspberry, blackberry, any berry, they are just good. On toast or mixed into yogurt.
Apple Saffron Jelly: Red fleshed apple jelly with saffron is amazing. My own original recipe. I can eat a lot of it. Hungry just thinking about it.
Looks amazing, tastes delicious. This is a marketable product for farmers markets and farm stands. One taste and they will come back for more. Hoping to put up a lot of it this year. A couple of crepes filled with this stuff is a perfect before bed snack.
Apple butter: Traditional apple butter keeps on the shelf without canning for years. My oldest test batches are 7 years old now and still fine, sitting on a kitchen shelf. It is delicious and makes a great gift if you are willing to part with it.
Hot sauce: I can go through a lot of my fermented hot sauce in a year. It is not super hot, so I use gobs of it.
Pepperoncini: Fermented pepperoncini is another one I can eat a lot of. If I have a lot, I eat a lot. Hard to make enough of them.
Fermented ripe “pimentos”: I don’t use these in nearly the quantity that I use other preserved foods, but I like them and make some when I have enough peppers.
Kimchi: I sometimes will grow Asian cabbage and make large batches of kimchi. I prefer to keep it in the refrigerator, so I don’t make a huge amount at one time anymore. I hesitate to put it down here since, like saurkraut, it’s more like a food I make than a think I preserve out of the garden for later. If I could store it the way I want to though, I would make a years supply every season.
Fermented dilly beans: Green beans ferment very well. Add a little dill, peppercorns and coriander. They can be kept without refrigeration or canning if managed correctly and usually stay very crisp.
Frozen roasted peppers: In a good pepper year, I will roast and freeze half cup jars of roasted ripe and green peppers, cut up and ready to use. They are good in sauces and stewed meats of various kinds, as well as fried up with meat for tacos and burritos.
I will usually roast peppers for salsa. I also put a small piece in each jar of canned tomatoes. Any extra get frozen in small jars.
Olives: I make several kinds of olives and can eat a lot in a year in salads, out of hand, on pizza and in a few recipes.
Dried chilies: I can use a ton of large dried chilies for chili powder. I also use a lot of small dried hot chilies, preferably Chile Arbol. I basically can’t grow enough of either one. I like paprika a lot too, but rarely grow enough peppers to make it. If I had the resources, I would grow a lot more peppers and dried chilies.
Dried tomatoes: I can use a fair amount of these if I’m in the habit of cooking with them.
Tomatoes are easy to dry in hot sun with the skin side down.
Jerky: I can eat a lot of jerky if I have it, usually venison. If I can get two deer this hunting season, I will likely dry about a deers worth of it.
Dried wild mushrooms: Some dry well and others taste bad when dried. My favorites are Porcini (king and queen boletes) and Black Trumpets. I can use gallons a year of those, more than I can ever manage to gather and dry.
Frozen fruits: I use these mostly for smoothies. Peaches, pineapple guava, any kind of berries, cherries. I don’t freeze apples much, just a few for smoothies, but they are not the most useful or delicious frozen fruit. Someday I hope to have a much larger freezer and more berries in the ground.
Dried prune plums: I can eat quite a few of the small french prunes that grow in this area. I slice them in half and dry them. They taste like red licorice sticks. One of my favorite dried fruits.
Dried Persimmons: Whole dried persimmons are the gummy bears of dried fruit. They can be challenging to make, requiring both warmth and air circulation, but they are worth the effort.
Dried Oregano
Dried Basil
Coriander seed
Saffron
That is what I can think of that I actually preserve and eat. I don’t end up throwing out anything except extra herbs when I dry a new batch. I don’t give anything away just to get rid of it. I also don’t usually take a surplus of any random thing, like zuchinni, and try to make something out of it just because it is there. I mean I’ll do that once or twice to see if I’m going to like it and eat it, but I try to take the hint if it ends up sitting around forever. I prefer to spend more time and energy growing and putting up the stuff I use the most of instead.
I think in some cases, it is a failure of creativity, or failure to adapt eating habits to what is available, but that only goes so far. And there is still the bottom line of whether you end up eating it or not, regardless of why that is. For instance, I just threw out a big bag of artichoke hearts that I froze last year. I did the same thing the year before. They are delicious, but I forget to use them and there are not that many places where I have figured out to use them anyway. I thought I could make tapenade or something like that, but I never did it. Both years I had to deal with this huge bag of unwieldy lumpy things, finally realizing artichoke season is at hand again. I won’t do that again. I might make tapenade and freeze that if I can’t can them all, but no more big bags of them taking up space.
Best wishes for a good harvest and canning season.
Some Updated Info on Pollinating Apples for Breeding
I’m in the peak of apple pollination season right now and feel the need to update information on pollination just a little bit. I’ve been doing this for 12 years now this spring’ and pollination is the thing that I have changed the most and continue to evolve.
Last season was the organza bag revolution. These are sheer nylon bags that I use to cover flowers, anywhere from one flower cluster to 18 inches of branch. The bags are applied to sections of branch with no flowers open. If any are opened, they are removed before bagging. This was a huge improvement and makes pollination much more efficient.
I started making mass pollinations of branches by wrapping in mesh and clothespinning it together. Organza bags made it easy to bag large numbers of branches and flower clusters. Every size of bag I use is represented in this photo.
My organza bag method also introduced a new problem though, cross contamination. If I take the cotton swabs I was using pick some pollen up out of my pollen packet and start applying it to opened flowers, I’m also picking up pollen from those flowers. In the past, that was not a problem, because I was opening closed blossoms which were not releasing pollen yet, and pollinating those. Occasionally a closed blossom will be releasing some pollen, but it is not usual.
The contamination was with pollen of varieties I use in breeding anyway. I don’t mind some contamination, because it makes interesting crosses that I might not otherwise make and who knows. But I realized that in situations where I had very little pollen saved and had to try to make it go as far as possible, it may very well end up that I was pollination more with other things than what I was intending to use.
Part of the problem was the cotton swabs I was using. They are big and hold a lot of pollen which works it’s way down into the cotton ball end, so I could not afford to throw them out and start a new one. This year, I ordered some micro makeup applicators and they solved that problem. These are small plastic sticks with a tiny microfiber fuzzball on the end. I can pick up some pollen with one of those, pollinate one variety and then toss it and use a new one for the next variety. The only way I will get contamination is if I double dip, which I sometimes do and sometimes not, depending. I can flick most of the pollen off and dip again in some cases. In other cases, it will stick too much and I might choose to use a second swab for the same variety.
These micorfiber makeup applicators are also a game changer. I wish they were black to show pollen better, otherwise they seem to work great.
Overall, I may be using less pollen than I used to, because I don’t have these cottonballs on a stick sucking up all my pollen and holding it. The downside is that it is much slower to apply pollen to the female parts of the flower with a tiny swab than it is to brush over it randomly with a bigger swab. But I have a partial solution for that now too, I think… This year, I am waiting longer until most of the blossoms are open, then pollinating a branch once and re-bagging it. That saves a ton of work, since I just have to bag it, open it once, pollinate and then tie it off and leave it. We will see how that works out in terms of pollination efficiency. I think some of the blossoms are ending up aging too much to take pollination, but most look fresh and probably fertile.
Varieties vary a great deal in whether they all open in a short period, or very gradually, so in some cases, it may very well be best to pollinate more than once. For instance, Pink Parfait blooms early, but it has a long bloom season, where the flowers are opening gradually. Gold Rush just blows out completely in a few days. I am often pollinating while there are still a few blossoms closed too. If they look like they are big enough to open soon, I’ll open them and pollinate them.
I think this basic approach is going to work. It doesn’t take too terribly long to pollinate a branch with these tiny brushes and it’s very acceptable if I’m only doing it once in most cases. I recommend both the organza bags and micro brushes. I ordered three sizes of brush, but I think I’ll be using the smallest one almost all the time. Any of them are better than cotton swabs. For organza bags I use 4 sizes 6 x 9, 8 x 12, 12 x 16 and 16 x 24, and I use them all in different situations. I had a ton, but I use so many that I just ordered another 130. They do break down in the sun, but in most case, I think they will last for at least two seasons. The bags not only protect from pollen contamination by insects, they also protect the fruit from munching insects, hail and birds with one application. They are not 100% protection from birds, but if there is a lot of other fruit, they will not try to peck through a bag. I also don’t have to label fruits before they fall, and if they do fall, they stay in the bag. When it is time to harvest, I put the apples in the bag with the label from the tree until I process them.
Last year I bagged a lot of control blossoms to see if they would self pollinate. I only got fruit and seeds off of one, Flaxen, which is one of my seedlings. I am growing the seed out to see what happens, so far I have two survivors. In most cases, apples are not self pollinating, but if you want to be sure, bag a cluster of blossoms before it opens and find out.
One last issue to talk about is old pollen and how long it keeps for. This year I used quite a bit of 2022 pollen. In the past I’ve used pollen that was 2 and 3 years old and it seemed to work, but I was also not isolating blossoms. I hope still this year to makes some experimental pollinations with older pollen I have sitting around, but the season is well along, so I better get on that. I feel pretty strongly that pollen will last a year, especially if stored carefully. I store it in the freezer now. I make sure it is very dry, seal it in a jar with the dessicant packs from vitamin bottles, or some toasted rice, let it sit out another week, then freeze.
Next year I will probably make a good updated video on pollination. I think I will learn a lot this year to inform that project.
I’ll add links to the swabs and organza bags to my amazon store page. I would not be surprised if the swabs are available at drug stores, but I have not looked. If only doing a few pollinations, the 8x12 inch size organza bags are probably a good choice.
Exciting Results From the Daffodil Breeding Project
Pollinating Mallee, a variety I picked up for breeding purposes. In this case, I’m adding pollen of a red rimmed poet type, in hopes of getting a red rimmed double.
In 20210, i started making cross pollinations between daffodils and planting the seeds. it’s been a slow process, becasue I have not taken very good care of the plants, but I’m finally getting enough results to really matter. Here are some of the blooms and a link to a video I just made about the project.
Most seedlings are nice looking enough that most people would probably want them growing around the homeplace and never question their origin. If I were to grow just my best seedlings right now, I could easily sell these flowers at farmer’s markets, or anywhere really. Of the rejects, most are split cups that don’t split evenly and have a generally sloppy appearance. While the average seedling is just fine, it’s a different criteria to propagate and name something though, especially when I will eventually have hundreds, maybe even thousands to sort through and assess. For instance, there are a a lot of very nice pink cupped daffodils. Those used to not exist at all, until someone cracked the code on getting a true pink corolla. Now I have a bunch of them that could grow alongside nice commercially available varieties, but how many of those do we really need? A flower has to distinguish itself in some way.
Speaking of distinguishing itself. Look at this crazy looking thing. I haven’t seen anything like it before. Next steps, propagate and flower it to see how it performs year to year.
As flowers appear extra promising, they will be moved out to better conditions for further observation. In the mean time, they will make more bulbs to further propagation. Eventually, some of them will be available either through me or a catalogue, or both. That is a long road though. If I get something that I think will justify the expense, I can have it propagated through micropropagation. One of my patrons does that and has reached out about propagating apples and daffs by that method. Even so, assessment alone can take some years, as they need to be flowerd at least a few seasons to see how consistent they are etc.
A rose-like double seedling that develops a pink rim as it matures. One of the best so far.
This smallish pink cupped flower is a little different than the average.
Last year, this was the most promising daff I had flowered to date. This year its one flower is disorganized, with lots of tangled elements and notched petals. Otherwise, it is stunning, so hopefully the average flower will be very nice, with few messy flowers like this one.
I like this one. It has a lot of movement with the wild and wavy swept back petals and a nice big trumpet with good color.
Front view of the pink rimmed double.
Interesting one with nice rim effect.
While many of the split cup offspring come out looking messy and disorganized, I already have a handful of promising ones. I like the idea of breeding with a white split cup like this to try for a red or pink rimmed effect.
They can’t just look good, they have to perform well too, preferably without too much pampering. This one has 4 flowers already and is dividing well. Others may divide very slowly, or produce flowers sporadically or even start failing to thrive and dying out in less than ideal conditions.
Thats the report for this flowering season. there are more promising flowers that I didn’t get photos or footage of, but that is a good representation. Next year, a new wave of blooms will come out. It is a pretty fun project in that regard. A little anticipation is good. I remember checking several times a day for the very first daffodil seedling to emerge from a flat where I had planted them. My youthful enthusiasm is somewhat tempered now and for the better. Waiting for new blooms to open though, and the feeling of success when something good comes along, is something worth experiencing.
If breeding plants interests you, go for the plant that captures your imagination. The best plants for easy results are those that throw high variation. It helps if they hybridize readily with closely related species, as is the case with apples, iris and daffodils. If you look through photos on the web of different varieties and you see a large variability, then you can be sure there is a great range of possibility to be taken advantage of. More regular people should be breeding plants. It may not make you rich and famous, or immortalize you, but it is engaging, life affirming and gives us something to be invested in and look forward too. And who knows, that one small act of making a first pollination and planting the seeds may turn into something big and propagate some positive ripples out into the world.
Apple Crosses I'm Growing Out This Year
First a note on content. I’m an obsessive person. I have every intention of writing content that does not have to do with apples and orcharding again in the future. But I write about what I’m doing and thinking about, and right now it’s apples and orchard stuff. I hope to eventually be doing more on homesteading, tools, axemanship, primitive skills, materials and their properties, practical philosophy, plants and more. I know not everyone is on this blog to hear about this stuff, but the people who are, are very enthusiastic and appreciative of it.
These are the apple crosses I'm growing out this year, with some brief notes on why. This is by far the most exciting year of crosses yet, with quite a few of them using my own apples or even two of my apples crossed together. Also, as more stuff fruits I get at least a little bit of an idea of what parents might be more likely to throw good offspring, like William's Pride.
I originally saved 725 seeds this year, which is just not doable right now. By going through several times I got it down to about 350. Still, that is a lot of seeds. It is a big risk to plant them at all, since I may not have a place to move them to for a while. If need be though, they can just stay in the ground for years and be grafted out any time down the road. The seedlings that were from seed pollinated in 2021 are cut in the fridge waiting for some bud 10 rootstock to show up in the mail. Those are going into a nursery row with grafted trees of the best of my seedlings that have fruited so far, so that I have copies to take with me that are already close to flowering and fruiting. Those trees will not likely hold well in the ground past 2 or 3 years. So, that is my timeline to try to buy and establish a new place. Priority though is to get a good place, not just any place, so if there are some casualties, so be it.
New Red Fleshed King David x Rubaiyat cross, open pollinated. ( I almost never plant open pollinated seed, but I don't want to wait to use this in breeding. It's that good.)
Amberwine x Wickson (sort of a backcross, since Amberwine's parent Vixen is from the etter savory line. Given the great similarity between vixen and wickson, they may even be seedlings of the same cross. Or equally plausible, one is an offspring of the other. Anyway, reinforcement of the savory flavor trait is the goal, but with the excellent attributes brought into the mix by Williams' Pride)
Appleoosa x Pink Lady (An attempt to mesh late hanging genes from Appleoosa's parent Lady Williams, with LW's other descendant Pink Lady. Also Pink Lady is a higher quality apple in general. AND both have a lot of flavor. I should probably make this cross more. It is probably better made in the opposite direcions PL x App')
Appleoosa x Viking (two very high flavor apples, one Red Flesh. I think Viking has a hint of pink in the flesh, but I can't remember for sure)
Black Winesap x Appleoosa (testing the idea that there may be a synergy between RF and the very dark red skinned. "black" apples)
Black Winesap x Black Strawberry (I've only fruited Black Winesap once and it was no good here. But I'm just too curious what two "black" apples crossed together end up making)
Centennial x Wickson (seems like a no brainer. two of the best dessert crabs)
Cherry Crush x Black Strawberry (Dunno, just seems inevitable)
Cherry Crush x Pink Parfait (Seems like a no brainer)
Cherry Crush x Sweet 16 (Two cherry flavored apples, SWT 16 is disease resistant and higher quality over all)
Chestnut x Golden Russet (I would call chestnut a russet leaning apple. It is hard to imagine these two apples coming together and not making some delicious little, richly flavored nuggets of goodness. Seriously, someday ya'll will be like "steven prophesized the amazingness of this apple cross yo's")
Chestnut x Wickson (As much as I've always thought this was an amazing cross to make, I somehow never ended up with many of them, if any. Hoping these 10 seeds make it.)
Flaxen Self Pollinated (I bagged some apple blossoms to see if any would self pollinate. Flaxen was the only one out of half a dozen or more that produced fruit and seeds. I wanted to grow them just to see if they will grow and keep growing or eventually fruit and what the fruit would be like.)
Golden Russet x Ashmead's Kernel (two the most highly respected quality russets. Golden Russet is the best of the best Ashmeads very good+ and much better grower than GR. I just think the best russets should be crossed together, period.)
Golden Russet x Wickson (Instinct or intuition or something, tells me that savory russets are going to be amazing. I suspect this is the better direction to make this cross, but I made it in both directions)
January Russet x Golden Russet (Chasing a high quality, super late russet! This is the very top cross I would think to make for that purpose. It is possible that January Russet has GR as a pollen parent already. That could be a good thing.)
Musky/watermelon flavored Rub x PP cross x Hard Candy Cider (Again, trying to synergize high flavor genes. Also, three RF apples in this crosses heritage, but neither parent expresses RF)
Pink Lady x Appleoosa (This is a good cross. Trying to get red flesh in a late hanging, high quality apple. Plus, there very well may be a synergy between the complex flavor of both)
Pink Parfait x Appleoosa (trying to carry Appleoosa's excellent qualities forward into a higher overall quality apple, and hopefully late as well. PP lacks in the intense red flesh and berry flavors, but the genes to synergize with appleoosas RF traits are likely there)
Pink Parfait x Black Strawberry (Trying to take some of the best of BS and leave the less desirable traits behind by crossing it into the excellent PP)
Pink Parfait x Lady Williams (Two of my latest apples. PP is better overall, but LW brings plenty to the table with high flavor potential, and it is later)
Pink Parfait x Musky/watermelon Rub x PP cross. (Back cross to Pink Parfait, hoping to bring in some unique traits. It's a gamble since that one parent has not been assesed thoroughly, but i just have a feeling it's going to work out)
Pink Parfait x Pink Lady (Same reasons as PP x LW above, but probably a better cross)
Pink Parfait x Pinker lady. (I've only tasted strawberry flavor in 3 apples, PP, Pinker Lady and Black Strawberry. By far, PP is the weakest, but it is still there. also, two high quality apples with pink flesh, and while Pinker Lady is not late like PP, it's parent Pink Lady is)
Pink Parfait x Whitwick (Attempt to bring more flavor genes into PP, plus Whitwick is somewhat late, so offspring are likely be be late November and later)
Pink Parfait x Williams' Pride (this has to be good, in both directions)
Pink Parfait x Cherry Cox (chasing cherry flavor in a pink fleshed apple)
Pink Parfait x Wickson (Why not. I mean, my motto is pretty much cross wickson with everything)
Pinker Lady x Appleoosa (Higher overall quality pink fleshed seedling (Rubaiyat x Pink Lady), with more intensely pink fleshed seedling (Grenadine x Lady Williams) full of intense flavors. Also, there they have the same late hanging genes in their ancestry)
Pinker Lady x Cherry Crush (had to be done)
Pinker Lady x Pink Parfait (No brainer here. Two very good to excellent pink fleshed apples of good size)
Rubaiyat x Cherry Cox (Trying to get cherry flavor in an RF apple. I suspect that cherry flavors lurk somewhere in many of the RF apple genetics. I hope so anyway)
Rubaiyat x Pink Lady (Chasing late hanging, higher quality RF apples with lots of complex flavor)
Rubaiyat x Whitwick Pippin (shooting for synergy between whitwick's high flavor and rubaiyat's berries and fruit punch thing, plus, obviously red flesh)
Sunrise x Cherry Cox (chasing cherry flavor in an improved apple with some good modern traits)
Sunrise x Rubaiyat (High quality modern apple that could use some pizazz and red flesh)
Sunrise x Muscat de Venus (high quality modern apple with umami bomb)
Sunrise x Wickson (trying to bring savory flavor into a high quality, well behaved modern apple)
Vanilla Pink x Pink Parfait (very interesting Pink Fleshed apple with unique flavor traits, crossed with higher quality pink fleshed apple. Another step in carrying forward the best traits of Grenadine into better dessert fruits)
Viking x Whitwick Pippin (Two high flavor apples with complex fruity flavors. It really had to be done)
Whitwick Pippin x Rubaiyat (flavor synergy and RF)
Wickson x Appleoosa (same vein as Wic x BS and Wic X Rub)
Wickson x Black Strawberry (duh)
Wickson x Golden Russet (the less interesting direction to make this cross when chasing a russet apple, but I am growing a few anyway.)
Wickson x Rubaiyat (I originally saved 50 of these, but pared it down to 20. That was painful, but it had to be done. I will no be surpised if 33% or higher of these are worth growing and grafting. We'll see. So far this cross has yielded Cherub and Tomboy)
Williams' Pride x Appleoosa (WP expresses a small amount of RF and throws excellent offspring. Appleoosa has amazing quality, but could use some refining influence from someone like the exemplary WP. Also WP, has disease resistance genes!)
Williams' Pride x Black Strawberry (Again, attempting to elevate BS to a higher quality desert apple, with the near flawless WP)
Williams' Pride x Centennial (two excellent very early apples, with little else in common. I don't know man, I'm pretty sure this is going to work!)
Williams' Pride x Musky/watermelon flavored (Rubaiyat x Pink parfait) seedling (This is a gamble crossing an apple I think is going to be unique and very good to excellent, with one of my best parent apples. Will the musky flavor persist? will it be passed on? oh the suspense!)
Williams' Pride x Pink Parfait (This has to make some great apples)
Williams' Pride x Muscat de Venus (chasing the success of WP x Vixen crosses which produced Amberwine and a couple others that are under further observation. MDV= UMAMI BOMB)
Williams' Pride x Wickson (trying to expand and follow up on the success of Williams Pride x Vixen crosses)
When I first decided I had to move, I thought I might pause this project until I got a new place. Well, that didn't work. I didn't get this far by being sane and cautious :D
Seedling Scion Auctions are Live
Scion Auctions for some of my seedling varieties are live on http://FigBid.com. Half of the auctions, Hard Candy Cider, Tomboy Crab and January Russet, end on Saturday 5 minutes apart starting at 5:00pm pacific/8:00 pm Eastern.
Sugarwood, Vanilla Pink and a couple remaining Appleoosa scions end on Sunday, 5 minutes apart at 5:00pm pacific/8:00 pm Eastern.
These are varieties that I have in very limited quantity for various reasons.
https://figbid.com/Browse?FullTextQuery=skillcult
Scion Wood is Available
Grafting season is here and scionwood is available in the webstore. Along with the usual named varieties, I have several new seedling releases this year, Amberwine, Tomboy Crab, Vanilla Pink and Dutch Master. You can click those links to read about them.. Some of my seedling varieties are in the store and some will be auctioned on http://Figbid.com next week. Assuming all goes smoothly, the auctions will start on Tuesday and end on Sunday, 3 minutes apart. Varieties that will be on auction are Vanilla Pink, Tomboy Crab, Sugarwood, Hard Candy Cider and January Russet. I also have a few table grape varieties in the store and basket willow cuttings for planting.
Pollen gathering season is just around the corner. I will announce here and on social media when pollen is ready. Instagram @skillcult
Apple Seeds Available, Scions Coming
Apple seeds are available in the webstore. Usually patrons pretty much clean them out by the time they become available to the general public. This year I increased pollination efficiency and just spent a lot of time making crosses, so there is quite a bit of good stuff left.
And there were so many interesting crosses this year! Every year it gets more interesting as I increase the number of crosses I’m making with my own varieties. Quite a few are even crosses between two of my varieties. I went through the seeds and sorted out what I want to grow. Really, I wanted to save more, but I tried to be conservative. I don’t even have a place to put them in the ground yet. I counted up what I saved out and it was a whopping 725 seeds! If those have just a decent germination rate, I’d have more seedlings this year than all the previous 12 years I’ve been doing this combined, ughhh. But they are so good and so promising. I went back through to see if I could pare it down, and put back 10 seeds lol. I’m going to have to try that again. The seeds are all dried this year, so I can keep them til next year, but by then there will be new seeds and new crosses that are horribly tempting. I guess it’s a good problem to have, but I really am not sure how to proceed. I simply can’t plant 700 seeds this year.
Scions are coming soon as well. I’ll have at least three new varieties debuting this year, Tomboy (Wickson x Rubaiyat), Dutch Master (Grenadine x Goldrush) and Amberwine (Williams’ Pride x Vixen). I will have increased numbers of scions for most of the stuff I have already released, much of which will be available in the webstore this time around, instead of on auction.
Simple Leaf Duff Mulch Collection System, Multiple Benefits
I use quite a bit of leaf duff mulch collected from the forest. While I also use other things, there is nothing quite like it. I posted this short video today on a simple system for concentrating and encouraging it’s formation for harvest, but here is the low down.
Video URL: https://youtu.be/jrk6rcplVPk
So, why leaf duff. I use leaf duff mostly on seed beds. Leaf duff is not just shredded leaves or any organic matter. One trait it has is that small flat pieces are efficient at surface coverage. Why cover the surface? To keep water in and protect the soil. Almost any mulch can protect the soil for losing water. It also protects the soil for the hammering effect of rain and watering, which can pulverize it and destroy it’s structure. Most agriculture systems use cultivation for a reason, it breaks up soil crusting. compacted soil wicks away moisture faster by capillary action. Loose soil can act like a mulch, greatly slowing water loss. Crusting also inhibits the penetration of water into the soil, so we not only have rapid loss, but less infiltration.
Lets say I plant a bed of carrots. The seeds are very small and they take a long time to come up. If I don’t cover them at all, as soon as I water, the soil begins crusting over. Each time I water, it will become worse. Once crusted the water I do add will not penetrate the tight soil surface as easily and what does sift through will leave faster. Adding amost anything from coffee grounds to saw dust, to compost will help alleviate this problem. Leaf duff, sifted through a half inch screen, if applied carefully and sparingly, efficiently protects the soil, but will still allow the seeds to come though. If I don’t cover the bed with anything, my carrots are going to be harded to keep moist enough for good germination. Since the take a long time to come up, and are planted shallowly, I can’t intervene by breaking up that crust. I plant carrots on an either 2 inch or 3 inch grid pattern, so even when they do come up, cultivation is very difficult. I usually mulch lightly to get them up, and when they have all emerged and grown a little, I sift more fine mulch over the bed.
I usually sift duff through a 1/2 inch screen Sifting not only gets out the big stuff, which I still use as mulch on larger plants, but it also breaks up the material for easy and even application.
Leaf duff also adds microbes to the soil. Forest duff is teeming with organisms established for ages in the forest ecosystem to make use of and recycle organic matter. People go out and collect these organisms from forest duff and grow them in a starch solution to add to garden soil.
so I get soil protection, mulch, add a few nutrients, add organic matter and add beneficial microbes without having to buy anything. Go through the alternatives that perform a similar function and the properties they possess to compare. Forest duff is good stuff.
The system is simple. Going out and collected a lot of this stuff over the years, you notice that it is deeper where divets are created in the landscape. Leaves move downhill quite a bit and accumulate in low spots or behind dams that create hollows. So I set up some logs in strategic places accross the landscape when out doing forestry work. I think the steeper the hillside, the more, or faster, leaves will collect. It takes a few years to gather enough and break down adequately, but it’s a simple intervention and you can revisit them over and over once set up. I’ll definitely implementing this idea a lot at my next place if the environment is suitable.
Leaf dams are not rocket science. Just lay something across slope under a tree that makes a lot of good leaves and wait about 3 years. I will also be trying out shallow trenches and laying the soil into a berm downhill. These hollow areas in the landscape are also good places to lay down brush for cleaning up debris while creating some small animal habitat.
Another idea I had was to try innoculating Blewit mushrooms into these spots. They really like growing in deep leaf mulch. I’ve piled up leaves in spots and had them just show up. Whether you could still harvest the duff and keep the mushrooms I don’t know, but I suspect you could. Either way, it could be a great system for growing blewits too.
