A walk around video looking at projects and updates on biochar catch pit, apples ripe now, apple seedlings, grafts, tree training, nectarine growth etc...
I also appear to have a good new early ripening Wickson seedling that I’m just now assessing. That is pretty neat! It has some characteristics of my other Wickson seedling BITE ME! and some of the appearance of a third one from that same batch of seeds. The graft is not labelled, but I’m about 90%+ sure that it is a seedling which was taken off of a tree that was broken by a bear and re-grafted onto this other tree. I will graft it out elsewhere this year for future assessment. It only had a few apples on it this year. I’m going to say that it’s not astronomically good, but that it’s the 2nd or 3rd best ripe now, the other two good ones being William’s Pride and Kerry Pippin. I also didn’t see much scab on it.
I have now fruited and tasted 4 of the 4 original open pollinated Wickson seedlings that launched my apple seedling growing endeavors. The one that I named and have sent out scions for, BITE ME!, was the best eating apple of it’s season last year, another is okay, but just boring, a third was tiny, green and completely bland and this is the 4th. This new summer apple is definitely worth eating, but we’ll see how it shapes up as it matures and with weather variation over the years. All in all, that is pretty encouraging for a bunch of randomly pollinated apple seeds. I sent out hundreds of Wickson seeds last year. I can’t hardly imagine that some very good and interesting apples will not result. This year I will have more Wickson seed available, both open pollinated and pollinated.
