Matthew.Orwat_Fruit.Tree.Pruning_MGSchool_4.3.2024

Summary

The Dallas County Master Gardener Association's talk covered the fascinating history of the Souvenir de Malmaison Rose, a unique rose variety traced back to Empress Josephine's garden in the 1800s. This rose, which requires minimal care and no fungicides, serves as an ideal segue into a detailed discussion on the pruning and care of fruit trees. The session highlighted the importance of tailored pruning techniques for different trees like peaches, apples, pears, and blackberries, along with the historical context of botanical exchanges that have enriched horticultural practices worldwide.

Highlights

• Learn about the Souvenir de Malmaison Rose's royal history and survival story through centuries! 👑
• Discover the intricate relationship between roses and fruit trees, all part of the Rosaceae family 🌺.
• Find out why and when to prune your fruit trees, and the tools to use for each type 🌿.
• Identify the importance of genetic exchanges between different countries for stronger plant varieties 🌍.
• Explore the challenges of growing different fruits in varying climates, and the innovative solutions experts are testing 🌦️.
• Insight into historical plant breeding practices and their journey from China to Europe, and beyond ✨.

Key Takeaways

• Empress Josephine's love of roses has left us with the remarkable Souvenir de Malmaison Rose 🌹.
• China and Europe exchanged roses in the 1700s, leading to unique hybrids like our featured rose 🌍.
• Understanding the Rosaceae family helps in effective pruning and care of fruit trees 🍑.
• Tailored pruning is necessary for fruit trees to ensure health and productivity 🌳.
• Adapting to regional climates is crucial for growing fruit trees successfully depending on chill hours and regional challenges 🌡️.
• Growing citrus in colder climates is possible but requires experimentation and protection 🏡.
• Sharing genetic material and knowledge globally leads to better agricultural practices 🍏.
• Historical methods and new techniques from China could significantly improve our gardening 🌿.

Overview

The talk, hosted by the Dallas County Master Gardener Association, began with an intriguing history lesson about the Souvenir de Malmaison Rose. This old-world rose, cherished for its unique ability to thrive without chemicals, was brought back from obscurity through horticultural detective work. Its history, interwoven with tales of Empress Josephine's botanical gardens, set the stage for a vibrant exploration of fruit tree care.

The ephemeral beauty of roses introduced the session on the critical techniques of fruit tree pruning. Participants were taken through the essentials of identifying and using the right pruning tools for trees like peaches, apples, and pears, focusing on health and fruit yield. The analogy of roses to fruit trees helped underline the significance of careful pruning in the Rosaceae family. The session was rich with practical demonstrations, showing attendees the art and science behind pruning.

Concluding with an engrossing discussion on global plant breeding practices, the talk highlighted the historical and ongoing exchanges between countries like China and the US. This collaborative spirit in horticulture has yielded stronger, more resilient fruit varieties. The workshop ended on an optimistic note, advocating for innovative practices that adapt old-world wisdom to modern climates, hinting at the potential for successes in challenging conditions like urban heat islands.

Chapters

• 00:00 - 00:30: Introduction to the Demo The chapter begins with a welcome and thankfulness from the speaker for the large audience gathered to listen and learn. Before the demo, the speaker wishes to share some initial thoughts or items. There's an informal interaction where the speaker cuts into a humorous or light-hearted question about the audience's enthusiasm for spraying fungicides. The speaker introduces a specific type of rose, the 'souvenir D Amazon Rose' and queries the audience's familiarity with it.
• 00:30 - 01:30: History of Souvenir D'Amazon Rose The chapter provides a historical overview of the Souvenir D'Amazon Rose, starting from the era of the French Revolution. After the monarchy was overthrown, Emperor Napoleon came into power. His wife, Josephine, emerged as one of the most prominent horticulturists of the 1800s. She was known for collecting numerous plants from around the globe, which she housed in a garden named Malmaison in France. This chapter likely explores the connection between these historical events and the cultivation or significance of the Souvenir D'Amazon Rose.
• 01:30 - 03:00: Revival of the Rose in the U.S. The chapter discusses the history and journey of a particular rose breed that was commemorated in 1843 following the death of a significant individual. This rose has been continuously cultivated in Europe since the 1840s but faded away in the United States in the early 1900s. Eventually, attention is drawn to the efforts of William C. Welch, a professor from A&M, known for his work related to antique roses, presumably involved in the revival of this specific rose in the U.S.
• 03:00 - 05:00: Unique Care Tips for Souvenir D'Amazon Rose The chapter discusses a unique rose called Souvenir D'Amazon that was discovered growing in rural Louisiana. Its significance lies in its long survival, having been in the same location for over a century. The story also touches on the personal background of the person who found the rose, including his familial ties to Louisiana and the personal tragedy of his first wife's death to cancer.
• 05:00 - 06:00: Transition to Pruning Topic The chapter titled 'Transition to Pruning Topic' discusses the cultivation of a particular plant that has been traditionally maintained with minimal care, such as adding manure only a few times a year. The plant, which can grow over 100 in size, was brought back into commerce after being identified from European Gardens. It's now available in several nurseries like the Antique Rose Emporium and does not require any spraying. Typically, it grows as a short bush.
• 06:00 - 13:00: Breeding and Cultivation of Fruit Trees The chapter discusses the cultivation and maintenance of a particular fruit tree species that can grow taller with age and requires minimal pruning, mainly removing dead wood. It features a personal story about a 30-year-old plant that survived a relocation from Fort Worth to Denton in 2005. This plant thrived in its new garden until its companion tree succumbed to Rose Rosette disease. Upon learning of the disease affecting the garden, the narrator, who was in Florida at the time, instructed their father to cut the afflicted plant down to the ground, which he did.
• 13:00 - 20:00: Pruning Tools and Techniques In this chapter, the speaker discusses the use of pruning techniques to manage plant diseases, specifically mentioning how cutting a plant to the ground helped to avoid the spread of Rose Rosette disease. The story is about an old plant that managed to survive for 30 years and now has 100 blooms. The speaker invites others to take stems from the plant for propagation, indicating a practical approach to sharing and growing plants.
• 20:00 - 23:00: When to Prune Fruit Trees The chapter on 'When to Prune Fruit Trees' discusses the propagation of old bourbon roses, particularly the Souvenir de Malazan. It highlights the informal methods used historically, where precise records of breeding were not kept, and rose propagation involved planting hedges and collecting hips without precise techniques. The mention of long stems suggests a focus on the ease of propagation due to the plant's characteristics.
• 23:00 - 34:00: Apple and Peach Tree Pruning The chapter titled 'Apple and Peach Tree Pruning' delves into the historical genetic origins of certain plant varieties, specifically focusing on roses. It explains how the ever-blooming trait of these roses can be traced back to their Chinese ancestry, which was introduced to Europe in the 1700s. These developments marked one of the earliest global hybrids of roses, preceding the exchange of breeding techniques between China and other parts of the world.
• 34:00 - 41:00: Pear and Fig Tree Pruning This chapter discusses the historical context of rose breeding, particularly the cross-breeding that began in the 1700s due to trade routes established by the Roman Empire. It emphasizes the significance of old historic roses, which are a result of these cross-breeding efforts between Roman and Chinese-bred roses. The chapter celebrates the resilience and ability of these historic roses to grow without the need for chemical sprays, highlighting their rarity and worth.
• 41:00 - 45:00: Blackberry Cultivation and Challenges In this chapter, the speaker discusses the challenges of cultivating blackberries, drawing a comparison to the cultivation of roses, specifically hybrid teas like Peace roses. The speaker explains their aversion to using sprays for disease control, despite noticing black spot disease on their Peace roses. The speaker highlights the resilience of a particular type of rose that does not suffer from black spot and actually reacts negatively to being sprayed, emphasizing the need for tailored care approaches in plant cultivation.
• 45:00 - 49:00: Challenges with Avocado and Citrus in Dallas The chapter discusses the cultivation challenges of avocado and citrus plants in Dallas. It emphasizes avoiding the use of commercial fertilizers for these plants, recommending manure, chicken manure, or compost instead as they respond negatively to commercial fertilizers. The speaker also transitions into a discussion about pruning, highlighting that many common fruits like apples, apricots, pears, peaches, and blackberries belong to the Rose family, a fact that may already be known to many readers.
• 49:00 - 53:00: The Importance of Thinning Fruit The chapter discusses the origin and history of certain fruit trees in the United States, including pears, peaches, and apricots, which are originally native to China and Asia. It touches upon the historical trade in the 1700s that brought these plants to Italy, subsequently leading to their cultivation in the United States. The importance of these imported fruits is likened to the trade of roses, hinting at a notable exchange and cultivation history.
• 53:00 - 57:00: Reproduction and Breeding Techniques The chapter discusses the evolution of breeding techniques for peaches, focusing on how these practices have allowed for the cultivation of peaches in diverse climates. Originally, peaches were adapted for colder climates, but modern techniques have reversed this trend, enabling their growth in warmer regions like the Rio Grande Valley. This adaptability is largely due to the efforts of university breeding programs in states like Texas, Louisiana, and Georgia.
• 57:00 - 62:00: Grafting and Growing New Varieties The chapter discusses the state of peach breeding programs, particularly focusing on the impact of Dr. David Bird's retirement. It highlights the discontinuation of the peach breeding program at Texas A&M, which will now focus solely on rose breeding. Despite this, Dr. Bird has left behind a substantial legacy of unreleased peach varieties that could supply new releases for the next 20 years.
• 62:00 - 73:00: Volunteer Pruning Activity The chapter discusses the Volunteer Pruning Activity where the speaker acknowledges the efforts of Florida's peach breeding program. The program is recognized for releasing peach cultivars suitable for the local climate, with around 10 to 15 good cultivars available for the area. The garden in question serves as a research site to test these cultivars and determine the best ones for the region. The speaker is new to the garden and recognizes the unique and special activities conducted there, with a mention of Katarina.
• 73:00 - 77:00: Final Questions and Conclusion The chapter discusses the testing of wildflowers and cholite clay as part of applied research unique to the Dallas area, aiming to produce relevant data for Dallas County and its surroundings. The speaker expresses appreciation for the innovative approach to testing and mentions the topic of pruning shears, suggesting an interest in practical gardening tools and methods. The chapter reflects a focus on localized research and practical gardening advice.

Matthew.Orwat_Fruit.Tree.Pruning_MGSchool_4.3.2024 Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 okay well thank you all for this is a wonderfully huge group thank you all for coming and listening and learning I just wanted to share a few things with you before I do the uh do a little demo but but first of all I wanted to I cut this this morning from the art okay now how many of you love to spray fungicides raise your hand you love anyone okay that's good this Rose is the souvenir D Amazon Rose anyone ever heard of it so
• 00:30 - 01:00 okay so whenever there there was Miss um there was the the French Revolution right have you heard of the French Revolution yeah okay French Revolution and whenever they were overthrown the monarchy was overthrown then Emperor Napoleon came into power right and Emperor Napoleon had a wife named Josephine and her goal was to collect she was the world one of the world's uh most prominent horticulturist of the 1800s and she collected as many plants as she could from all over the world at a garden called mamazon in France all
• 01:00 - 01:30 right and on the occasion of her death they commemorated the garden by breeding this Rose in 1843 and so this Rose has been in continuous cultivation throughout uh Europe since the 1840s but was lost in the United States sometime in the early 1900s and one of the A&M professors have you ever heard of William C Welch the A&M Professor that wrote uh anti antique
• 01:30 - 02:00 roses for the South ever heard of that okay so he wrote the book well he is he has family in Louisiana and his wife's family and his late wife's family actually because he has a a new wife his first wife died of cancer and they found this Rose growing in in rural Louisiana uh growing in the same place for over 100 years at a little little little home a very modest home out in the country okay and they just saw it growing there and it had Blooms of size
• 02:00 - 02:30 now these look big but those balloons were about the size of a dinner plate but uh because the plant was over 100 and the lady had been growing it her grandmother had been growing it and all they ever did was put manure by it a couple times a year and that's all they ever did and so he brought it back into Commerce and figured out by looking at the European Gardens what it was and now it's been in you can buy it several nurseries like the Antique Rose Emporium and and such and it doesn't require any spraying and it's it's a short short bush like this most of the time but it
• 02:30 - 03:00 can get taller with age doesn't really need much pruning except for dead wood and it'll produce um this one has a special story because this plant is 30 years old what I did is is I brought it from Fort Worth my parents moved up to Denton in 2005 we put it in the Denton garden and it flourished until Rose Rosette happened its partner it had two we had two the partner died of Rose Rosette disease and when I heard there was Rose Rosette disease in the garden I was in Florida and I asked my dad to please cut this plant to the ground and he did
• 03:00 - 03:30 and and and was lucky enough never to get the M because we cut it to the he cut it to the ground and then the um the M skipped over it because it didn't have any leaves I guess that's only thing I could figure out and then it came back and never showed a sign of Rose Rosette so it's the plant is about 30 years old and it has about 100 blooms on it right now so I decided to cut a few for the class so if any of you all I know y'all quite a few of youall would know propagation so if you would like to take a stem home to propagate you're more
• 03:30 - 04:00 than welcome to do so most of these are long most of these stems are long so you should be able to take whatever you need for propagation and so I'm just going to leave them here one it's a M SD LM uh Souvenir de Malazan it's it was it's a it's an old old old bourbon Rose and the breeding on it it's kind of sketchy uh because they didn't keep records back in those days they would just plant Hedges of different roses and then collect the hips and they didn't really use any precise techniques in those days
• 04:00 - 04:30 so so it has a lot of history because the genetics tell me that it comes and it's been tested and it kind of comes in come comes in with the t- Roses too and so it has some Chinese ancestry the ever blooming capability of it is was brought in by the Chinese roses from ancient China that were brought over to Europe in the 1700s so it has some of that ancestry in it so it's one of the first world it's one of the first worldwide hybrids of roses really because before that the the Chinese had their breeding and the
• 04:30 - 05:00 European roses had their breeding and there wasn't any Crossing until the 1700s when when there was trade roots and the plants were brought from across both directions from the Roman Empire the roses that were bred during the Roman Empire and then the roses that were bred in China started to cross they were able to cross breed them and this is one of the results so it's one of the old historic roses and there's so few left like this that it's worth celebrating its its ability and it can grow without spraying that's wonderful
• 05:00 - 05:30 thing right Katarina because I love my hybrid teas I grow peace and I you know it's so sad when I when I go in my yard uh I see them all in a line I haven't sprayed this year because I hate spraying myself and they have black spot disease already I'm like oh this one has no black spot none whatsoever and then right over there is pece with this black spot so I'm like uhoh but even when I spray the Peace roses and all I don't spray this one because actually this Rose hates getting sprayed when you spray it the leaves start to fall off so you just don't spray it even if you spray your other Rose Don't Spray it cuz
• 05:30 - 06:00 it hates it it just and it hates commercial fertilizer don't give it any commercial fertilizer just give it manure or chicken manure or compost because it hates that too so it's it's it's interesting plant but it's a beautiful rose anyway I just want to talk about that because segue into pruning here so most of the plants we grow that we're talking about out here are actually the rose family the apples apricots pears peaches and blackberries are all in the Rose family how how many knew that already probably a lot of y'all right so the Ros is is the family
• 06:00 - 06:30 and you know um now we do have native plums in this in this ham in this continent but the pears and the peaches and the apricots are all imported from China okay China and Asia they were brought over to uh the reason why we grow them in the United States is complicated but the main re the main I'll give you like the really short version is the same thing with the Roses the the the tra the plant the trade in the 1700s brought these plants to Italy
• 06:30 - 07:00 and people started breeding them so they could be grown in colder climates and um and then now now today we're reverse breeding them so they can be grown in warmer climates so so you have peaches now that a load Shield that can be grown in the Rio Grande Valley you have uh peaches that can be grown up all the way up in Michigan you know because of the breeding that's gone on at mostly University breeding programs at Texas at Louisiana uh Georgia um and uh what else uh there's a couple others uh some of
• 07:00 - 07:30 our Peach breing programs have fallen by the wayside and with the retirement of Dr David bird there will no longer be a peach breing program at Texas A&M either um uh it'll just be a rose breeding program they're cut not the peach but there's so many varieties he has in the in the we call in the in the in the line to get released there's probably enough to get for 20 years worth of 20 more years worth of new stuff that have just not been released that he has in the in the bank so he some they're going to keep releasing stuff from his breing program but
• 07:30 - 08:00 um but he's done a great job of him and the Florida breeders too in Florida has a peach breeding program have done a great job of releasing peaches that are good for our climate so you could grow uh there's quite a few there's at least 10 or 15 really good cultivars for this area that can be grown and part of the job here is to test test them and see what is the best one for our area so this is more of a research garden and what we're doing is we're doing all kinds of different things here because I'm I'm new to this garden and I know what y'all have been doing here is really unique and special and Katarina
• 08:00 - 08:30 has told me that we're testing a wildflower uh base this year and a cholite clay and I think it's great because we're testing things that haven't been shown on a larger scale before and we're going to see if it works so this is the beauty of having this here as we can do some applied research and see what is really going on for the Dallas area and have specific data that works really well for Dallas County and the surrounding County so I I really am impressed with that so I want to talk about pruning shears yall all know about pruning and you probably
• 08:30 - 09:00 watch my video who watched my video a few of y'all okay thank you um I was kind of nervous on that video but uh because it was I saw my face when I'm talking I was like okay all right but anyway I will show you this here first this is the uh a small Lopper and if you're trying to get interior branches growing in that are small and they're less than the diameter of my f my little finger uh then you use a small Lopper and this is called a lopper because it's
• 09:00 - 09:30 a bypass Lopper do you see why it's called a bypass Lopper yeah because it has a the blade will bypass a a the moving blade will bypass a stationary blade right and then cut and the beauty of this one it's not an El Cheapo it's not a cheap blade so what I don't like cheap pruners okay I don't now expensive you can go all the way to $100 for one of these if you buy Falco well $70 depending where you go but this is like a fiskers one or one of the others but from like Lowe's or Home Depot or something but but the thing is I can I
• 09:30 - 10:00 am able to pop off the blade there's a screw here and if I want to replace the blade I can pop the blade off and replace it okay I still have to go to that same company that made it but still I'm able to do that Corona is another brand uh and so whenever the blade gets bad you can sharpen it but you can also replace the blade and that's the beauty of it this one's a pretty good cutter now this one is a saw that I like to use for bigger branches well let me get to this first this one if you have a little larger
• 10:00 - 10:30 larger branches you can use this Lopper and this can get you want to get the the W the branch into this this it's far back as you can get in here in this and then you can go ahead and slice it and they even make some of these that are ratcheted that have like a ratcheting mechanism so if you don't really have a ton of strength to close it yes that'll ratchet and it will um cut and this is another bypass you don't want the Anvil type this bypass but they make it so you can just cut do this back and forth and
• 10:30 - 11:00 it'll close itself on the branch so but this is the one I use it's a really good one and I can cut bigger branches now if you have a bigger Branch it's even bigger you can you can use this device and this is now you can even use bigger ones than this but this is a Handa and I like it because you can take a branch that's bigger and you can cut first of all this Blade's also replaceable and second of all you can take a cut make a undercut and then cut
• 11:00 - 11:30 it off and leave a nice Branch collar and you can cut back and forth and it works on it cuts on the pull motion back so you push then pull back push pull back push pull back and so that's what this is this is a Corona brand you can there's several Brands out there but it's a nice um pruner and this is the one I really like now they're bigger ones like bigger saws for even bigger branches but hopefully I think this will get to like 90% of what you need to get to and I think this is the most valuable tool you can have
• 11:30 - 12:00 this and well these three are are the essential but this is really the most valuable tool because you can even use smaller branches with this too but it's a very valuable tool and so I suggest if you don't have one and you're growing fruit trees to go ahead and get this it's a pretty good one now um so I want to talk about um pruning and when to prune okay and then I'll open us a Q&A I'll just go a few go over a few things then we're going to do a little activity but uh when to perun the question is how do we know when to
• 12:00 - 12:30 perun in north Texas that's a good question how do we know is that a trick question sounds like a trick question right your class depends it depends on the year depends on so we could have a late Frost we could not have like this year we didn't have a late Frost whoa we didn't have one but we had some cold weather and then there's an apricot tree that's fruiting that we wanted to cut down
• 12:30 - 13:00 and and we pruned like oh last year you said we prune now we could prune it now last year but this year we're we should have pruned back in the 1 of March okay so it's just we didn't know you never know so you have to kind of gauge the climate and see what's going on and it doesn't make it's not good for making plans right because you had to plan these you know you plan classes at least a month ahead maybe more two months three months you you plan things ahead and then you're you're like wow I plan this and the climate's not cooperating
• 13:00 - 13:30 with me so you just have to do the best you can really if you miss a year on pruning a peach tree is it going to be the end of the world absolutely not no it's fine you know you're still going to get fruit if you miss a year of roting a peach tree you just go with it it'll fruit and you pull off the you thin the fruit just like you normally would and you're going to get fruit and if you thin off a little extra then the you know it'll still Focus all the energy into the fruit you leave and it'll have decent sized fruit fruiting is just for the health of the trees so that it can
• 13:30 - 14:00 maximize fruit production and it will not collect a bunch of dead wood in the center that's why we're pruning these trees and another reason so we can reach the fruit because it get too high and we can't reach anything so pruning is essential but not essential every year on fruit trees um if you miss a year by accident that's okay okay but it is essential practice you need to make sure you're doing it most of the time and and from a young age so when you first start a tree if you get it off on a good foot and get it started correctly by when you get your first Peach Tree you like you how many of you like to cut like when
• 14:00 - 14:30 you plant a fruit first Peach Tree how many of you ever cut it down just to a stock of just one stock with no limbs well now that I saw your class right so what you're supposed to do yeah so you have to cut it down because you're wanting it to produce basically at at these angles I guess what is it all the way around is 200 degrees right oh 3 yeah 360 so you're wanting at 9 whatever it is um 110 one two okay 110
• 14:30 - 15:00 330 150 you're basically you're wanting a triangle shape coming out okay from here to here and and that's for a peach tree so you have three three main branches and then as it comes off then it's going to create more branches coming off the three main and they're as you can see they're pretty close to the the the crown and they keep branching off and we'll go out there and talk about it some more but uh it's it produces a a well-rounded peach tree
• 15:00 - 15:30 that's vase shaped and you can get to all the fruit fairly easily and the air flows through the plant and why do you want air flowing through the plant to stop diseases right and insects and then as we do that we're able to to to a healthy tree of course will not attract bores and bores are a big problem with peach trees as they age because they're attracted to um leaking sap and that's and then they they they they get attracted to that and the trees
• 15:30 - 16:00 decline even further so if you can stop the bors on the main trunk if you get a branch with bores it's pretty easy to to cut that out but if you had it bores on the main trunk then you're you're you end up getting rot and you end up losing the tree eventually so uh that's the key and then what about apples what about apples what do we do with those apples or peaches or pears you have to grow That Way in Colin count okay so if it's further north yeah further north you can grow apples better but the reason why now if you plant an
• 16:00 - 16:30 apple that has the chill hours correctly like Anna has perfect and Dorset golden now when I was at the Arboretum two weeks ago I saw Dorset golden uh with tons of fruit on it already it had set fruit so I'm I was like really excited so maybe but but maybe but the thing is it depends on our summer so if we have a summer that's mild then we will have fruit on that apple and if the summer is hot and really hot like last summer then the fruit's never going to get big so the the heat we can still
• 16:30 - 17:00 have the right chill hours on an Apple for here but the heat is what doesn't in even if we have one like Anna or Dorset golden that will set fruit and then it will the the heat will do it in in the the heat will keep them from fruiting properly now or like like if you if I look at the Fuji apple there at the arboro um it was such a warm we had the cold spell but it was warm enough winter that Fuji didn't even Leaf out properly okay so this year the Fuji was barely stting to Leaf out and all the
• 17:00 - 17:30 other trees were full of leaves I was like it's not going to set fruit it's not going a flower so um you know so apples are kind of tough for this area now if you're like I said if you're just up a couple one or two counties up then you might have better luck with apples especially if you're in zone 8A where we used to be right we used to be Zone 8 think we change the zones on us now 8B 8B we sh oh we were when I was a child when I
• 17:30 - 18:00 was a child we were 7B okay really yes when I was a teenager back in the 90s we were 7B and that's what I was taught all the time uh well for I grew up in Fort Worth terret County was 7B and then uh it became um 8A and now um right here is 8B and even in Denton County where I live now I'm south of Denton and I'm still in 8B and then 8A is like whever Denton the city is that is 8A and north of there is 8A
• 18:00 - 18:30 and this kind of a diagonal line like this so uh parts of tan County are at 8A so anyway it just it's just uh it's just a it's proof that we're just a warming area I mean the area is getting warmer and uh part of that there's lots of reasons um and and it's even more focused in on the urban areas even more than just the other areas because we have the we have the urban heat island effect with all the concrete and the houses and such that retain heat so we
• 18:30 - 19:00 end up uh it's good sometimes it's good for the winter time if we wanted to grow like if you wanted to grow certain types of cold hearty Citrus and you had the sheltered the right south facing SL house in the sheltered area you might be able to do it it I'm going to do try to do some experiments with with Katarina and y'all hopefully to try to find some sheltered spots to try some Citrus and see if we can get it get it uh producing without dying off it can't hurt to try right so um but then we talk about you know pears you know you with pears the
• 19:00 - 19:30 main problem is we have these vertical Sprouts that come out like this and we're trying to get it to fruit on a horizontal way because the vertical ones don't produce any they're called water sprouts and they don't produce any fruit so that's challeng we have the pears we're trying to do a central leader or one main and then a bunch of branches that come off of it one or two main and then fig trees are the big the big controversy right because we don't know what to do with figs so we have a specialist now we have a specialist named Tim Hartman who's worked with apricots now he's working with the figs and he's trying to do different pruning
• 19:30 - 20:00 uh techniques to see what's the best way to prune figs for our area because we don't there's a lot of different thoughts on that uh so nobody's right or wrong but right now but the the best way is what we're trying now is we're not trying not to cut them back all the way this year so that we can um get see if they'll fruit uh more produce more fruit by not being cut back as far because when they're cut back all the way my my theory is is that when they're cut back all the way they put all the energy into new stems and the fruit later so maybe we can get earlier fruiting if they're not going to be cut back M keeps dying
• 20:00 - 20:30 back so yeah so so maybe we'll see it produce shorter new growth and then fruit because it does fruit on the new wood but if it doesn't put all its energy into growing short new stem big long stems then it might produce fruit sooner I saw a hand yes yeah so she leaves the bigger stems alone and lets it produce new stems and then they fruits on the new stuff that makes sense so it's so Karina and I talked it over with a with a fruit board here the master Garden of fruit people and we we're talking about that uh in meeting and we dis discussed that about not
• 20:30 - 21:00 puting a back so hard well that's what we do with the grapes somewhat and that's called the technique of that's called poing so if you like yeah okay poing it's a technique is is where you would if you cut it back nearly at the same spot every year it would produce like a head and then it would just produce all the new growth in that spot every year and that's an oldfashioned technique they used on on trees called fruit trees called po d u and they use that in Europe so um uh a lot of things they do in Europe we don't do here and for Fring and we should learn also we
• 21:00 - 21:30 need to learn now there's a lot of new dat data there's a lot of information we don't know about that people do in China because that's where the peaches and stuff originated is in China and uh we don't know about the techniques over there but we're learning because people are communicating for the first time ever uh in researchers so that's in the last 20 years there been a lot of communication so we're learning new techniques too from if you read some of the literature out of there so so yes uhhuh CH peaches and some of the plums
• 21:30 - 22:00 now we have native plums too uh actually there's parts of China they have a very similar climate to here so that's why they uh and to yeah so they and there's varying chill hours just like in the they get colder in the mountains and and warmer in the lower lands and so those trees were brought to Europe and then we've been breeding with those ones from Europe all these years because China was basically the trade routes closed up and they weren't happening for many for over a century and now and now there's more trade going on in the last what 30 40 years so they're they're they're
• 22:00 - 22:30 communicating with a scientist there's still a little uh suspicion with Scientists from the USA and scientists with China but it's getting worse but for the but around like 1990s up until about 2010 we would have a lot more exchange because my old boss Dr burn at A&M he would go to a lot of trips to China to to learn about what they were doing over there and communicate and then bring students back and now in the last say 10 years that's not as prevalent because the US China relations are not as nice so there's not as much exchange going on
• 22:30 - 23:00 but there was for the last 30 years there was a lot of exchange and we've learned a lot about roses and peaches from scientists in China so anyway one good thing about that is we bought they brought varieties from China over here and we've shared our stuff with them and so we can do a lot more breeding and come up with newer things like better things so uh with the Crossing with the new genetic material we're getting everyone's sharing basically it's better to share genetic material between different programs right and then just hold hold hold on to it like that's why
• 23:00 - 23:30 Florida and Texas and other universities share their material and that's why we should do the other countries too because it we can get a better breeding program if we share um for everybody involved okay so with that um we talk about blackberries okay so uh now there's some new Blackberries on the market and we're going to ignore them for a minute because they fruit on all the wood they fruit all the time on the new stuff and every they fruit on the new wood and the old wood and they're they're called uh primac what are they
• 23:30 - 24:00 called the Prima primarchs primar yeah so let's just talk about the the the regular thornless blackberries that were that BR in Arkansas um that they're still thornless so that's nice but they will traditionally fruit on uh what kind of what do they fruit on new new growth or old growth they fruit on one year old growth okay and so what happens after I get a big cane comes from the ground it's a I call it a cane it's a straight stem with branches and after that fruits what
• 24:00 - 24:30 happens to that cane dies to you it dies to the ground and before it dies to the ground you chop it to the ground and you promote the new growth and what happens if you have all this new growth that gets out of hand what do you do in the summer in the fall you put it back a little bit you can and it'll produce more branching and then it produces a little more fruit and then you let it alone in the winter time and then in the summer it'll produce a new batch of fruit and you're always cleaning out the dead growth and the old growth because the old growth will do what for blackberries rot and what happens with
• 24:30 - 25:00 rotting fruit wood what happens diseases there's a bunch of fungal diseases that attack blackberries on the canes like orange one of them is called orange The Unofficial common name of it is orange cane blotch I cannot remember the scientific name off the top of my head I should be able to but I can't but the the the layman's term is orange cane blotch and it's controlled by copper fungicides and such but it is better to just not have it so if you get rid of
• 25:00 - 25:30 the old branches and pull them out of there and get them right after they're done fruiting then the chance of orange cane blotch is a lot less and then there's Leaf spots and then there's some Bettis rot but thankfully when blackberries is fruit in the warmer part of spring and early summer the betrus rot is not as common because it's a little bit later fruiting um like on the grapes you get more betrus rot so there's gray gray gray mold too that can attack just like on strawberries but anyway for the most part we're very lucky in this area to be able to grow blackberries without a lot of problems
• 25:30 - 26:00 um if you're down south like by Houston you'll have a lot more problems than up here because I know in Florida I mean we were we were Zone 8B as well but we're probably going to be 9A soon where I was but um we had a lot more problems with blackberries than that's up here because I grew blackberries up here for years and I never had had a spray okay so I was lucky um so so we have some opportunities like we can grow peaches here we can go blackberries so every every location has its opportunities of what you can grow and what you can't
• 26:00 - 26:30 grow very well so we try to focus on what is the easiest to grow and then we experiment to try to find new things but we don't want to like one times people get get caught up in trying to grow The Impossible thing you know like trying to grow an avocado in Dallas you know that kind of thing and and I get questions like that can I grow avocado especi new people that move here from like somewhere else where it's really cold I don't know where they you know might be California or maybe they're from California where they could grow on Avocado on the coast and they they feel
• 26:30 - 27:00 like the climate here is similar and they're because they haven't experienced too many Winters here yet and they're like I want to grow an avocado and I was like well you got a greenhouse so I know some people that uh that and I they have a greenhouse or they have a garage and they have plants on big pots on Wheels and they will bring them in in the garage or in the greenhouse in the winter and then put them out in the summer and they will grow lots of stuff I mean and that's not that much trouble if if as long you got to SP space for a greenhouse that's not
• 27:00 - 27:30 a huge ton of trouble if if you can do it I mean if you really like finger limes or limes or something you can't buy at the store right um I mean it's worth it right so it it's all about uh with fruit trees is what the effort you put in and what you want to get out of it and um and pring is one of the most essential things to get a good crop now let me talk one more thing and I'm open up to Q&A uh what do you think about thinning uh if I had do you feel bad when you thin fruit yes okay all right
• 27:30 - 28:00 Nature's Bounty is in the best so you say Nature's Bounty is in quantity right but what about quality okay so in this case if you're removing half of the fruit on a heavy year you're doing a fa PL a favor first of all you don't want those limbs to break right second of all if you have a peach or a pear whatever the the the seating area the the pit or the area where the seeds gather is
• 28:00 - 28:30 usually about the same size but the flesh can vary so if you have a fruit that's this big it's going to be mostly seed and have just a little flesh to eat and then you won't get much out of it but if you have one that's this big you'll have the same pit size but you'll have a lot more flesh on the fruit you get a lot more and that the the plant has to have enough energy to put in those fruit so that's why you're thinning to two to three inches apart on on the fruit because you want to have those fruit to get big enough uh on that tree what do you do um well um
• 28:30 - 29:00 compost well they're not well you're going to get rid of no no because you're going to get rid of those fruit when they're small like this you're going to thin them when they're small you go to those when those fruit are in a cluster and you see too many together you're going to get them when they're like this no because they haven't they haven't ripened mature yeah you know the only and the only way you're going to get any okay here's another one most of the the most of the uh when we're growing peach trees these
• 29:00 - 29:30 days they've selected for like really good characteristics and when they did that they had to sacrifice something and what they sacrificed was reproduction so all the peach trees that were grown at Texas A&M were produced through embryo rescue techniques so what we had to do to get them to even germinate like if you just would take a peach pit and try to plant it it would never germinate anymore from the an& M trees or most of the others you would have to actually take a we what we did is we would crack the embryo open crack the pit open and take the embryo out and grow it out on
• 29:30 - 30:00 um on a gel like a a nutrient gel mixture in a tube and then you would take that little embryo looks like an almond cuz that's what it and we would stick it stick it we would we would very carefully under sterile techniques stick that that that embryo in a tube to grow under gel media with all the nutrients and then it would grow out of that little tube and then you transplant it into a liner into the greenhouse and it would grow in a nice little plant and you put out in the field because if you're just trying to plant the pit you're not going to get it to germinate because they're inbred they're very very
• 30:00 - 30:30 heavily inbred lines that Dr Burn's working with so so that's what we had to do to get them to to overcome some genetic barriers to get like the lower chill fruit the the disease resistant trees all that kind of stuff so um uh for in the in the breeding lab well then after that they they do cuting they graft so what what happens after you get a tree of the variety you want then you're going go through trials we're going to plant like 500 different
• 30:30 - 31:00 types in a row and then select like two to graft to try out and then once you graft them then you you reproduce it over and over yes there's probably some people out there that some of the fruit societies might have some knowledge um if you get to any of the our grower groups you know um in the I know that Texas offers some really nice white flesh varieties for this area that might be similar because they've bredle quite a few for for this area that are tolerant of the
• 31:00 - 31:30 heat but I don't know off the if you ask me a rose question like that I could tell you you know what you might check with Foundation Plant Services at UC Davis so Foundation I don't know if they have peaches though but I know they have grapes and Roses I have to look on the look on my phone but Foundation Plant Services at UC Davis they have what's called a germ plasm yeah yeah it is they have they have a collection of different of lots of plants and so basically it's
• 31:30 - 32:00 called germplasm collection where they just have rows and rows of plants they're planting just because they're growing them for for the sake of preserving them from Extinction and um and they're kind of a unique organization um let's see here let me see what they're offering they do uh no they don't have peaches in they do uh sweet potatoes strawberries wine grapes and trees oh trees what are trees tree yeah they have some fruit trees
• 32:00 - 32:30 fruit and nut tree program they have um 300 prunus varieties that's that's in the that's the prunus is the peach genus so that would be a a if you if you contact them they might have something FPS Foundation Plant Services because it's a it's it's it's um it's that means it's manous there's there's only well there's only that means it's sexually dimorphic like humans you know so in this case you have a species that has a
• 32:30 - 33:00 male tree that only produces pollen and a female tree that only produces the ovaries so you must have the pollen transfer from the male tree to the female tree where as a peach tree the peaches have in the CA in this case their bisexual treat so they will have the male and female organs on the same flower so in this case you have the pollen and the ovaries on the same flower and some tree Vari some Peach varieties for example need a pollinator to to come in because the they're self incompatible now we're bre we bred
• 33:00 - 33:30 peaches that are self-fertile so they will produce with their own pollen okay but if you have a pollinator they still produce more so it's better to have different varieties because even the self-rooting ones that produce on their own pollen will produce more fruit if they have a pollen from a different Source a different variety you don't need both to grow one but if you want to produce it okay so the like the gko for example the Geno tree you're mostly going to grow male plants because the female plants produce these cones that are really smelly okay but if and those
• 33:30 - 34:00 are vegetatively propagated by cuting so you do not need to have any seeds to to grow them because what they do is the nursery is propagated by cuting but if you wanted to breed a new goo you'd have to cross them and grow it by seed if you want to breed a new variety just like if I want a clone if I could grow a clone off my finger if I could cut off my finger and grow grow another human being for my finger I can I could I can't but I could I mean and also to streng the Gen makeup yeah strengthen it's recombination yeah so here's a
• 34:00 - 34:30 friend here okay now look at this have you ever seen this before this is neat so if you so I want someone to come I'm going to ask questions here I'm not going to tell answers so uh on this what would I get rid of on this there's okay so the suckers on the bottom why do why am I getting rid of the suckers on the bottom anyone okay good good two good points so first of all they're coming from the root stock and the root stock is a different Peach variety that won't produce good fruit
• 34:30 - 35:00 and it's stealing nutrition from the good growth and so it'll overtake the tree so you need to remove those um okay so we do remove those so what else do we need to remove okay why am I doing this one it's low and it'll interfere with your ability to get into the fruit and it will probably be shaded out by the other branches and not amount to anything anyway so it's just stealing nutrients from our plant that we need what about this black the black ones are
• 35:00 - 35:30 dead right they need to come out yeah because those are dead those yeah so in this case the water sprouts are growing straight up and they're they don't have any fru and wood on them and they're not going to produce okay a water sprout okay this is like a a silly term really it's okay the reason why we call them a water sprout is erroneous they're not just sprouting because there's lots of water but they're just sprouting and they're full of water cuz they're really tender New
• 35:30 - 36:00 Growth but the reason why they're growing is they're just the tree had a late grow spr late in the season and It produced something that we wanted to grow straight up because it saw the sunlight there and it knew it was into the season and it had a lot of extra nutrients so it's just going to grow something straight up right and it's not going to have any fruiting Spurs or fruit production at all and it's probably going to break off because it's at a bad angle and and so we're going to have to cut those off okay so we're going to remove those guys or
• 36:00 - 36:30 gals I'm G Crossing or yeah which one why am I removing that one because it's Crossing it's it's Crossing so it's going to rub and create a a wound that aborts enter in and also because it's
• 36:30 - 37:00 going inward growing Inward and it's so it's reducing the air flow I could I mean you could say cross look at it both ways right half full have this one's also Crossing but this one's obviously the newer one that's invading the space of that older Branch so okay okay there's some long ones there why would I want to remove the long ones cuz it's I'm
• 37:00 - 37:30 got you can't reach it you want to promote New Growth lower New Growth right you don't want it to put all this energy growing [Music] taller and now we want what about that this is because we want it more of a vase shape so we're going to remove that this one
• 37:30 - 38:00 Peach so so you're saying do this one because down not necessarily at a 45 degree angle might get too heavy so you could do a couple of things with that one right you could cut it back so that it's not as heavy because it's not totally pointing down right or uh you could cut it back especially
• 38:00 - 38:30 to this point here right because you do have a branch that is going to start going in a more um in a better direction right so should I take that off or what do you want me to do just leave it it back to this point
• 38:30 - 39:00 what do you think you could go either way on that uh because in in this case you know what I would do is I would take this off now I'm not I'm not as as much of a oh I'm not as much as a cutter I'm not as much I'm more I'm not as much of a cut cut happy person as I would other people but let's see I'll probably take this off and and let this be one more year to produce some fruit for me and then take
• 39:00 - 39:30 it off the next year that's what I would do this one this is in the way and it's too much um I would say not and but I could let this one back just a little bit to reduce its length so I can get to these easier and this will let it produce something so you want to make the fruit kind of ergonom
• 39:30 - 40:00 accessible this one here you could take it off do you like that better this one here okay all right we'll take it all yeah yeah and it also starts to become you know again this is sort of a subjective thing you'll get to see that out here um you will have to stand back every now and then it's like a haircut right you're like oh yeah let cut here and then you can ball so you don't want to do that you have to stand back and see if you've cut enough so all right
• 40:00 - 40:30 let's do one more and then we'll go outside and do it for real so you said yeah so probably we should have also removeal it's as you heard in the presentation that was recorded you know that wood needs to getlight and if but those interior branches are
• 40:30 - 41:00 not going to get that much sunlight and then you end up with you know just a branch that's taking energy but not giving you fruit right do I have I think we should get a volunteer for this one don't you sure let's who would like to volunteer to be the the remover oh fast what you're I hope
• 41:00 - 41:30 [Music] [Applause] take it take it should we get one more so someone else has a chance okay I see some people back here that raise their hand you want to come up we'll do another one you do it a little yeah I can do it fter so the what we did here is this is a Apple so it has a central leader that comes up like this and so Cynthia what
• 41:30 - 42:00 you did is what's your name I'm Marie an Marie okay an Marie so what you did here is you removed a lot of crisscrossing growth you removed a lot of vertical growth because there was a competition for the central leader we had to pick one and this is a better central leader here because it's kind of angling this way and then you removed a bunch of dead growth so you did a pretty good job thank you
• 42:00 - 42:30 onas so let's pretend this is a Let's Pretend This is a pear tree okay it's down yeah all the dead grow kind of tree is this this is a pear tree Criss Crossing what else have we got here we got some water
• 42:30 - 43:00 sprouts and we got some extras
• 43:00 - 43:30 [Music] it's it's it's kind of it's kind of I would I would get rid of it and so the reason why is because you had two competing this is your central leader but you had two competing ones for a side branching yes some more space and that's a narrow angle good job so whenever you have a air air an angle that's less than 45 degrees that's a narrow angle and that's more likely to break in a windstorm that's something to consider too okay whenever you have a narrow
• 43:30 - 44:00 angle that's less than 45 degrees of branches like this and and they're coming together and that's called a crotch angle and if it's too narrow instead of being wide then it can break more likely to break in a windstorm because there's less strength and that's for any tree right do what any tree yeah but what happens with that is they'll start growing together and then and then there'll be the the flo tissue will start merging and creating sap leakage and it'll produce fermentation called slime flux and that'll make it weaker
• 44:00 - 44:30 okay and you'll smell it too because it'll drip down the tree and it'll smell like fermented apple juice um so have you ever heard of flam tissue right so what does what does flam do yeah Flo takes all that all our carbohydrates from the leaves that the sun and the leaves made and takes them down to the root system so the roots can grow right all right so if I have flow and flowing down and it gets trapped and it can't go anywhere what happens to
• 44:30 - 45:00 it it backs up right like a like a toilet right and so what happens to a backup toilet right starts to stink Right comes out starts to ferment because there's no there's no um oxygen so it starts to ferment and so on an apple tree or a pear tree you see this you'll see this ooze coming out that's clear and then it it looks like black because it's not really black it's really clear but it turns black because there's a mold called Sy mold and it loves to grow on any any type of um sugary substance in the environment and
• 45:00 - 45:30 it'll start growing on the Ooze so you'll have they call it slime flux so it's a combination of the Ooze from the plant the fermented sap plus the S mold whenever you have a lot of aphids on a tree that are creating that sticky stuff on the leaves that's sod mold too that black substance that's fungus that grows on the leaves but it's not growing really on the leaves it's growing on the sugar you can wash it off yes you can be reversed you just have to do some Str pruning to get rid of that angle that's creating the the Slime flux
• 45:30 - 46:00 and the fermentation and you'd have to do some strategic pruning to save that tree that's a tree that hadn't been pred correctly from the beginning because they let those angles be too narrow for fruit trees now some of the a lot of the principles overlap but we're talking about specific fruit trees because shade trees are a lot different you know but uh but there's some of these principles about the narrow angles and such that are are true that means they grafted they must have grafted it onto a long stock right or they just or they they proved it they left all the lower branches off right okay so what what
• 46:00 - 46:30 they did with that is you're gonna have to bring that lime tree in every winter time yeah yeah yeah yeah so with the lime tree Citrus is totally different than other fruit trees so pring Citrus is a whole another ball game um basically I'll say one thing about Citrus you leave as much as you can on the tree you don't cut it back very much you leave as much as you can especially when this area where it freezes and it gets cold and you lose stuff due to frost you could you want your sisters to be a bush basically um that has low branches to to Shield the trunk from from frost anyway whole
• 46:30 - 47:00 another ball game on citus but uh you're going to need to protect that that tree that lime because lime are the most cold tender Citrus of all okay oh good okay good come chat with me you can chat with me outside he'll be here also during lunch time so hold your questions