The Blairmont Apple Project

 Greeting on Christmas Eve! Hope everyone has a fine and enjoyable holiday with safe travels for all. With other issues reducing scion purchases the coming year; I will shift most focus onto rootstocks and a greatly reduced scion buying budget. Hopefully 30-40 new types. However talking around I've learned how I did rootstocks last year was not optimum. I had heard it was ok to keep rootstocks for a short while in the moist sawdust. However I feel this may had lead to reduced root development which contributed to last years fireblight attacks.  From here on out I will till an area just prior to rootstock arrival and heel it in the ground immediately.  Then a wise fellow with the Geneva program said to consider summer chip budding as a way to escape a large chunk of our wet weather fireblight pressure. And this makes a lot of sense given our leaf fall often happens in December. Allowing the new chip grafts to heal over and take.  Setting them out un-topped and dormant...

 Aside from maintaining a mother tree of each type; I will have the following in stool beds: 3 Geneva G.214 7 Polish P.2 17 Malling M111 1 Polish P1 5 unlabelled trees.{I have some evidence 3 are G.214} 12 of my M111 count is by rooting stems cut from grafts

 Been having issues with a leg wound healing up and have not gotten to tend the garden very much. In addition the cute little baby goats got out of their pen and decided apple leaves taste good. Spent a couple of days baby goat proofing the fence. And they seem to have been stopped now. Oddly despite already having some chill hour time; many apple trees are putting leaves back on.  Did manage to get most of the P.2 planted for stooling. Just 2 trees remain. Still need to get M111 and G.214{what few are left} in the ground. Talking to a very nice Geneva Professor and he would like me to try G.257 rootstock in our Fire Blight prone hot climate. so maybe in January/February I will get it to try here.  Already have P.14, J-TE-H, Muz Alma, Malus Brevipes, Malus Micromalus and Jadernicka coming to try in rootstock use or breeding. Who knows. G.257 might make that un-needed. Glad to see Treco finally has some P.18 to sell. I hope to add some small caliper of that and P.22 to my ...