RE: Growing appples in a Mediterranean Climate

My condolences on the aloe barberae, it's hard to lose old friends. Sounds like your chill situation is well in hand this year, but since my little plot in Los Angeles has the same issues (with a lot less chance of a "good" chill year) I did some googling - there's an interesting discussion on the GardenWeb that tossed up two items of interest:

"But realize that mere hours below 45 are not the same as chill units. From 32 to around 45 degrees, one chill unit is collected per clock hour. As the temperature rises above 45, chill is still accumulating, but more slowly as the temperature rises. So at 50 degrees, for example, it may take 2 or 3 hours to accumulate a unit of chilling. Somewhere around 55 (for peaches, anyway; it may vary by a couple degrees for other species), the accumulation of chilling stops. But if the temperature goes above around 65, the "chill clock" starts to run backwards, and chill units are lost. As anyone who lives in this part of Florida knows, we get many days above 65 degrees, throughout the winter. So we might collect some chill at night, and lose much of it the following day. It works rather like a savings account. If you just kept making deposits, you would reach your goal in a certain amount of time. BUT, if you make some withdrawals during that same time period (the warm days), it tak!
 es longer to reach the goal, since your balance is not growing as you had hoped. There are computer algorithms for calculating actual chill accumulation, which integrate moment-by-moment temperature over time, but I don't know off the top of my head where you could access that information online." - Malcolm Manners, John and Ruth Tyndall Professor of Citrus Studies at Florida Southern College, in Lakeland, Florida.

"Intrestingly, and slightly sideways to this conversation, the people at Echo do claim that the fruit set has less to do with chill hours than most people think. Their claim is that in apples, at least, it is about defoliation, and that they force apples to fruit by defoliating them." - Amber Sky, following up on a report that a low-chill area in Echo, Florida grows apples commercially.

Has anyone tried the defoliation technique?  Any luck?

Carol

-----Original Message-----
From: G Dath [g*@otenet.gr]
Sent: Thursday, February 12, 2004 11:13 PM
To: medit-plants@ucdavis.edu
Subject: SV: Growing appples in a Mediterranean Climate


Roger, thanks a lot for your reply and good advice. I knew about pollination, and two of the varieties that I planted are "self-fertile" ie not in need of another variety to produce fruit. Bees are abundant here so that should be no problem. The pear graftings that I made three years ago have fruited and look just fine. I  have grafted both appples and pears on the wild pear tee because it grows naturally here. Nor should the necessary chilling be a problem, at least not this year!! --this morning we had -3C and a very strong wind. I wonder what winter chill the apples need, freezing? Or just cold? 

For central and northern Greece this unexpected cold must be a disaster: Athens reported -12C this morning and snow, the schools are closed... Even down here a lot of things froze in the garden despite protection... I am most sorry about an aloe barberae that has grown so well... good for the apple cuttings though....

The Greeks do indeed grow apples and some varities are delicious, especially one grown in the mountains around the town of Tripolis, not far from here. I have ordered two trees from the local nursery and hope they'll thrive down here too. If anyone wants to exchange scion wood, please contact me privately. I have a few Greek and Swedish cuttings growing (next year hopefully also a few English)
Thanks again!
Best,
Gunnar
Other Mailing lists | Author Index | Date Index | Subject Index | Thread Index