Re: SV: Growing appples in a Mediterranean Climate

Gunnar Dath, Aetos wrote:
> Dear Moira, thanks for your interesting mail. It seems our climates
> are roughly similar. However, this winter is exceptional: today is
> the third day of quite heavy frost (-5C or so), it is even below
> freezing now, at 11 am... so many plants are dead..;=(( at least half
> of my aloes look completely glassy and beyond recovery... I MUST try
> too look at it philosophically: what survives now is best suited to
> this climate, this is a natural selection process that is very good!!
> After March 10 we rarely if ever get any frost.

I do sympathise, these occasional killer frosts are hard to bear, as
there is almost nothing one can do against them. When we had a our last
bad one several years ago I had a good collection of potted Vireya
Rhododendrons which lived under a sheltering roof, perfectly adequate
for our usual winters. Of the collection of eight different cultivars
only one survived totally uninjured and one more grew again from the
root, but all the rest were stone dead, including two which were real
favourites. Several tender Fuchsias in the same site were also cut to
the roots, but these are defintely tougher and all eventually resprouted.

>
> As to the apple (and pear) question, I started out here grafting
> Swedish varities two years ago. They have grown well, but will need
> another year or so before the set fruit, if indeed they ever do.
> However one tree actually had a few flowers (that didn't get
> fertilized of course as only this varitety flowered). I hope this
> means that at least this this one will also set fruit if there is a
> pollinator around. I was so ignorant that I din't even think about
> pollinators when I grafted my first trees.
>
> Are your trees grafted? If so do you know what tree is used? I
> grafted all mine on wild pears as we have so many. They do seem to be
> rather short-lived, however and I will think about getting a
> replacement.

Yes all are grafted commercial trees on various types of dwarfing stock.
When we first arrived in NZ around fifty years ago the typical suburban
garden was 0.25 acre (approx 0.1 hectare) and the country was sometimes
described as the "quarter acre paradise" where everybody had plenty of
room around them and the space to raise most of their own fruit and
vegetables, which in those more leisurely days many took advantage of.
Now of course with rising population and very different lifestyles most
of these big properties have been subdivided and there is now no room for the huge apple and pear trees with which they were originally planted.

In any case most home owners have found that the large trees are a pain to manage. As they approach full size the pruning and spraying become a
a nighmare and in the case of the pear at least picking from the upper part of the tree (which always tends to have the best fruit) becomes impossible and many fruits simply land on the ground with a splat. Some people have endeavoured (with varying success) to control these pears (grafted on pear stocks) by cutting them back to a stump and regrowing them with severe controlling pruning, but much more often they have been taken out and replaced with the more approprite dwarfed varieties. As far as I know only one stock is used for these and that is the quince (Cyydonia oblonga). This suits most varieties of pear, though a few are not very compatible and eventually stop growing, producing only masses of spurs but no new shoots. I gather this has been corrected in recent years by a complicated grafting system which interpolates a piece of another bridging stem between the quince and the pear scion, but I fear I don't have any further infomation about this. I did have one pear from the early days which showed this problem and that was the cultivar variously known as Williams Bon Chretien or Bartlett. Eventually it became so poor we took it out and as we were not very keen on it didn't bother to replace it. Dwarfing in the case of the quince-grafted pears is perhaps a relative term as they will I think still grow at least 5-6 metres high if not controlled by regular pruning. However this is a good deal more manageable than the old day's possibly 10 metres. I keep mine down to below 2.5m and they seem pretty happy judging by the way they fruit.

With Apples almost all the old huge trees were grafted on a variety called Northern spy (definitely a type of apple, I have never heard of grafting apple wood on to pears). Northern Spy does produce a very strong long-lived tree, but apart from being much too big for the current taste it is also I believe very slow to start fruiting. It hasn't been used here for many years.

Almost all commercial trees here now, as far as I know, are grafted not on named varities but on specialized stocks grown for just that purpose. Many of the older ones used here are English stocks from their East Malling and Merton research stations. They seem to have specialzed in really effective dwarfing and when I first bough trees nearly fity years ago I originally selected those on the most drastic version, which would give a tiny tree not much above my head. This for several cultivars proved a mistake, as they were not sufficiently compatible with the very curtailed root system and never really grew. As this seems to have been a general experience I think they were discontinued in later years in favour of a less restricting version. Only two if my original trees survive. One is a Gravenstein, which in its full-sized version is a very large tree indeed. The dwarf stock has in its case actually produced quite a bonny tree, which with difficuty can be kept to about 2.5m. There most be some incompatibilty however between the stock and scion as there is now a huge bump around the join. Unlike the pears though this doesn't seem to prevent normal shoot growth. The second tree is a rarity, a very early variety called Welcome which ripens shortly after midsummer. The fruit are quite small and were very popular in days gone by with out children and in more recent year our grandkids.

One thing which is absolutely essential though with trees on this particular stock is to keep them staked all their lives. This is not surprising as the root system is little bigger than the average vigorous rose.

We learnt this the hard way not so long ago. While the Gravenstein has always been staked to make sure it stays upright we had not been so merticulous with Welcome, which in the space of forty years or so has gradually grown to a little over 2 metres and become quite a substantial well-filled miniature tree. It still had a stake, but was no longer fastened to it. The tree is just under our bedroom window and one morning when it was loaded with nearly ripe apples I looked out to see the entire tree lying flat! When we inspected the damage it simply seemed to have keeled over from being top heavy and there was no sign of broken roots or even the roots pulling out of the ground. So we relieved the tree of its crop, raised it once more to the vertical and applied appropriate stays to keep it there. That was about three weeks ago and though there was no rain for several days the ground was thoughly moist and there was no sign of wilting, so we presume it has come through the ordeal safely. As a matter of fact, after this last 24 hours I don't see it needing watering for a very long time. Our summer has gone thoroughly sour on us all of a sudden and in the last 24 hours has dumped 249 mm on us. NOT what one anticipates in high summer, and possibly a record for this area for any time of year. It hasn't stopped raining yet either by midday !

Sorry for the digression, but to go back to the stocks, I think the semi-dwarf version, or a very similar one, is still in use and does produce a handy-sized tree for a suburban setting, as my later purchases confirm. I would think it quite possible you could obtain the odd commercial variety even in Greece on some similar stock, as I am sure they are generally well known at least in _northern_ Europe.. I also have one double-worked tree on a larger but not unmanageably huge stock and this can be kept by pruning to a handy size to be picked from our step ladder (a survival from my old pruning business!). I presume this is the standard stock for those still demanding a bigger tree.

I am sorry I can't be more specific, but I think one really needs to be careful in chosing a stock for home grafting I do wonder how you will get on with the wild pear stock, especially for the apples.. Either it might not be really a good match or it might be _too_ good in providing a large root system and give you vigorous growth hard to control. it could also I suppose possibly delay fruiting.

I doubt you will be able to get a proper stock for your grafting, unless you know someone producing commercial trees, but I would suggest you at least try to graft your apple varities on apple stock, perhaps selecting a relatively small-growing tree for your base. I have an idea that though it is certainly not commonly done, apple stock plants are regularly reproduced by _planting cuttings_, so cuttings might be someting you could try to get suitable stocks for your experiments.

I am hopeful that someone on the list with more knowledge of this aspect can take this further for you if they happen to notice my posting.
>
> One thing is rather boring here in Greece: the nurseries are not very
> well supplied and there seem to be very little interest in new and
> unusual things. I will keep looking for suitable fruit trees but
> realize I will probably have to order form abroad, and this is a
> little bit difficult.

This seems to be a general complaint from northerners settling in mediterranean countries. The local ideas of "gardening" seem too limited for our taste.
>
> Your pear tree seems to thrive at your place, and I will try one
> here. I also have four "Greek" varieties, quite good ones that fruit
> heavily but are often attacked by a fly. Guess I will have to spray
> them with an organic spray (or something very light that is available
> here like pyrethrum).

I think you would do well to try and discover what the"fly" is before yoy spray or your efforts could be quite useless. Two possible pets spring to my mind. One is indeed a fly, Apple maggot (which also attacks pears and plums). This is common in England but not known here (thank goodness), and the other is Codling moth, which we DO suffer and seems to have spread through the world wherever apples and pears have been introduced. The main way you could tell which you have is by observing their behavour. I learnt to differentiate their attack as a student in England, but though there ARE distinct differences I am not sure I any longer remenber them, but I am sure I could find out if necessary or someone else might come up with the necessary information.
>
> Again thanks and have a fine week-end!

Well we did at least have a fine saturday!!

Moira

--
Tony & Moira Ryan,
Wainuiomata, North Island, NZ.     Pictures of our garden at:-
http://mywebpages.comcast.net/cherie1/Garden/TonyandMoira/index.htm
NEW PICTURES ADDED 4/Feb/2004

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