Re: Is there a fruit-tree bible?

Dear Alessandra

Thanks so much for your mail. I'm glad the Edagricole books are sound, and I'll definitely try them
out. My Italian is almost fluent and for some things my vocabulary in Italian is better than it is in
English!
I've read excerpts from Virgil, but never the whole opus, and whenever his name comes up I am tempted
- I live in an area he knew quite well, the Apulia of your (husband's?) surname, and I would love to
see the area through such ancient eyes. Columella, however, I know little about.
My apricot is what here in Bari is known as "Spaccatella" though it might be the same thing as a
"Cafona" - I'll have to do some reading. The fruit becomes quite red in patches and tends to split
down the divide between the two halves of the fruit (hence the name Spaccatella). They are so
excruciatingly delicious that since I tasted them I have been unable to eat apricots from any other
tree. Our fruttivendolo asks us to name our price and sell him some every year, but we have not yet
relented! You never know who will taste your fruit, and it's more fun inviting friends round for a
Sunday morning in the tree.
I didn't quite understand what you were saying about pruning - you wrote "In my experience you don't
prune apricot trees here" - did you mean after the initial pruning? My apricot is only now starting to
lose shape after 5 years, so it was probably well-tended in its youth. If apricots are not pruned, do
I take it that they tend to have a short lifespan?
Do you buy Equiseto from a vivaio or do you make the tea from plants of your own? Would you spray now?
Would you burn the twigs now or wait till after fruiting? Sorry to ask so many questions but I feel
unusually timid about this tree!


Anthony

> Dear Anthony,
> can  you read Italian?
> Edagricole publishes, in Italian, many good books on fruit trees (actually
> their books on edible crops -vegetables and fruits- are much better than
> those about ornamental plants, except for the new series of recent
> publication). And you can be quite assured that Italians are normally expert
> "contadini", farmers, and even the most ignorant of them knows his tricks.
> You can trust what they say about furiting trees, normally. We have this
> century old tradition of  agriculture. The very first manual on  the subject
> here was written by Vergilius (Georgica: have you read it? It is incredibly
> interesting!), not to mention Columella. Of course,  when it comes to other
> plants we are absolutely illiterate, and the average contadino simply
> refuses the idea of a plant that is not "useful" (edible). But I would not
> trust foreign books, written for  fruit trees growing in totally different
> conditions and probably for different varieties of plants. I mean, don't
> misunderstand me, thay are useful but then you have to adapt  what they say
> to your particular conditions. If you plant is one of the old, delicious
> varieties grown locally (perhaps Cafona or Reale d'Imola), you can be sure
> they will not be mentioned in Brits or American books.
> In my experience you don't prune apricots trees here, except for the first
> years when you give it a shape, a structure. Here in Rome and in the South
> the traditional shape is the vase: that is, you remove the branches inside
> the plant, letting thus the sun and air reach evenly all the outer branches.
> Her we don't espallier the fruit trees, because they would outgrow the
> frame, unless they are grafted on dwarfing vars portainnesto (what is the
> english word? Is this the scion or what you graft in?). Your plant sounds
> perhaps too tall, but I would avoid pruning it now, because you mention two
> symptoms thay make me suspect a fungus infection: dripping sap and twigs
> dying back.  You should manage to control this disease before pruning. Do
> you spray at all? Have you ever tried a tea of Equisetum arvensis
> (horsetail)? It is a great fungus controller. If I were you, I would remove
> and burn the dying twigs and  disinfect the cut with bordeaux mixture. Then
> I would spray the Equisetum or the Neem tea. In the fall I would paint the
> trunk with a clay and manure paste and  spray some more Equisetum tea. Only
> after, perhaps in January,  I would try to prune at all, and create the
> vase. You would loose that year's crop, perhaps, but winter pruning is far
> better for a plant that is so prone to fungus disease.
> Hope this helps,
>
> Alesandra
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