Ed Johnson

I don't know the answer but I'd suggest you look into CRMPI and Elliot Coleman's work

Thanks guys.
I've done some hard pruning and will hold on to the trees for another year or two and see how it goes. I'll be amending the soil and establishing irrigation, so that may help the trees fight off disease.

Thanks guys

I've had that thought but that means pretty close to the ground...

I bought a house with a large back yard last year and I'm about to break ground on a orchard/food forest. My question is, do I keep the old crab apple and pear? The pear which is around a foot in diameter and 30ft tall was covered in rust last year, has significant woodpeaker damage on the central trunk and seems to have brown jelly fungus growing from some branches. It did produce a huge crop last year. Please see the pics below

The crab is a multi-stem hodgepodge with sooty mold fungus, aphid issues, some weird lumps and ooze. Didn't get any fruit last year so I can't comment on that aspect. Pics posted here Apple tree pics

I see a few options:
1) TLC and hope
2) Level one or both - If I cut them down, I can't burn them due to bylaws, shouldn't compost I'm guessing ... I'm not sure how to best dispose of them. Thoughts on that?
3) Major renovation with potential topworking.

I'd really like to hear opinions on this as I'm breaking ground in weeks and will be putting in 100+ trees and shrubs in around these existing trees.

Thank you

Hey,

Need some advice with an older crab apple that hasn't been cared for in a long time, by the looks of it.

The tree is covered in what I thought was scale but seems to be something else now that I have a hi-res pic. I did see major aphid issues last summer. Thoughts?

There's clear, and orange ooze coming out of random spots in the bark. Could be cytospora or borer holes, not sure at all.

A number of the crotches have what looks like black soot lumps on them. Looks like sooty mold fungus, the aphids probably had a major contributor to this problem.

Thanks guys

I'm looking to install a permaculture orchard in the vein of Stephan's grocery store concept and ideally I'm looking for charts that have relative harvest times of fruit trees, berries and their cultivars. Anything in that direction is helpful. I'm in Southern Ontario, Canada.

I'm willing to collate the info and repost for the community to use.

Thanks all.

Hey,

Does anyone have spreadsheets they can share? I need to put together a business plan so I can qualify for a mortgage on land.

Chicken on pasture is especially relevant.

Check out the Farm Credit Canada and the "Young Farmer Loan". Terms are excellent (comparatively), need a business and some down. It's a whole lot better than private financing.

I'm working on approval myself.