Landrace Trees

Antonio Hache wrote:So yes, it was finally easy finding the book here in Spain. I just started it, but jumped first to the trees section.

I find that landrace for trees is similar to the “STUN” method of Mark Shepard or the mass selection of Luther Burbank. My question about your trees, Joseph, is : how do you set up the propagation? Do you direct seed the trees on the final location, do you start them on a nursery bed and place them later?

I grow trees however I can get them to grow. I scrounge volunteer seedlings from people's yards. I allow them to grow where they self planted. I make nursery beds. I plant seeds in pots. I transplant seedlings after a few weeks, or a few years. I graft from far away gardens. I sell seedlings to strangers at the farmer's market. I gift trees to family and friends. Perhaps they will get established, and I can beg for seeds or cuttings a decade later when they start fruiting. I scatter seeds into suitable habitats in the wildlands, and forget about them.

160 years ago, when our irrigation ditches were built, the workers, buried their apple cores. The ditches are lined with apple trees all these years later.

We similarly have feral apples and plums around here that are reliable places in their season to find bears happily harvesting them, likely spreading the seeds later. This is the preferred propagation method for many native plants in bears’ habitat. I have also acquired hundreds of seedlings from apple mash i spread on poor soil and cover with woodchips. The strongest will be left to grow with minimal support, the rest will be transplanted or culled.

So, basically, you do everything!

On my property, I started the brazilian technique of “muvuca” (seed cocktails) for direct seeding. Just a bunch of different kinds of seeds on the same spot and see what grows. But I want also mass selection of different species, so I also started one aire prune bed and one “hugel pot”. I wanted to start a nursery bed, but the chosen place was used at the moment by my collaborator Toni.

Somehow I feel that the better option is direct seeding on place. But if I direct seed 1000 apple seeds , then I will have to move them anyway. But I feel that I should move them the minimum possible