Thread: Fruit, Nut, and Vine Grafting, Tree Propagation, Tree Care

Glad everything is coming back. I checked earlier my fig pops and so far only have roots showing on Adriatic JH.

We had 7-8 inches of snow along with 2 days with 9 degree lows. Unheard of here. The fig trees planted last year and the year before fortunately due to the snow pack didn't die. Right now only 1 fig tree has not shown signs of growing. These photos are for a baseline example of growth this year. All the trees have 1 Jobes tree spike uphill from the tree. Jobe tree spikes last a very long time so I do not expect to be adding any more this year.



I have these trees in order from one end to the other. I didn't post all the frozen fig trees just these in a row for a growth reference.

Hate they died to the ground but glad they didn’t completely die.

Originally Posted by SuperDave336

Hate they died to the ground but glad they didn’t completely die.

Well I have more roots than top they should grow like a weed this year. Life happens, like you said they all could be dead.

I have a new concentrated liquid Fig Tree fertilizer that seems to really boost the Fig tree growth. I'm almost shocked at how well the trees are growing. Adding real thick limbed new growth to boot.



Here is a Amazon link to the product. It's strong, I used a very good measuring cup to mix and am glad I did. You can see the bright green center leaves, that means their growing at a Fast pace.

Amazon.com

I looked around at our Pecan trees and noticed it's time to feed them the Zinc they need to uptake fertilizer. Pecans are tricky. They have to have enough carbohydrates stored before leafing out or they will not produce a single nut. What I mean by tricky is the Leaflets will form well, your tree will green up, and you think "this is going to be the year" but you notice no pecans form on the Terminal Tips of the limbs. This happens because unless your tree is feeling really good about the energy stored it will not flower. The tree will look fine but no flowers. It actually will not push out a single flower unless it has a lot of energy previously stored. By the time the Terminal Buds break the tree has to already have the energy stored. Zinc deficiency = NO NUTS. Pecans need Zinc to even uptake the Fertilizer. I teach people I help to fertilize in November, January, & March. This pre-loads the tree with energy. Now to help the tree uptake the food Zinc is required. Well it can not be applied once it gets hot. Really low 80's is about max or you run the risk of burning the Leaflets. Once the Terminals are 6 inches long 3 applications of Zinc, once weekly will take care of each tree. You spray directly on the new growth.



5 Tablespoons to 15 gallons of water is what I use. I pre-mix in a 5 gallon bucket using a paint mixer on a drill before adding the Zinc solution to the tank.



This is a Harbor Freight tank with a higher pressure pump from Northern Hydraulics. I had to drill the tip of the Wand out a bit larger to keep the pump from cycling. This rig sprays about 25ft into the trees, plenty of reach to supplement the trees's nutrition.



I have a Optima Red Top battery installed under the hood to power the winch so I tapped off of that for a receptacle to plug the pump into when spraying. I remove the tank when it's not needed.



Here are a few example photos of the Terminal length to start your Zinc program. The last photo it's a bit hard to see the terminal length. Off the 3 little trees here we harvested 140 pounds of pecans last year. You must Zinc treat to boost your chances of a good harvest of pecans.

This is what our trees need. My grandfather used to do this but I haven’t done anything on the pecan trees since he passed back in 2020. Love the sprayer setup.

Here 14 miles from the Gulf of America the sun gets hot. Really hot on young fruit tree trunks. Add some storms to blow them on a terrible angle to the sun to boot and you get sun scalded tree trunks. You can keep them alive but production will always be low.

Today on top of all the other tasks was painting the tree trunks of the young and damaged fruit tree trunks. I use a cheap white latex cut 50% with water.



All the small fruit tree trunks on the place here was painted well up to the limbs.



So in the first picture this tree is very old, 7-8 years. It's trunk was damaged from the sun when a hurricane blew all the trees over a bit. You can see the tree's core is exposed. It is a Elberta Queen Peach and this year I'm propagating it using Air Layering. Wonderful Peaches but you can't grow many. Time to fix that. The second tree is a Zaigler Katy Apricot. I have killed numerous Apricot trees trying to find one that can stand up to the heat & humidity at the same time. As you can see in the picture I didn't paint the trunk, sprayed the tree with Dormant Oil Spray and the sun scalded it during winter. This is another I'm Air Layering to get a undamaged tree or 2 for planting elsewhere. You have to protect even Citrus trees here, I have one I grafted or Topworked would be a better description. The exposed bark will be exposed for a while so it was painted today too.