Rick, you have a good stock and I don't have anything to offer you at present.....I help tend a small grove of old trees here in Seattle (www.pipersorchard.org) At our harvest festival this past fall, we had a descendant of Jesse Hiatt speak. Jesse was the discoverer of the Hawkeye, the original red delicious, and of great interest to the state of Washington. Jesse's story is a great one and is repeated on the back page of the January 2011 Good Fruit Grower as well.
I see you have Hawkeye Delicious and are not that far (by my standards) from Peru, Iowa where the tree was discovered. Here is my question. I have called back to Iowa and not received a definitive answer. Is the original Hawkeye apple tree still alive? I have heard that it died recently but nothing conclusive from anyone in Iowa.
Thanks for your business....it's a great idea.

No, the original tree is not there anymore. There was a tree in its place a couple years ago that may have been 10 years old at the time. From what I understand it was a graft from the original. I take the kiddos up through that area a few times a year. I've never talked with a relative of his, but would love to. The Hawkeye is far superior to today's Red Delicious strains. Our 12 year old standard tree is 20' tall and bears massive crops every year.

Rick,

There is an old tree in the fence line of my property that was probably planted when my house was built in 1958. It is a double graft, though it took me a few years to figure that out. The tree was in terrible shape when we bought the property and I tried to do some recovery pruning to bring it back. All the apples are green-yellow, and it took a couple years for me to notice that some were some kind of early cooking apple that quickly went mealy after ripening while the others eventually ripened to a much larger yellow apple. I've only had a very few of the fully ripened larger fruit because I foolishly thought the immature apples were the same as the cooking apples and picked them.

Last year the early, cooking apple side of the tree died. The other side is still hanging in there....at least it produced a few small fruit last year...but it may not make it much longer. Every year it is hit hard by CAR, but it always makes some fruit, and the one year I left some on the tree to fully ripen the apples were very good. The fruit is not as large as a Yellow Delicious, and to me has a much stronger flavor. I think it is rather more round than typical supermarket YD, too. Given the probably age of the tree, I was thinking it might be Grimes Golden, but then I've never had a GG.

Were multiple grafted trees common in the 50's? I can't swear it is from 1958, but given the size of the fence row trees around it and the history of the property, it seems likely.

Anyway, if you want scion wood from it I would be happy to send it, if you can give me idiot proof instructions.

Chuck

Chuck60, at one point I had an apple tree that had to be close to 100 years old and it was multi-grafted. I know that one branch was "Sweet Punkin". I don't know what else was on the tree. Sweet Punkin was the only one the seller could remember the name of.

I don't remember seeing any multi-grafted trees in the catalogs and literature of the time but top-grafting was popular and if a tree was partially top-grafted the end result would be the same. It sure sounds like you are describing Grimes Golden to me.

I hope it is Grimes Golden, but whatever it is tastes pretty good, and the fact that the tree produces fruit even though it is hit pretty hard by CAR every year appeals to me. In another thread I talk about deer damaged trees and how I plan to try grafting to the trunks below the damage. I figure I'll try to graft some wood from this old tree to one of those trunks. There are lots of water sprouts on the tree. Do they make good scion wood? If I try bark grafts, about when should I try it here in the middle of Missouri? I figure our weather is probably pretty similar to yours in Kansas, Rick. Should I just cut the scion wood the same day I do the grafts, or is there some desirable pre-graft treatment?

Chuck

We have so much diversity in our orchard that I always gather scion wood and store it at 34 degrees (all wrapped in damp paper towels inside large plastic bags) from early winter on. This gives me time plan out the season and fill orders for custom apple and pear benchgrafts. I've done it both ways - both with good results. Our climates are similar so I would think you'd be fine either way. All of my grafting is done by the beginning of April. If its your first time with bark grafts there's some excellent instructional videos on youtube. I use watersprouts for grafting as long as the buds are spaced pretty closely. I've had bad results from branches that grew 5 feet last year and the buds are 6"+ apart. Hope that helps, Rick Godsil, Wagon Wheel Orchard

Rick,

Thanks. If and when the foot of snow we have melts I'll be out looking for good scion wood. I should be able to find some good stuff on the old tree. Even though it is in decline, there's a lot of it.

It looks as if I'll have Wickson crab and Jonafree trunks to graft to, but these were both grafted trees, probably on M111, so I'll end up with what I think are called "interstems" or something. Might be interesting to see what results.

Chuck

Will you have any Wickson scion wood left over? I always run out of Wickson in our bench graft orders. If you'd want to trade give me a shout. I've got hundreds of varieties in our preservation orchard. Check out the blog link on the first post of this string for my list. Thanks, Rick

Rick,

If that last was addressed to me, I should clarify that the reason I have a Wickson trunk to graft to is that a @#$%^ deer rubbed several of my trees and completely girdled my three year old Wickson as well as a Jonafree. I was hoping the wood above the rub was still viable, but it doesn't look good. I have ordered another Wickson from Vintage Virginia Apples, and since they will probably trim the tree before shipping it I asked if they could send me the clippings, or if they could provide other Wickson scion wood that I could graft to the rubbed trunk. So far no reply. I suppose even if they sent me the clippings from the new tree it might be a bit late to do the grafting. So, since I also have an old tree which might be Grimes Golden, I will probably use that as a source for scion wood to graft to both the Wickson stump and the Jonafree stump.

Chuck

Gotcha - sorry to hear the top didn't have any good wood left. I've had the same problem out here. I wonder why Wickson got so popular over the past couple of years. Its one of the most requested bench grafts that I do each spring. Hopefully its a sign that real "cider" is making a comeback in the US.

Rick,

That's why I bought my Wickson. I've brewed beer and made wine for years, and I've made hard cider from bought juice. SWMBO says I can get myself a cider press when my trees start producing enough fruit to make it worthwhile. Wickson is supposed to give some pretty high brix fruit. Better things for better living through biochemistry!

Chuck

We bought an antique lard press years ago (cleaned it up really good) and used it for pressing small batches (5 to 10 gallons). It resembles a table top soft fruit press in form and function. It worked great and cost somewhere in the $50 range. My first batch I let the natural yeasts take over and it turned out very well. Of course I thought it was fantastic but it may have just rated as a low grade scrumpy overseas.

Hi
My 50 year old apple tree has died on one side due to a 10 year drought. As has a number of other trees that we could not save.
Is it possible to cut off the dead side of the tree and give the other side of the tree a severs prune?
Will this save this once lovely tree or do we need to remove it completely?

Cut off the dead part of the tree and any parts with sagging vigor and regrow the tree if it's willing. It can be born again if it still has some vigor.

If you can stand the site of arborist wood chips you could have a load dumped near the tree and spread them out. This would help it withstand future drought.