Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/543863
www.goodfruit.com Good Fruit Grower AUGUST 2015 53 So only New York growers will be growing the apple, and a limited group of packers will be packing and selling it. "We wanted to take advantage of and preserve the long-standing relationships between packers and retailers," Russell said. This makes coordination more diffi cult, since quality standards must be uniform among packers and pricing must be uniform among sellers as well. In the future, Russell said, members of Crunch Time will have to make decisions, and the process needs to be democratic. How many apples can be produced at a profi t? Will existing growers be the only ones allowed to grow them or will more growers be able to buy in, and on what terms? Is being a New York State-only apple a viable idea, or would the market be more stable if other regions also grew the apple? What is the best approach to marketing a high-qual- ity apple in a world with dozens of new, high-quality apples competing for shelf space and consumer loyalty? Second, the challenge Russell said that when the Crunch Time growers were ready to plant, other growers of other varieties were making the same decision to plant. About 80 percent of the 950,000 trees of each variety went in in 2013, 2014, and 2015. While many growers in New York wanted to plant on Geneva rootstocks, they were not available, so growers chose what they could get—Malling 9 and Budagovsky 9. These two rootstocks were both too dwarfing and too precocious for SnapDragon. "SnapDragon flowers profusely and M.9 just adds fuel to that fi re," Russell said. The remaining trees—the 20 percent still not planted—will likely go in next year on G.935. RubyFrost, he said, "grows like an ordinary mid-vigor apple tree and growers can use whatever rootstock they're comfortable with." SnapDragon rules The "new rules" for growing Snap- Dragon, as explained by Robinson, are these: —Rootstock Plant trees on G. 935. "That's better than M.9 or B.9, but even then you have to plant close. Plant more trees per acre and place rows closer together than with other varieties." —Cropping Use of gibberellic acid (GA 4 + 7, ProVide) will inhibit flower bud for- mation. Robinson said growers should encourage their nursery to use it to inhibit fl owering on trees they will plant, and growers should use it to inhibit fl owering in the second leaf. "SnapDragon is a fl owering fool," he said. Robinson acknowledged that his advice on tall-spindle plantings is to get some crop in the second year to start to pay the bills, but that won't work with SnapDragon. "Defruit them completely," he advised. "You can't crop in the second year and get them to grow." Cropping control is also critical in the third year. Aim for no more than fi ve fruit per square centimeter of trunk cross-sec- tional area. Don't go beyond 20 apples per tree in year three. Remove fruit early (before June 15) so as not to divert tree energy to growing fruit when they need to be growing the central leader so they reach the 10-foot wire as early as possible. —Push the trees Use intensive irrigation and fertilization. "If you can't get trees to grow, you won't have apples to sell. You can't get SnapDragon to the 10-foot wire in two years. It's hard to do it in three." —Pruning Single the leader early in June. Remove extra shoots at the terminal and divert the growing effort on the central leader. "You need to grow that leader," he said. "Don't drain the tank and then try to grow the tree." Remove large lower limbs. Renewal pruning is an important part of tall spindle orchard management, and it needs to be accelerated on SnapDragon. Removing the largest bottom branch from slow-growing trees will divert energy to the growing terminal. Russell said that, in managing his trees, "we left all the small shoots alone on our two- and three-year-olds, but cut off everything that looked like a real branch." • ONLINE SnapDragon is a cross of Honeycrisp and a New York advanced selection whose parents were Golden Delicious and a New York cross of Monroe and Melrose. Read more details about the variety as detailed by New York apple breeder Dr. Susan Brown online at bit.ly/GFGsnapdragon "We think in terms of quality…" Orchard-Rite® Wind Machines • www.orchard-rite.com W e are developing a 5-acre vineyard on Red Mountain. Last year, we had an October freeze and a hard winter right behind it, causing a fair amount of winter damage. Looking back, we realized a wind machine would have helped us harden off the wood before winter and also give us the protection we need in the spring. 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