Wednesday, October 2, 2013

Every orchard has its weak spots..

So, we are not exactly surprised to discover that candycots have some weaker areas to deal with.  We applied potassium fertilizer to the weaker areas of the Candycots because they can easily be identified now. The plan is to apply potassium to all of the trees later so the weak areas will end up with a double dose. We ll proceed to do the same with a systemic nematicide, doubling the application in the weak area.

We had a crew prune the inside portion of the Candycots a few weeks ago. We will be coming back to prune the upper growth. This is a technique we learned from John Driver. The Brittons pruned their Candycots, top and bottom, right after harvest. As a result they have a lot of new shoots to deal with. By leaving the tops on our trees, the pruning did not stimulate new shoots. I hope I am making sense..

Tuesday, October 1, 2013

Mature early, die late.

Think about it.. Trees mature early but die late. Humans mature late but die early.  You can quote me on that.

Look at these trees. Can you believe these are first leaf almond trees at Whitmore?

We are very thankful! This pic doesn't have a frame of reference to appreciate the fact that how fast and how tall they grew in a year.