Category: Farm Practicum

Kathryn Allen

3/12/18

SOS Food and Agriculture

Asexual Perennial Propagation

Asexual propagation of perennial plants occurs by either taking a cutting or dividing a plant’s crown. This action creates a clone of the mother plant, allowing the grower to multiply the crop as much as they need to. In order to propagate through a cutting, you need to cut one of the mother plant’s lateral meristem. Then, you cut off the apical bud and cut a straight line two buds down just below a bud. Dip the newly cut piece into willow tea and stick the stem in vermiculite and water. Leave one leaf so that the plant may photosynthesize. In order to propagate through crown division, you quite literally pull off part of the plant at the crown and stick it in dirt.

This form of perennial propagation provides an easy way to get more plants for free. It is particularly useful in cases of rare or expensive breeds and can be helpful if there is one that contains properties that prove to be beneficial to your purposes. This practice creates a very predictable crop which can be extremely useful to crop planning and marketing.

There are, however, some setbacks to this form of propagating. For one, it is a pretty time consuming process when you factor in the high mortality rate. It’s hard to predict just how many plants that your efforts are going to yield because its more difficult to know which ones are going to take.

Katie Allen

2/13/18

SOS Food and Agriculture

Week 6: Raspberries

Because of the different varieties of raspberries, there is a great opportunity for farmers to extend their seasons by choosing to grow more than one. This is best exhibited through “summer bearing” and “fall bearing” varieties. Aside, from simply choosing to grow the different varieties of raspberries, you must also employ different training and pruning strategies in order to ensure that your berry season is as long and productive as possible. This can be achieved by ensuring that summer-bearing plants are pruned in a way that allows for as much yield as possible during the summer and by ensuring that fall-bearing plants are pruned in a way that reserves the plant’s energy for a large late summer/early fall crop.

For crops that fruit during early/late summer, it is best to remove floricanes as soon after harvest as possible. This is because they will not fruit again and will instead block light from the growing primocanes and will sap precious energy from the plant. Primocanes should be cut with a heading cut when they are 4 inches over the desired height in order to stiffen the cane and allow for more support. This causes the auxin in the plant to flow downward and encourage lateral growth (at least I think that’s what happens), which leads to more fruit bearing.

Fall-bearing raspberries can bear fruit in both late spring/early summer and late summer/early fall. Floricanes left in place for a second year will bear fruit at the bottom of the plant during the following season. If you wish to focus the plant’s energy on late summer/early fall production, it is best to focus on the primocanes. Allow them to grow during the summer and then harvest the fruit produced at the top of the plant. After harvest, remove the fruited part of the plant to prevent early summer fruiting. This allows for a larger primocane crop later in the season.

For both varieties, it is helpful to trellis the plants in order to protect from wind damage as well as to make harvest much easier. This is particularly helpful in the case of fall-bearing berries grown for primocane crops as their canes will be less sturdy and more susceptible to wind. For these plants, a temporary trellis is best as they are cut back frequently. This way, the trellis can be removed after fall harvest in order to cut back the planting and allow for new growth for the next season.

Carefully planning the care of these two varieties can extend a raspberries season from early summer to late fall. This is crucial for a market farmer as berries are often a hit at the market and can be a huge source of income. Even more specifically, varieties that are used in jam-making are even more helpful for creating a season that is as long as possible.

Katie Allen

SOS Food and Agriculture

1/30/18

Kiwifruit Pruning

Pruning kiwifruit is essential to consistent production because it helps to create a strong structure that will sustain the plant for years. In the same way that we covered with apple trees last week, kiwifruit need a structure that allows for the sun to reach as much of the plant as possible and for airflow to move through the branches to prevent moisture build up and the risk of fungal diseases. Because the kiwifruit is a vine, pruning is especially important for training the plant to stand in a way that can support as much fruit as possible.

Because it is the end of January, we will be practicing dormant pruning on the kiwifruit on the farm. We do this in order to beat the sap flow which could potentially weaken the vines.

Since most of the fruit on the plant is produced from 1 year-old canes, it is helpful to remove older shoots as they often do not produce much fruit. In order to remove the older wood and keep the 1 year-old cane, make a cut at a 45 degree angle directly after the replacement shoot (the cane closest to the cordon). This should remove shoots from previous growing years and allow for maximum productivity.

 

It is important to note that male and female vines should be approached differently while pruning. Because we have two females, the majority of our pruning will involve removing 70% of the plants growth in the last year. The goal of this is to just leave the 1 year-old growth that will fruit more productively. It is also important to ensure that none of the shoots are crossing or tangled with one another.

For the male vine, our goal will be to ensure that it produces as many flowers as possible for pollination. Because of this, dormant pruning is much lighter on male kiwifruit and mostly focuses on removing crossing shoots and keeping the plant manageable.

1/22/18

SoS Food & Agriculture

Kathryn Allen

Apple Pruning

The pruning of apple trees is necessary not only for aesthetic purpose, but more importantly to maintain the productivity of the plant. Apple trees produce in cycles and often take “breaks” in productivity after exerting excessive amounts of energy in fruit production for the year before. Similarly, tree that yields an abnormally large amount will produce fruit that is of lower quality due to the amount of energy expended by the tree. In this way, pruning lowers the yield of a tree but increases the quality and frequency at which it produces. Because of this, it is important to preserve the tree’s energy in order to maintain a high fruit yield for each growing season.

When deciding whether or not to remove a certain branch, it is important to remember to remove no more than 30% of the tree’s entire mass in one year of pruning. The most important things to look out for are “watersprouts” and “suckers.” These branches make up for little of the tree’s actual mass however, they do waste the tree’s energy for agricultural purposes as they often do not produce any fruit. Watersprouts are branches that grow vertically from older branches or the trunk of the tree. Because of their position and the length of time it takes to develop, it is best to remove as many as possible. Suckers are similar, but instead of growing from the trunk or branches, they grow from the roots of the tree and appear from the ground next to the trunk.

It is also important to get rid of branches that cross over each other or that appear to weak to hold fruit. Keeping in mind an “open bowl shape”, reducing the amount of clutter on a tree maximizes the ability of the sun to make its way through the tree and allows for more air flow.

When making cuts, one should always make sure that there is no allowance for water to pool and create rot. To avoid this, cut the branch at a 45 degree angle to encourage water to slide off rather than sit. This is most important when pruning vertical branches.