One Thousand Questions in California Agriculture Answered

by Edward J. Wickson

The occurrence of stick-tights is generally due to lack of moisture and thrifty growth, although some trees may be weak from some other cause and therefore deficient in sap-flow, which manifests itself in that way. Single nuts may also fall into that condition of malnutrition. We know no remedy except to keep the trees in good thrift by cultivation or by the use of irrigation if necessary.

Shy-bearing Apricots.

Why do my apricot trees not bring fruit? They seem healthy and are vigorous-looking trees. Five large trees have not borne 100 pounds of fruit in three years. The trees are not over six years old.

You may have a shy-bearing kind of apricot, of which there are many, or the trees may have grown too fast to hold the fruit, or the frost or north wind may have blasted the bloom. Stop winter pruning, and summer prune to prevent excessive growth; reduce irrigation; try to convince the apricot that it is not a "green bay tree" and see what will happen.

Pruning Apricots.

In pruning apricots, if there should be a hollow center of a big branch in center of a seven-year-old tree, should it be cut out with summer pruning? Should heavy growing apricots be summer pruned? Would it be all right to thin out a dense growth of wood in the prune trees in September?

It is always desirable to cut below a hollow in a limb if possible. Where, however, this would necessitate cutting below the desirable laterals, the cavity may be filled with cement and thus rendered serviceable for some years. Summer pruning of the apricot is desirable if the growth is heavy and the tree has reached a bearing age. Thinning out of prune trees can be undertaken in the autumn, providing the tree has practically finished its growth, as indicated by the change in the color and pose of the leaves.

Apricot Propagation.

Can Royal apricots be grafted into seedling apricots? Do the scions do well? What is the best time to graft them?

The apricot is grafted readily by the ordinary cleft grafting, amputating above the forks if the tree is low-headed enough to allow you to work into the limbs instead of the trunk. Grafts will take all right in the trunk by bark grafting, but working in smaller limbs makes a stronger tree. This is for old trees and the grafting is done during the winter. Younger seedlings can be cleft or whip grafted in the stems, but it is better to bud into the young seedlings with plump buds of the current year's growth, in June, and by shortening in the seedling above the buds as soon as they have taken, get a growth on the bud in the latter half of the same growing season. In nursery practice, trees are usually made by budding in July or August into seedlings which are then growing from the seed planted the previous winter. Little seedlings from under old trees may be carefully transplanted to nursery rows in the spring and budded the same summer. Cultivated well and irrigated if necessary, they will not suffer from this transplanting.