Pruning notes and comments about Rodent Bait Placement

Today I took a census of the "Upper Orchard" at The Property. That was after culling the trees I judged to be too far gone to try and save. I left 32 trees and to date have pruned 10 of them so I am about 1/3 done pruning.

Originally, each of the four rows held 16 trees. Due to encroachment, I only plan to replant 14 of the 16 trees. That may change later as I beat back the encroaching trees. That remains to be seen.

When replanted to 14 trees-per-row, the refreshed Upper Orchard will hold 56 trees. Given the tree spacing and expected tree size, in a good year a harvest between 5000 and 10,000 pounds of apples is a reasonable possibility from 56 semi-dwarf apple trees planted on 15' by 25' centers.

I don't know what kind of crop I will get next year. I am taking "wood" out of the tops of the trees and leaving branches that are closer to the ground. That will pay big dividends in a couple of years, but the lower branches were in the shade and might not have a lot of fruiting buds next spring. Time will tell.

I have the option of being less aggressive in pruning one of the rows. The thinking in doing that is that I could ensure that at least one row would bear a full crop, barring frosts, droughts, hail, pestilence and bugs.

Context

Accelerating inflation is baked into the cake. The ratio of debt-to-Gross National Product almost guarantees it. The best we can hope for is that the productive economy will rebound from the loosening of all of the strictures imposed by the previous administration. One definition of "inflation" is "Too many dollars chasing too few products". Most economists focus on the "...too many dollars..." side of the definition. Very few are willing to get their hands dirty and talk about what it would take to fix "...too few products..."

Maybe things will be jolly and there will be no market for thousands of pounds of apples and pears. No worries. That is the best possible scenario. Frankly, I would breath a sigh of relief!

Maybe things will not be so jolly and there will be a local market for tons of apples and pears for cider (and faux-Calvados) and apple sauce and pies and dried slices. In that case, it will be better to have producing trees rather than just wishing I had producing trees.

Rodent Control

One year, I mulched my apple trees with carpet. I cut it into 6' squares and cut a 3' slit in it so I could position a square around each tree. The trees grew fantastically that year. The carpet did a great job suppressing the weeds and conserving moisture.

The next spring, I discovered that rodents (mice or voles) love over-wintering beneath the carpet. The carpet protected them from most avian and terrestrial predators and still provided a multitude of escape routes for weasels and shrews. Unknowingly, I had created a rodent paradise and they thanked me by eating the bark off of my baby apple trees.

Knowledge is neutral. It is neither good nor bad. It is a tool that can be used for either.

After sharing this story, you might look at this discarded plastic lid next to the fruit tree and anticipate a sad story.

But what if a bar of rodent-poison was beneath the lid? What if the rodent-poison was in a sandwich bag to protect it from moist soil? Do you suppose a mouse or vole might eat the bait before they chewed all of the bark off of the tree?

Option 2. Discarded water bottles are easy to come by and it is easy to cut the top off of them with a scissors.

Intelligent placement of baits goes a long way toward making the bait inaccessible to non-target species while still being VERY attractive to the target species. There is still a slight risk of raptors or predators eating a poisoned rodent and inadvertently being poisoned.