CRFG – Redwood Empire Chapter

On March 15 we held our annual Grafting Clinic at David Ulmer’s house. David gave a brief grafting talk and demonstration, then everyone who wanted individual instruction had the opportunity to buddy up with one of the experienced grafters.

Participants were encouraged to bring scions if they had them, and many varieties were provided by CRFG. Participants grafted previously-ordered rootstocks or peach rootstocks and a few Myro 29C plum that were available for purchase.

Thanks to all the volunteer grafter/instructors and David Ulmer for hosting this event.

For the second year running, CRFG members hosted a grafting clinic at Altimira Middle School in Sonoma. CRFG provided rootstocks, grafting materials and expert grafter/instructors.

Something like 120 kids have grafted apples.  Some kids took them home to plant.  Other trees are planted in the school’s huge garden/orchard, used to supply fruit/veggies for the cafeteria.

Special thanks to the volunteer grafters and Dick Kirk for organizing this event.

Thanks to everyone who helped make our annual Apple/Pear tasting a success. Thanks especially to Keith Borglum for arranging the venue at Ace Cidery. We had a cool place out of the sun and a chance to taste some wonderful ciders.

Here is a quick ranking from yesterday’s tasting of 53 apple varieties: Three tied for best of show- Gold Rush, Golden Russet and Pink Lady – followed by Crimson Gold, Golden Delicious, Pinata (Pinova), Roxbury Russet, Spigold, Ambrosia and Grimes Golden.

At the bottom were: Rhode Island Greening, Granny Smith and Hauer Pippin followed by Winesap, Pink Pearl, Black Twig and Red Delicious. Granny and RI Greening are both cooking apples. Hauer Pippin and Black Twig are far from ripe. Pink Pearl is past its prime by almost two months.

For those who don’t know how we judge our blind tasting, this is how we do it. Each variety has a number and is ranked from 1 to 10. A score of 7-10 is high and 1-4 is low. We total the high and low scores for each variety and take the difference for the final number. For instance, Wickson had 4 lows and 13 highs for a final score of 9.

Six apples had zero low scores – Gold Rush, Golden Russet, Pink Lady, Pinata, Grimes Golden and Ozark Gold while no apple had zero high scores.

Pear tasting is done similarly. Of the 16 varieties tasted, Dana Hovey was the clear winner followed by White Doyenne, Bosc and Red Bartlett. Winter Nellis was at the bottom, but it is a winter pear and needs more time to ripen. Dana Hovey and White Doyenne had zero low scores and Winter Nellis had zero high scores.

Download Complete 2014 Apple Tasting Results

Download Complete 2014 Pear Tasting Results

CRFG-Redwood hosted their annual summer plant sale at the farmer’s market at the Wells Fargo Center in Santa Rosa. Special thanks to the 15 or so helpers who turned out, all worked grafting and potting at the winter grafting party, and to Keith Borglum for growing out the trees.