Hi, Greg — I’m really curious to hear what others suggest. Old-timers in northern NY would sometimes use shingle nails to nail the loose bark back to the trunks of big old winter-injured trees when the bark split away from the trunks due to cold injury during winter. I’m not certain if it did any good, but it might have helped to reduce further desiccation of the loose bark if it was not already killed all the way back to the point of attachment. Obviously, there is no value in nailing back dead bark.
So long as there is still live bark on one side of the trees, you might be surprised to see how well the trees recover on their own if you can avoid crop load stress and drought stress for the next year. The damaged trees will never be quite the same, but my bet is that those trees that are not completely girdled will recover if they can be defruited or at least over-thinned this year. Concerning bridge grafting, it’s pretty labor intensive, but I’ve seen it used effectively. Unless you have ideally placed root suckers already growing at the base of affected trees, you would need to gather the grafting wood immediately and refrigerate it so as to have dormant wood for grafting when the bark begins to slip a bit later in spring. Grafting will be more feasible if you had enough snow cover to keep some bark alive above the soil line. If bark is killed all the way to the soil line, you might instead consider inarch grafting with rootstock liners (if you can find any for spring delivery). These can be inserted next to the trunks with a needle-nose spade, stomped to backfill the spade slot, and grafted into the trunks above the damaged area sometime near petal fall after the liners have begun to grow. We did this successfully with some Delicious/MM.106 trees that were dying from union necrosis (ToRSV) back in the early 80s. In that case, we needed several liners/tree because the union was dying all the way around the tree. A single liner/tree might work OK if you still have live bark on one side. But as noted above, the tree may recover on its own if it is still alive on one side. As noted above, grafting is labor intensive, especially if it will be required for many trees/A as in high-density plantings. In addition to the labor required for grafting, additional attention is required to remove buds that will sprout on the inarch pieces and special care will be required to avoid hitting those tender graft pieces when applying contact herbicides. On Mar 16, 2014, at 10:42 AM, Peck, Greg <greg.p...@vt.edu<mailto:greg.p...@vt.edu>> wrote: Apple-Crop participants, Like everyone else in the Eastern half of the US, we've had a particularly cold and snowy winter in Virginia. Not surprisingly, I am starting to hear reports about Southwest injury to young trees. While there is a lot of information available on how to prevent southwest injury, I have not been able to find much information on how to deal with the trunks after the damage has been done. Typically, growers in Virginia have do not paint trunks with latex paint, but many will probably reconsider that decision in future years. Many trees are probably not going to make it, but I'm wondering if anyone has experience trying to save some of the less severely injured trees with bridge-grafts. How about wrapping the bark with grafting tape to try to get the wounds to heal? (I'm guessing that this will have a low success rate because the tissue has already dried out.) Depending upon how far into the rootstock the split extends and the age of the tree, we might also try cutting off the scion and hoping an advantageous bud breaks dormancy. Any other suggestions from those who have to deal with Southwest Injury on a more annual basis? Thanks, Greg :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: Gregory Michael Peck, Ph.D. Assistant Professor of Horticulture Virginia Tech Alson H. Smith, Jr. Agricultural Research and Extension Center 595 Laurel Grove Road Winchester, VA 22602 USA 540/869-2560 ext 19 greg.p...@vt.edu<mailto:greg.p...@vt.edu> arec.vaes.vt.edu/alson-h-smith<http://arec.vaes.vt.edu/alson-h-smith> www.anr.ext.vt.edu/tree-fruit/<http://www.anr.ext.vt.edu/tree-fruit/> blogs.ext.vt.edu/tree-fruit-horticulture<http://blogs.ext.vt.edu/tree-fruit-horticulture> www.facebook.com/VtechPomology<http://www.facebook.com/VtechPomology> <photo.JPG> <photo.JPG> _______________________________________________ apple-crop mailing list apple-crop@virtualorchard.net<mailto:apple-crop@virtualorchard.net> http://virtualorchard.net/mailman/listinfo/apple-crop
_______________________________________________ apple-crop mailing list apple-crop@virtualorchard.net http://virtualorchard.net/mailman/listinfo/apple-crop
