For my internship, I created a short video to chronicle what I lean red over the semester and to encourage future students to take part in an internship.
Monday, April 28, 2014
Well it's been a long semester. I have thoroughly enjoyed my time in the A&M Orchard, and I will be finishing up this week.
I set out at the beginning of the Spring semester to get some hands-on experience with pecan trees and possibly in the vineyard. Dr. McEachern and the other students helped me to accomplish that goal.
Among the things I did this semester:
-Preparing graft wood - trimming to appropriate size, bundling, moisturizing, LABELING, and bagging them to go into cold storage.
-Pruning - I did a LOT of pruning this semester. We had many young trees in the orchard that were grafted last year or planted in 2010 that needed attention. Some had been grafted using a banana/four flap graft, and some using a cleft graft. The banana grafted trees seemed to be doing better. Many of these trees had lots of shoots emerging before we wanted, so off they went.
-Pruning in the Vineyard - Blanc du Bois is one variety of wine grape represented in the Aggie vineyard. A few weeks ago I helped to prune the vines back in preparation for the current growing season. We began with two shoots on some vines, but as we moved down the rows we noticed that a couple had been damaged by wind in less than ten minutes. Because of the fragility of the shoots we elected to allow four shoots to remain in case damage was done to any of them.
-Groundskeeping - Wow, a LOT of groundskeeping. A large orchard such as ours requires a significant amount of mowing, weeding, edging, and weed killing. I spent a significant portion of my time doing this.
-Texas Pecan Growers Assoc. Pecan Short Course 2014 - I really enjoyed the short course. Pecan growers from across the state came together to attend labs and lectures on modern pecan production. Topics ranged from pruning, establishment, and maintenance to selecting varieties appropriate for their regions. I was able to attend lectures by extension agent Monte Lesbitt and by Dr. McEachern.
I had a great semester and wish that I had been able to be in the orchard full time. Thanks again to the Intern team in the Horticulture Department - Holly Smith, Dr. Lombardini, and Katie Marek for advising me.
I set out at the beginning of the Spring semester to get some hands-on experience with pecan trees and possibly in the vineyard. Dr. McEachern and the other students helped me to accomplish that goal.
Among the things I did this semester:
-Preparing graft wood - trimming to appropriate size, bundling, moisturizing, LABELING, and bagging them to go into cold storage.
-Pruning - I did a LOT of pruning this semester. We had many young trees in the orchard that were grafted last year or planted in 2010 that needed attention. Some had been grafted using a banana/four flap graft, and some using a cleft graft. The banana grafted trees seemed to be doing better. Many of these trees had lots of shoots emerging before we wanted, so off they went.
-Pruning in the Vineyard - Blanc du Bois is one variety of wine grape represented in the Aggie vineyard. A few weeks ago I helped to prune the vines back in preparation for the current growing season. We began with two shoots on some vines, but as we moved down the rows we noticed that a couple had been damaged by wind in less than ten minutes. Because of the fragility of the shoots we elected to allow four shoots to remain in case damage was done to any of them.
-Groundskeeping - Wow, a LOT of groundskeeping. A large orchard such as ours requires a significant amount of mowing, weeding, edging, and weed killing. I spent a significant portion of my time doing this.
-Texas Pecan Growers Assoc. Pecan Short Course 2014 - I really enjoyed the short course. Pecan growers from across the state came together to attend labs and lectures on modern pecan production. Topics ranged from pruning, establishment, and maintenance to selecting varieties appropriate for their regions. I was able to attend lectures by extension agent Monte Lesbitt and by Dr. McEachern.
I had a great semester and wish that I had been able to be in the orchard full time. Thanks again to the Intern team in the Horticulture Department - Holly Smith, Dr. Lombardini, and Katie Marek for advising me.
Saturday, April 12, 2014
This week we took some time off from the orchard to prep the vineyard. Dr. McEachern's wine class was coming out to pruned vines and the grounds were in desperate need of some manicuring. Armed with weedwhackers and a walk-behind mower, me and two other students cleaned up the property quite nicely.
The vineyard isn't a huge property and the portion actually inhabited by vines is much smaller. The vines vary in age, some thirty years old and some only a few months. Blanc du Bois is one variety we have planted there.
After we cleaned up the property we moved on to pruning. We had only a few rows of juvenile vines to prune, and many more mature vines. The juveniles were still almost entirely in their grow tubes, only a few shoots peeking out. We pruned them back to two shoots initially, but decided to leave four after some shoots were damaged by wind while we were pruning. With four left, we have a much greater probability of one surviving even after inclement weather.
 |
| Daniel training a mature vine |
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)