Chelan Falls Golden Harvest

We picked 2 acres of Goldens at Chelan Falls on Saturday. This is the last harvest for these trees.

The Golden market shrinks every year because more and more consumers prefer Honeycrisps. There is housing at this block for Cuco and his family so we decided to change varieties. Now that the fruit has been harvested, we have begun the process to replant.
The crew has pulled out the props, and the water system is on for a couple of days to prepare the soil for a fumigant called Vapam. We'll pull out hoses and sprinklers, and then spray with Vapam. Jim Harding will come out with his excavator and pluck out the trees. Hopefully, all this will be done soon so that everything will be done by the time snow falls.

These are the Aztec Fugis we've been growing next door in preparation for the replant. Next spring we'll move out every other one. We had a few trees that died from last year's November freeze so those are rootstock that were recently budded again with Aztec Fugis.

Bill wants to segregate the rootstocks so they can be treated differently. They might be a whole year behind so they'll need different care. Rootstocks like these that have been growing here another year will grow quickly with this new bud. Because they have so much energy from the established root they may catch up with the other trees.

Here's another view of the "nursery."