>>1235669Short answer is this
>>1235682Long answer is you control what you can control ie the parents and after 1 year graft the promising seedlings onto an ultra-dwarfing rootstock which will bring them to fruiting much sooner than they naturally would on their own roots. I have a spreadsheet where I track field performance of the breeding stock and decide on good crosses to make based on criteria such as...
>Canker resistance>Scab resistance>Mildew resistance>Vigour>Fruit FlavourI have a smaller orchard section on my parent's land which is rife with canker and scab, so I put the seedlings in there and any which suffer from those diseases are ruthlessly culled. At the first sign of unsuitability you have to be a real cold-hearted bastard and kill your young trees which you've waited years to grow, to make way for the next round of potentials.
Since I select out anything which isn't resistant to canker, scab and mildew, before they even flower for the first time, I could have raised a new Cox's Orange Pippin quality fruit tree and then wrenched it out because of a mildew attack, who knows...
The survivors of my first round from three years ago should start flowering this year. I don't have high hopes as they were open pollinated. The focus of future crosses are likely to be Tydeman's Late Orange, Cornish Aromatic, Court of Wick and Ashmead's Kernel. Perhaps with the odd wild card like Black Dabinett, Burn's Seedling or Dredge's Fame thrown in occasionally.
>>1235927Plant it up with Black Alder (inoculating with mycorrhiza when you plant). Then leave it alone apart from adding organic matter, that's the best way to rehab soil IMO. Can't really grow much else there though, maybe intercrop Sweet Chestnut and Black Alder.
