Good morning, I’m Tom Spellman with Dave Wilson Nursery. We’re at the Master’s Gardener’s Test Orchard here in North Las Vegas, out in the middle of the Nevada desert; not the kind of place you think of when you’re growing fruit trees. It’s seven o’clock in the morning, it’s already ninety degrees and it’s just a harsh, harsh desert climate. Cold windy winters, hot dry summers, dusty kali chi shrill, and a terrible place for fruit trees. But look at me, look at what I’m surrounded by. It’s absolutely phenomenal what work they’ve done out here.
I’m here at University of Nevada Test Orchard, they’ve got a multitude of varieties in the orchard, and everything’s planted on really close spacing; they can manage it really well that way, they’re keeping their tree size down, they’ve got everything about ten feet apart. Let’s wander through and see what we can find that’s ripe. Here’s some Apricot, here’s some Persimmon, and Persimmons actually have a fairly decent set on for being out here in the middle of the desert. They’re doing a great job with Apricots; they’ve got some phenomenal varieties. Here’s one that’s just, just fantastic. This is Moore Park Apricot, look at this incredible set on Moore Park Apricot; they’re starting to harvest already, the fruit’s coming into a season; it’s actually considerably earlier than what we were getting in California, just delicious, absolutely delicious.
Here’s Donut Pits at the North Las Vegas project. As you can see it’s loaded with fruit, donut’s one of those varieties that’s really, really versatile; it seems to adapt to almost any type of climate, it doesn’t mind the desert, it doesn’t mind the coast, grows well in high chill climates in the Midwest, it just seems to do well wherever you put it. Look at the fruit set on it. Here’s Pineapple Queens, another variety that just thrives out here in the middle of the desert. Pineapple out here has that great little tangy flavor, kind of a nice pineapple-y mild flavor, and they’re using it in all kinds of different desserts; but look at the set, the trees are beautiful, the trees are healthy. Pomegranate’s another one that does really well out here in the desert.
Pomegranate’s kind of a desert plant to begin with, it doesn’t mind the heat, it doesn’t mind the soils out here. These are wonderful, it’s that variety that gets big and dark red, and it’s ripe in the fall, you can see the trees have a nice set of fruit on them. It’s still early in the season so they’re not fully formed yet, they’re going to double or triple in size from this point on and get that nice, bright red color; great for juices, high in anti-oxidant. Again, the hotels and restaurants out here will take everything that they can harvest off these trees, that everybody’s looking for that local grown produce, and this is a great source. This is one of the varieties that I am most excited about out here in the Nevada desert.
This is Apple Pink Lady, and Pink Lady out here just seems to do super well. It doesn’t mind any of the harsh conditions, it sets, as you can see, it sets a tremendous crop out here, it’s a late season variety, and I wouldn’t expect it to do well through the hottest part of the summer. But it doesn’t sunburn, the fruit has great, great quality; they’re harvesting Pink Ladies out here in October, November, December. After all that summer heat, the trees just load up, and the fruit quality is absolutely wonderful. To get a great job with great sun here, of course, you know, great supreme desert adaptable anyway, they’ve got a really nice collection of both table varieties and wine varieties. Right now they’re starting to do a little bit of window pruning out here, to let some of these, the light in to get a little better exposure, they’ll come and do a little removal of some of this older foliage. The clusters are nice and loose, there’s no mildewing problems, no disease problems out here and they’ll get a great harvest of wonderful Poly grapes. Here’s a great little roll of espaliered apples up against this fence. A lot of low-chill varieties out here, here’s Ana, loaded with fruit; the trees are nice and healthy, nice flush of growth on them.
Pears in the middle of the desert, this is a Keeper, does really well out here, they have a great fruit set on them. The fruits are already starting to develop a little mature color, but they’re still two months, maybe two and a half months away from peak ripeness. But as you can see, the trees like it out here, they’re growing vigorously, there’s no fire blight issue; it’s a nice isolated condition and the pears just seem to love it. Nuts in the desert, here’s a nice collection of Almond varieties that they have out here, probably eight or ten different varieties in this little collection. The Almonds typically bloom early out here in the desert, if the weather conditions are not right. Sometimes they’ll lose a crop; this year it seem to hit just right, they have a really nice crop, they’re harvesting both the mature Almonds, they’re also harvesting early for the green Almonds which are used in different types of Middle Eastern cooking. So about half of the Almond crop has already been picked even before the fruit has reached maturity. No Dave Wilson fruit tree tour would be complete without mentioning the Pluot.
We all love Pluots, we’ve got so many great varieties. This is the old master, this is Dapple Dandy, and this was the first one to really become marketable. You’ll see them in the store market, there’s a variety called the Dinosaur Egg. Well, here they are in the middle of the Nevada desert, great set on them, the trees look good, the trees are healthy. This is actually, this particular one is in a three-in-one plank, there’s a peach and a nectarine in here with it, so there’s Pluot. It gets one third of this triple combination and its beamed out to kind of reflect that angle, but the fruit quality is good out here its about three weeks to a month earlier than what we’re going to harvest in California, so these guys will be eating fresh Apple Dandies here within a month.
Transcription by:
Scribe4you Transcription Services