A vlog documenting planting our macadamia orchard. We see Frankenstein who towers over its peers. We also look at why we mulch newly planted trees. Woodchip is a beneficial mulch.
Thanks kaistigerboy. I'll be putting a few more videos up there soon. I plan to put up videos on pruning trees, trying to graft a tree and stuff like that. Maybe even transplanting trees that were planted in 2018 and now have to be either moved or taken out could be documented in a video.
Haha, I'm just an average middle aged Aussie. Trees in rows make any piece of land more interesting in my opinion. A grassy paddock is a bit boring. Throw a few trees in a row and its much more appealing. It looks especially good after the grass is mowed.
Your best video yet Karl. Your trees all look pretty happy. All I’d say is that if you do get any casualties or spare spaces, fill them with some other variety to get yourself some cross-pollination. 246 isn’t a bad choice as it’s a similar shape tree that flowers heavily. Most macas are poor self-pollinators and unless you live in a maca-focused farming area, you’ll need to cater for this yourself.
Thanks Daniel. The orchard will have three different varieties in close proximity to each other. Plus there are a few older trees of the 246 variety in the centre of the orchard as a whole. We do have a few holes so maybe I'll try and get a few 246s to plug them. Maybe I'll try to graft a branch or two from the 246 trees onto some 849s after they are established. Has anyone grafted macadamia branches? Its quite common with citrus to graft branches from different varieties onto the same stem.
@@Karl_Degraa I haven't heard of multiple grafts but I don't think it's a great idea for macadamias, where one 'leader' stem is desirable. I'd say the older 246s should do OK for cross-pollinating so long as they're close. If you're a member of the AMS, check out their winter 2020 edition which did some great tests of single variety blocks. The trees adjacent to a block of a different variety had up to 50% more nut set and yield compared to the middle of the block. It's real! Any future blocks I plant will be in alternating rows. Maybe if you have some planting left to go, ring your nursery and see if they have some odd extra 246s (or similar - 783, 800, even an A29 wouldn't hurt).
We are planning to plant 70 more trees in September to finish off this block. We ordered seventy 849s. I've just emailed the nursery asking if we can swap out five 849s for 246s. There are two gaps in the planting where two could be planted. The other three would be planted in the area that is not planted yet. So all up there would be ten 246s in the 849 plot. Maybe I should get some more 246s? I could fit another four or five in a few places around the 849s.
@@Karl_Degraa they don't have to be all 246s, but they have three favourable aspects in your case. First, they're a similar shape tree to the 849. Second, they flower heavily over a long period, which more than covers the latish flowering of 849 and probably whenever your MCT1 flowers (MCT1 is rumoured to be very self-infertile, by the way). That's why a lot of new commercial plantings contain the odd 246 dotted around. You could also do A4, which does well in your area and flowers extremely heavily at around the same time as 849 (but I'm not sure how well the flowering overlaps in real life though, and they'd get overshadowed over time). I'm not expert enough to know how many pollinator trees you'd need, but 10 may well be enough if you're primarily relying on European honey bees. You'd need more for native bees that only range about 500 m total from the hive.
There is an unknown bush tree in the house yard. When it flowers the tree hums to the sound of bees flocking to it.The bees are European honey bees. I've never seen native bees in the area. There are many wild European bees in the bush around where the orchard is. With the MCT1 planting perhaps planting a row of 246s across the middle of the plot would be the go or a random tree here and there. I was not aware the MCT1 is self infertile.
Hi Ruan, we only watered them when planting them to help them get over the shock of planting. We used a Seasol solution to water them. Our water trailer has around 600 liters of capacity and we plant around 20 trees before refilling. So that would be 30 liters each tree.
We are in Australia. Planting is worked out per hectare. I looked up hectares to acres and it works out to be around 130 trees an acre. Some trees planted in 2020 flowered last year and at least one had a few nuts on it this year. But yeah we expect them to be productive around the year 2026. I quite like looking at this video as it shows the trees as they were just after planting. Some have grown a bit since them, some have not. I'm not too worried about their progress as slow and steady can win the race. Thanks for watching.
Looks awesome
Thanks kaistigerboy. I'll be putting a few more videos up there soon. I plan to put up videos on pruning trees, trying to graft a tree and stuff like that. Maybe even transplanting trees that were planted in 2018 and now have to be either moved or taken out could be documented in a video.
That orchard looks amazing! And your accent is way cooler than mine...
Haha, I'm just an average middle aged Aussie.
Trees in rows make any piece of land more interesting in my opinion. A grassy paddock is a bit boring. Throw a few trees in a row and its much more appealing. It looks especially good after the grass is mowed.
Your best video yet Karl. Your trees all look pretty happy. All I’d say is that if you do get any casualties or spare spaces, fill them with some other variety to get yourself some cross-pollination. 246 isn’t a bad choice as it’s a similar shape tree that flowers heavily. Most macas are poor self-pollinators and unless you live in a maca-focused farming area, you’ll need to cater for this yourself.
Thanks Daniel. The orchard will have three different varieties in close proximity to each other. Plus there are a few older trees of the 246 variety in the centre of the orchard as a whole. We do have a few holes so maybe I'll try and get a few 246s to plug them.
Maybe I'll try to graft a branch or two from the 246 trees onto some 849s after they are established. Has anyone grafted macadamia branches? Its quite common with citrus to graft branches from different varieties onto the same stem.
@@Karl_Degraa I haven't heard of multiple grafts but I don't think it's a great idea for macadamias, where one 'leader' stem is desirable. I'd say the older 246s should do OK for cross-pollinating so long as they're close. If you're a member of the AMS, check out their winter 2020 edition which did some great tests of single variety blocks. The trees adjacent to a block of a different variety had up to 50% more nut set and yield compared to the middle of the block. It's real! Any future blocks I plant will be in alternating rows. Maybe if you have some planting left to go, ring your nursery and see if they have some odd extra 246s (or similar - 783, 800, even an A29 wouldn't hurt).
We are planning to plant 70 more trees in September to finish off this block. We ordered seventy 849s. I've just emailed the nursery asking if we can swap out five 849s for 246s. There are two gaps in the planting where two could be planted. The other three would be planted in the area that is not planted yet. So all up there would be ten 246s in the 849 plot.
Maybe I should get some more 246s? I could fit another four or five in a few places around the 849s.
@@Karl_Degraa they don't have to be all 246s, but they have three favourable aspects in your case. First, they're a similar shape tree to the 849. Second, they flower heavily over a long period, which more than covers the latish flowering of 849 and probably whenever your MCT1 flowers (MCT1 is rumoured to be very self-infertile, by the way). That's why a lot of new commercial plantings contain the odd 246 dotted around. You could also do A4, which does well in your area and flowers extremely heavily at around the same time as 849 (but I'm not sure how well the flowering overlaps in real life though, and they'd get overshadowed over time). I'm not expert enough to know how many pollinator trees you'd need, but 10 may well be enough if you're primarily relying on European honey bees. You'd need more for native bees that only range about 500 m total from the hive.
There is an unknown bush tree in the house yard. When it flowers the tree hums to the sound of bees flocking to it.The bees are European honey bees. I've never seen native bees in the area. There are many wild European bees in the bush around where the orchard is. With the MCT1 planting perhaps planting a row of 246s across the middle of the plot would be the go or a random tree here and there. I was not aware the MCT1 is self infertile.
Its pretty windy on the orchard today. I'm a bit worried about the floppy trees and especially the big fellow we saw in this video.
How much water do you give them?
Hi Ruan, we only watered them when planting them to help them get over the shock of planting. We used a Seasol solution to water them. Our water trailer has around 600 liters of capacity and we plant around 20 trees before refilling. So that would be 30 liters each tree.
Nice ..are you growing it in Tanzania..? What's the per acre harvest on 5 or 6 years.
We are in Australia. Planting is worked out per hectare. I looked up hectares to acres and it works out to be around 130 trees an acre.
Some trees planted in 2020 flowered last year and at least one had a few nuts on it this year. But yeah we expect them to be productive around the year 2026.
I quite like looking at this video as it shows the trees as they were just after planting. Some have grown a bit since them, some have not. I'm not too worried about their progress as slow and steady can win the race.
Thanks for watching.
How W×L sir?
The spacing between trees? We planted the trees in this area in rows 8 meters apart and 4 meters between each tree.