Outlook, Sask.- Trench planting of saskatoons can create instant bushes in newly planted orchards, says Clarence Peters, fruit specialist with Saskatchewan Agriculture.
“It stays in clumps and doesn’t later sucker from the main crown,” he said.
Saskatchewan fruit growers got a first-hand look at the irrigated rows of deeply planted bushes just poking above ground level during a tour of Bill and Jean King’s market garden at Outlook in June.
Fruit and vegetable grower Elwyn Vermette from Yorkton, Sask., also uses this planting technique. He plans to remove the last of his conventionally planted stock by summer’s end.
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Explaining the advantages for his U-pick operation, Vermette said planting at ground level produces single-stem saskatoons that produce berries only on the previous year’s growth.
Planting them 15-20 centimetres below the ground level in trenches with irrigation, combined with aggressive pruning, forces the plants to produce multiple stems. When the plant reaches surface level, it has six to 10 stems.
It results in plants full of berries and easy for U-pick operations or over-the-row harvesters in commercial orchards.
Vermette also prunes out one quarter of the plants every year to limit the bush height and ensure a renewal plant on an ongoing basis.
He noted saskatoons in the wild are long spindly plants.
“If you’re not pruning, that’s where you’re headed,” he said.
Timely pinching off of the leading buds can also cause the plants to branch out.
Vermette said it is time consuming and labour intensive, but can result in significant fruit production.
“It takes off significant fruit production for that year but increases it four to sixfold for the next year,” he said.
Bob Bors of the University of Saskatchewan plant sciences department said this planting technique can work for other bush fruit like sour cherries, hazelnuts and black currants.
“It suckers into the ground instead of into the air,” he said.
The shorter bushes are easy to prune and less susceptible to insect damage.
