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pruning, Grafting, and planting by Montserrat Pons

Here's a new video on the different techniques of fig growing by Montserrat pons. It's in Catalan, You will learn a lot just by watching.



Nice video thanks Bass for posting. Funny enough I have his book and when I attempted reading I couldnt understand much but hearing him speak I understood most of what he was saying pretty cool.

I started watching this earlier and Mozilla quit about 20 minutes in.  I'll have to watch the rest later.

As coincidence would have it... I have been looking for about a month at buying a chisel plow for the tractor.  It is the piece of equipment being used at about 6:30 into the video.  I was surprised to see them plowing so close to the trees.  If someone doesn't mind translating or interpreting any relevant information of this, I would appreciate it.

Thanks (and thanks Bass for the link)
~james

Bass, thanks for posting the link to the video. Very informative and enjoyable.

Hi James I might be able to help describe the cultivation.  My wife and I visited Monserrat on a day trip from Barcelona two years ago. Monserrat showed us some of the planting holes, which seem gigantic compared to the cuttings being placed in them.

A unique characteristic of his land is that there is a damp clay layer down about 2 meters. As the tree grows it is deep-watered a few times [and the hole is filled in around it up to the surface], the deep anchor roots grow in the crevices of the soil and search for moisture in the clay layer, while other roots grow between 10-50cm beneath the surface to take advantage of rain and nutrients. 

The cultivator is set between 20-30cm deep. If some of the smaller roots are broken and pulled to the surface, the tree doesn't suffer but must use energy to regenerate new roots.



 

I really wish I could have, but I'm afraid I didn't understand much of anything. I however was amazed at the size of the planting holes. Egads. My poor planted trees of every variety should be so lucky.

The reason for my question is this:  I dug out a 13 (ish) year old tree several years ago.  Most all of the roots were between the soil surface and 9" deep.  There were three anchor roots that grew downward.  The remainder grew outward from the tree. I think, if I had cut the roots with a plow (like in the video) at a depth of more than a couple of inches, a great majority of the trees roots would have been severed. 

I am looking at using the plow to disrupt the growth of prairie grass/weeds.  Most of them send runners then a tap root where a new weed grows (think of strawberry runners).  Some of the weeds have tap roots that are very long, so I was thinking of plowing to at least 12" or more if possible.  My original plan was to cut along one side of the tree at the beginning of winter, wait 4-6 weeks for the tree to reestablish roots, then cut along the other side.  In the video they go completely around the tree.

~james

Catalan seems like French, Spanish and Italian mixed. I am going to watch it several times to absorb. Thanks Bass.

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