Well, hi everyone. My name is Julie Garden Robinson, and I'm a food and nutrition specialist at North Dakota State University Extension and welcome to our February 20th 2019 webinar You can move to the next slide Tom. Okay Okay I'd like to invite you if you haven't already signed up We have some interesting upcoming webinars next week same same place We'll be learning about trendy and healthy house plants from Esther McGinnis And she's a horticulture specialist And after that we'll hear from Cassie Widerholdt who's the fruit project manager And she will be talking about cool fruits for cold climate. So you're interested in fruits here Here's your chance to learn more You've probably figured out how to use your zoom controls I have everyone in mute mode and if you've unmuted yourself I'll just ask you to remute yourself so we don't have background noise but You can certainly type in a chat if you have a question I'm going to be keeping my eye on the chat box so that I can let Tom know or he can keep an eye on the chat box as well So Tom is okay with asking questions during his presentation So just go ahead and type in the chat box if you have a question and you can answer them as he goes So next one Here's a big request in order to keep these going this these are sponsored by a grant that I have I asked that you Please complete a real short survey. It'll come right to your inbox shortly after the presentation today a promise that'll take you about two minutes and To sweeten the deal. I do have some prizes So I will be doing some prize drawings and we have some fun things that we will send out to the prize winners The next slide and so that brings me to my introduction of Tom Cald Tom is an extension horticulturalist for North Dakota State University Tom was raised on a farm in Minnesota where his family managed a commercial apple orchard and 15 acres of vegetables and berries And Tom is based in Bismarck and he supports horticulture programs in the western part of the state And he also coordinates the state's junior master gardener program And he's the author of the NDSU yard and garden report, which is a popular newsletter for gardeners in North Dakota So thank you Tom for joining us again this year and I look forward to learning more about apples Okay, thank you Julie. Thank you for the invitation. It's always good to participate in this field of forks series and Upon request, I've been asked to talk about growing apples in North Dakota Why apples? Because apples are Good for cold climates. Yes. I someone from Arizona. Sorry. You cannot grow apples as good as we can in North Dakota the cool temps Give us better quality apples And it's a hearty crop. It's a popular crop and it's a crop that's in demand even there's a booming cider industry begging for apples in our state and I think another important reason is because Apples are delicious. I just love to grow apples Every year when I go to our family apple farm With my kids my parents tell me they have to they just got to pay me for all the work. I'm doing but I just tell my Parents, I just tell them that hey, I'm the one who should be paying you It is such a joy to be out here in the orchard with my kids and the fresh air and picking apples Just a lot of fun to grow apples Apples are beautiful too in the springtime. We've got about a couple weeks when the apples are in bloom and Actually, this is another opportunity for like tourism farming and how spring tours of school children In the spring and in the harvest season So there's lots of opportunities for growing apples both in a commercial setting in a backyard setting and so we're going to cover kind of like the wide scope of it and I'll just do my best at Brush over a lot of key points about how to grow apples successful here in North Dakota To me, this is the symbol of the fruit industry in North Dakota Lonely apple tree in the distance suffering from winter. Yes, that's that's the apple That's fruit growing in North Dakota. We always brag about North Dakota about our agriculture Yeah, we're number one in sunflowers and number one in wheat germ wheat number one in dry beans But how are we doing in fruits? Not quite number one But not quite 50 either we're we're charging ahead. We're about number 48 now We have surpassed Alaska and Wyoming for fruit production. So we're on the upswing here, but it's still we're it's a tough place to grow a lot of fruits and We don't have a lot of Educational resources because it's not a major crop in our state But one of our leading ones is this publication starting a community orchard in North Dakota We're about half this book covers about how to grow crops and then the other half talks about how to manage a community orchard and actually I just got word a couple hours ago that the North Dakota Department of Agriculture is looking forward to supporting and Republishing of this so we'll probably get this republished and updated in about a month from now. So that's good As far as other educational resources, yeah we need to rely on other states other fruit growing states and focusing on the Midwest and I really like the series that's come out of Wisconsin about 15 years ago all the fruit Specialists in Wisconsin got together and decided to write Publications about how to successfully grow every crop every fruit crop in the state So there's one on apples and pears and cherries even like currants and elderberries But we're talking about apples today, and I like this publication it covers a lot about how to successfully grow apples in the Midwest And he has nice diagrams that teaches how to prune our apple trees. It covers about how we can The the different types of past that we have to be aware of and the time that they're going to be there and how we can Successfully control them. So these are good publications that I did I use as a resource The one of the leading home fruit production guys comes out of Purdue University It's an extensive publication with excellent information on how to grow apples and other fruit crops on a small scale And if you're on a big scale, you're gonna want to know about the Midwest fruit past management guide and This is for commercial growers This is a group of universities come together pull all their resources together And they have an updated publication every year that gives us the latest information about some basic strategies of growing fruits and then Detailed information on how to control the various fruit past both diseases and insects using Standard as well as organic practices It's a good public all this information is available for free online Okay, let's talk about how we can Get started with our apple situation First thing is we got to select a good site for our orchard and a good site will be full of Sun We've got to have at least eight hours a full Sun to have a successful orchard We want our orchard to be sheltered from the wind if possible because you know, we know how brisk those winds are in North Dakota Winds can create a lot of havoc in an orchard. They can deter pollination a little bit from the honeybee activity I've also I personally experienced, you know bushels of honey crisp apples blowing off the trees right before the harvest time Really cutting into the profits at our farm because farmers we don't it's technically not right to pick up a fallen apple and sell it The winds can also dry our orchards and make our trees sweat sweat off a little bit too much and and you know moisture is always critical in In our dry state of North Dakota. So if possible, it's nice to be sheltered from the wind if possible We want the swell to be well-drained Apple trees cannot sit in water and also we want to avoid frost pockets because frost can damage our crops in the spring time Destroying our apple crop this happened of just a couple years ago We lost many of the apples in our state due to a late spring frost and also We already have a short growing season to begin with if we try some late ripening apples and we get an early frost in the fall We can lose our apple crop or at least have severely reduced storage abilities of our apple crop From fall frost. So keep it out of the low spots. Keep it out of the frost pockets The next choice is where we're gonna buy our plants and And again, there's there's a whole gamut of whether we're gonna plant three trees or three hundred trees But for for on the small side just our local nurseries and garden centers are a good place to go They get their trees from Bailey nurseries from Minnesota and Jefferies nurseries up in Canada And you can contact those nurseries directly if you want larger amounts on a wholesale price You know Bailey nurseries is very calm is a very common source of all kinds of nursery stock and in North Dakota You can order bear root trees from junk seed. There's from Wisconsin stark brothers has a good fruit selection If you're up there in the cold part of the northern part of the state You may want to check out St. Lawrence nursery. They specialize in some of the heartiest apple varieties One green world is a good source if you want heirloom varieties Maple Valley orchards out of Wisconsin has a unbelievable selection available for you and Any place in the north you'll probably have good success getting quality apple trees When you order your trees, you got to know your hardiness zone and you guys are all experienced gardeners This is just like basics 101, right? We have zones three and four here and I don't know I don't know about this winter, but We're now most of our states now in zone four because we have less extreme winters than in the past Generally speaking for most of our state. It doesn't get colder than the balmy minus 30 degrees And so you know on about 90% of the people who live in North Dakota live in zone four And we've got a lot of apple varieties we can choose from that are hearty in zone four If you're up in zone three, you're gonna your selections are gonna be more limited Because especially with there's a lot of great apples that come out of the Twin Cities Minneapolis St. Paul area from the University of Minnesota And some of those apples would be marginally hearty in zone three The handout that I provided has a more extensive list of apple cultivars, but here's just a few to highlight I think as far as you want an early apple. I really like zestar Just can't beat it. Just it's a good quality for both cooking and and fresh eating Duchess is probably the most popular heirloom apples from Russia and it has good disease resistance There's a series of apples coming out now out of Canada that are very hearty and this includes good wind and prairie magic So especially up here in zone three you want to check out those Canadian apples Honeycrisp is the dominant apple of the upper Midwest today it's from Minnesota and Like in our in our my family orchard We charge twice as much for honeycrisp as the other every other apple we sell just because it's so popular And it just tastes so good. So as I say explosively crisp texture and honeycrisp also It stores surprisingly well Before honeycrisp came the number one apple of the Midwest was Harrelson and that's still very popular It's easy to grow apple. It resists diseases. It's a little bit tart which makes it a Not ideal for fresh eating, but it really makes a good cooking apple. Those are just a few apple cultivars to highlight There's hundreds of varieties out there. Just make sure you get one that's hearty for your area After you pick the cultivar you want to pick the rootstock that it's on This makes a big difference because the rootstock that the apple Variety is grafted on the rootstock will affect the vigor and the disease resistance of your variety and if I can start from the bottom The most common apple rootstock grown in North Dakota is a standard rootstock It has the rootstock of Antonovka or the doggo crab These are these trees grow fully 20 25 even taller They're very hearty this is what we would use in zone three, but the drawback about a standard apple Standard rootstock is that one of the problems is going to be that It's not precocious. It can take like six years sometimes before you start getting decent crops And that's why commercial orchards are more into Dwarfing rootstocks and in particular I think for North Dakota the semi dwarf rootstocks They're more precocious. We can start getting good crops after about four years Also, they're much easier to manage because the trees only grow about 12 to 15 feet tall especially the We look for varieties that can resist fire blight and that CG 30 or something referred to as G 30. That's one that was this fire bike and that's a hardy one for our state There's if there's dwarf apples and here's a picture of a dwarf planting I put in in a Bismarck This is Bud 9. This is a from this is the rootstock from Siberia. So it's very hardy and These trees only grow about nine feet tall and but my experience has been that they're not especially vigorous and Unless you really baby these trees you may be disappointed and these trees were not We're not really cared for that well at United tribes and there and we lost quite a few of them after just a few years So I especially like the semi dwarf rootstocks they're vigorous and precocious Now you notice that all these trees are staked and that's important for anything on especially on a dwarfing rootstock And you just see we see have a 10-foot tall Conduit pipe electrical conduit pipe to three-quarter inch in diameter and we just pound them two feet into the ground Staking helps to prevent wind damage in our orchard. It supports the union of the graph You know where we graft the rootstock to the variety or the scion is the technical term staked apples produce earlier and Produce higher yields and again, we just use standard conduit piping. We have good success with that Here's a close-up and you can see that graft the graft itself of the rootstock And when you plan to apple tree you want the graft to be a couple inches above the soil surface And if we have the the pipe there that will prevent this graft from a snapping off in the wind, which is a problem in North Dakota We like to keep the stakes on for as long as possible it doesn't hurt the trees certainly but Maybe some growers take them off after a few years You'll notice that the trees are mulched and mulching is critical for apple production all fruit tree production How do you mulch a tree there's the old rule of three three three we want the mulch to be three feet wide At least three feet wide Three inches thick and you want no mulching three inches within the trunk itself Because if you build up the mulch near the trunk you're going to have Metal mice and other rodents nesting there and nibbling on the trunk, which is a killer speaking of killers mulching protects a tree from mowers and mowers are a leading killer of fruit trees of all trees in North Dakota Multi will also conserve moisture, which is critical help to suppress weeds, which is nice another nice thing I like about mulching is that it helps this Insulate the soil And what it means is it takes away from those dramatic temperature fluctuations that can occur It keeps the soil a little bit warmer in the winter and a little bit cooler in the summer And in the early spring it keeps the soil a little It makes it a little bit slow to warm up and keeps the environment a little bit cool And that helps prevent premature blooming, which is a special problem with like apricot trees So I really I like the I like mulching very important for an orchard At least you got to keep the turf away from the trunk. Otherwise that tree's gonna have a hard life When you start your orchard, you got to make a commitment to watering your trees, okay? And so there's a lot of different rules for watering young trees one common rule is you use about 10 gallons of water per inch of caliper and for Apple trees we usually measure that well we measure that just at ankle height just a couple inches off the ground and When you buy an apple tree usually buy them about a half to three quarters inch in caliper So that'd be about five gallons to seven half gallons of water per week But only if the soil needs it we want to keep the soil moist, but we don't want that soil to be soggy We don't want to close the air pockets in the soil because otherwise we will drown literally drown the tree and cause it to rot The roots to rot so never irrigate wet soil For if you're just gonna have a couple apple trees these tree gator bags are a nice convenient way to fill them up with water And the water oozes out Slowly and another technique on the right you can see how five gallon pails are used sometimes and just Drill a few holes in the bottom and the water drips out But on the right I really want to highlight that white tree guard, which is very important for apple trees and other fruit trees fruit trees have thin bark and That bark is fully exposed to the rays of the winter sun and The that the bark can get very warm when the sun beats upon it There's no leaves shading that bark in the in the winter and then when the bark gets warm It can get active in the winter the cells beneath the bark will get active But then when the sun sets Those cells freeze rapidly and that can cause cracking or what we call sun scald injury I've got a picture of that. I just saw this at the post office in Bismarck last summer and you can see how almost every maple tree has this crack on the south or west side of the tree and same with fruit trees and if you have a white Tree guard the white tree guard will help to Reflect the winter sun and keep the bark Relatively cool. Okay, so use a white tree guard not a black tree guard. We want to reflect the winter sun Also, the tree guards can also help suppress another friend in the orchard voles or meadow mice which cause major damage That's fruit trees. They just love fruit trees. They'll bite off the bark and they'll girdle the tree They can kill the tree So look out for voles and always keep your orchard well or your lawn area will Will mowed right before the snow comes to minimize the amount of vol nesting habitat The other type of crater we got to worry about in apple orchards are deer And I can just tell you my own experience when I was when I planted the apple orchard United tribes have put in about 40 apple trees and Within two days every apple tree was pruned by deer Everyone everyone They just love fruit trees. There's just the sweetness and the taste of that bark is delicious to them I see is this deer is just I can see him Licking his lips. Just he was probably just waiting for me to leave the orchard so he could just come out and start eating the trees How do we control deer? Well, some people suggest that the permanent solution the lead solution is the best way to go by shooting them But another strategy and also a very reliable strategy is fencing Unfortunately an eight-foot fence is needed for deer And preferably Electrified but that people at United tribes did not want me to electrify the fence or put up a fence around the orchard So then you're you have to use repellents. So again for wildlife a barrier is the best way to go but otherwise a repellent can help and so I use liquid fence and liquid fence contains Guts of animals cankage we call it and sulfur smells like sulfur rotten eggs Anything that smells like a rotten body Works very effectively because the deer when they when they lick the branches before they eat them They get a scent of that rotten flesh and then they know there's a they sense there's a predator nearby and so they they learn to stay away from the orchard and I have to say I was very impressed with liquid fence in that Yeah, I even remember one night going out to the orchard and I saw a whole herd of deer grazing around The orchard So they were not interested in those apple trees after they were trained to stay out So how about are there any questions before we start talking about? Pest management does anybody have any questions about establishing the orchard getting a bone Tom there were a few questions that have come in okay From Judy. Why do apples need to be attached to a rootstock? Okay, a Lot of it has to do with hardiness and vigor so like a standard rootstock Like that doggal crab is a is from Russia and so that and to Novka. It's from Russia It will give a greater hardiness to let's say the honey crisp apple if you attach it to that rootstock So it's it really has to do with hardiness and vigor the plant now You can't you like you could plant you could take a cutting from a honey crisp and use it as rootstock But it wouldn't have that same number that same amount of hardiness and the other thing another reason why we use a rootstock Is it allows us to to have a rootstock that will keep the tree? Dwarf so that we we don't have to worry about a honey crisp tree going 30 feet or taller We can put it on a let's say a semi dwarf rootstock and that rootstock will naturally Limit the height of the tree to about 12 to 15 feet Okay, Tara wants to know if you have a preference for what you use for mulch Okay Shred bark is good for me if it's available The most yeah, and I would just say you know when we get to larger orchards the most important thing is Just keep the turf away But in a small orchard, I love shredded bark. That's great or wood chips. They're just as good Or just as good Okay, and the final question so far Comes from Judy. Can you review how new apple varieties are created? Since the apple seeds of a given apple variety do not ensure that it will produce the same variety apple when planted Well, yeah, sure Yeah, that's true because an apple. Let's say a honey crisp apple Cannot be pollinated by another honey crisp apple so So when you so that pond comes from a different type of parent So when you take the seeds out of a honey crisp apple, you have no idea what kind of Apple it's gonna develop that that seed when it grows into a tree Well, we know who the mother is the mother was a honey crisp But we have no idea who the father is because we don't know where the bee got the pollen from and it could be from a crab Apple could be from whatever So now actually this takes me back to my days in Minnesota. I lived right next to the the epicenter of apple breeding I was I did my master's research at the University of Minnesota horticulture research center in a Chanhassen area Where and that's the that's the birthplace of honey crisp and lots of apples there It's amazing how they you know, you had the big as a breeder You have to control the pollen. So let's say let's say we have a variety. Let's just draw haze in variety See, I wonder how I haze and if I cross the haze in with the honey crisp I wonder how it would be. Well, you visit manually take a haze and Flower with the pollen or you take the pollen from the haze and and you have to pollinate by hand that honey crisp flower and you have to close the Restrict the pollen so no bee gets in there to mess it up and then now you get that it forms an apples No, I I know I got a haze in honey crisp cross I'm gonna plant out those seeds and it's gonna take Many years it's gonna take ten years before you know whether or not Anything you did is gonna amount to anything and so they you know, Dave Dave Bedford out there. He has tasted hundreds countless hundreds of apples and Actually, even the honey crisp apple almost got I think I heard once it it was supposed to be a That planting was supposed to be destroyed because it wasn't it wasn't didn't taste good in the very beginning But they never got around to digging up that planting and then later Dave came out there and he said wow, that's really great apple I think I'm gonna make this one famous So it's really it's so time-consuming takes years and years ten years or longer hit or miss and You know over 99% are failures. How's that for life? That takes a lot of dedication So that's a lot of work and it's slow And but when you hit the jackpot you hit the jackpot because once you once you discover the honey crisp You can take cuttings from it and have and just multiply it that way Good question. Okay, one last question and then we'll let you go on okay What is the ideal and maximum spacing for standard size and semi dwarf trees needing cross pollination? Okay, well as far as the planting between the trees if it's a standard size tree I plant them at about 23 feet apart If it's a semi dwarf tree, I plant them at about 15 feet apart and And also got keeping into mind your farm equipment and your ability to get the sprayer between the rows too You can plant them a little bit farther apart if you want it depends on how much you know how precious the land is As far as pollination goes Usually when you plant a large orchard you will plant them in such that you will have Let's say you'll have two rows of honeycrest in one row of a hero sin Two rows of a honeycrest one roll of a hero sin. So the pollen will always be It should be at least within a hundred feet of it You know you should have at least a hundred feet of a different variety nearby and Sometimes people if they don't plant in rows like that, they'll have our they'll just have every third tree be a different variety Because you have to have different pollination Excuse me That's a good question. So like even like when you think about your backyard You should have a you should have a crab apple or another variety within a hundred feet to get good pollination Because that brings up a good point Julie that you know You got to plant at least two different cultivars because one cultivar will reject its own pollen Good questions Any other out there? Um, we'll come back to we have there's a couple more let you keep going. Okay, I'll keep going. Let's talk about Controlling pests because pests are a big problem with apples and we're talking about diseases and insect pests And I think a lot of us when we think about controlling pests. We automatically think about spraying chemicals, but actually Sanitation is of prime importance in the orchard whether it's a backyard orchard or a big orchard because The diseases and insect pests can overwinter on fruit and leaf litter So at the end of the year, it's very important that you collect the fallen fruits or the fallen leaves or at least mow them to prevent the the past whether it's a disease or insects from overwintering and Infecting the tree the following year. So again, think about raking It's if it's a small orchard raking just as important as thinking about spraying or at least mow underneath the trees If it's a if we're worried about diseases Fundicides calm we're gonna use fundicides and the most common one use their cap can Mancozeb early in the season or for organic growers wettable sulfurs use The key is you got to use it when the buds break because that's when The infections occur is in springtime when the buds are just breaking. So if I'm just gonna spray my orchard three times with the fungicide I'm gonna spray When the buds break just start to emerge and then fall about every seven to ten days And just like if I could just do three sprays, I can control a lot of the diseases in the orchard that way For and here's the most the most killing disease is fire blight. So we got to talk about that fire blight is Shown this is a classic symptom of a hook or a shepherd's crook. We say at the end of the branch and the branch looks torched Okay, this is a bacteria. It's in the wood There's only one way to control it and has to cut it out cut that wood out of the orchard and you need to go The most modern techniques is what we use is what we call the ugly stub treatment So what we do is we get in the orchard as soon as you see the symptoms And we try to cut out all the all the blackened the scorched wood and then go at least eight inches beyond that and preferably 12 to 15 inches beyond that We prune back to a stub. We don't prune back to the branch. We leave a stub and The stub should be about four inches or more and the wood should be at least two years old And what we found is that any fire blight bacterium that we didn't cut out in our first cup will accumulate in that stub We paint the stub, you know after after we make it the stub and like a fluorescent orange paint or whatever And then we go out there in winter and we cut off the stub So that's the most effective tool against fire blight, which is a killer in in orchards Okay, lastly with bugs Some common insecticides would be malathion or if you're an organic grower neem other ones Carbryl is sometimes used later in the season to control insects or maybe Pyrethra's I see home fruit orchard products with that So those insecticides are available But the timing is key and also if you don't want to be spraying a lot And you're just a small-scale grower or backyard grower consider the use of traps to monitor for the past The other thing is the last few words are after the petals fall. Okay, there's no sense in protecting fruits Before the fruits are formed. So that's after pollination and we don't want to spray until the petals have fallen because then The bees will all be gone and we don't want to harm any honey bees So wait till after the petals fall and then we have to consider Insect management and you need to know the insect patch you're going after and in our limited amount of time I'll just briefly talk about the most common one And this is the apple maggot and this is caused by a fly Who lays her eggs into the fruit? The eggs hatch and then they create these little tunnels into the fruit. It's the most common insect pest in North Dakota It's also not that difficult to control Because the fly doesn't even emerge until early July like the 4th of July it wakes up from the fireworks and here it comes It's ready to lay its eggs and so we can trap for that We don't have to spray ahead of time. We can set up these sticky traps and There's the apple maggot traps are available online and at major garden centers They're covered with the sticky material the fly when she emerges in the 4th of July She'll be attracted to the red color because she's looking for a ripe fruit and all the other fruits will be green And so you can just go out to your orchard starting you can put these up in late June and Just inspect your trees just put a few of them up in each tree Especially on the sunny parts of the tree like in the west or south side and especially near a brushy area that that would help too Just go out there and it's in monitor for the past if you don't see any any Any maggot flies that means there's no maggots around so we don't have to be spraying But then if once those maggot flies do appear then you know, that's when you have to make your decision as far as how you're gonna manage the past and You know, are you gonna manage the past and use insecticide or do you want are you just gonna have like applesauce with your apples? It's your choice But traps are available to monitor for pass Okay, I'm gonna just wrap up with a talk on with some important facts on pruning and I want to focus a little bit on pruning because this is badly needed and Now it's the time to do it. It's perfect timing. We should prune our apple trees every winter Every winter and the whole key to pruning when you prune is to think about I want to get as much sun and wind movement into the canopy Also pruning can get the dead wood out and keep the height of the tree manageable Unfortunately, this is a very common apple tree in North Dakota. Lots of backyards have trees just like this never pruned We all enjoy the spring blossoms and then we just hope we get a few fruits And then when the fruits fall down or we shake the tray and we pick up the fruits We just hope and pray that the maggots weren't visiting that year. That's not the way to do it Here's another look at it. There's there's just no there's this is gonna be poor quality apples if any from these trees I Could spend a whole hour talking about apple pruning, but we're not gonna I'm gonna give you just a very quick us The short version of it I want to say Emphasize one point is that a lot of times people are hesitant to prune because they feel like they're they're not confident in doing it They think they're gonna screw up and they're gonna kill the tree somehow. Don't worry about it.  You got the pruners. Go ahead and start start going after it and Even if you just even if you're hesitant just if nothing else take out these vertical shoots called water sprouts Okay, anything vertical is not fruitful Anything vertical is not fruitful These water sprouts all they do is cauter up the tree prevent good air movement prevent sunlight Just take out the water sprouts if people would just do that every year You'd have a much better apple crop and you don't have to think about it and also I see like towards this top center of the tree You can see this this this branch moving inward Take out any branches that are growing inward we want the branches to grow outward Okay, it's really it's not rocket science and don't worry the tree will be fine There you go. Just get out there. Here's a vertical water sprout just with leaf buds on it No fruit buds. It's not gonna produce any wood. Let's get it Any fruits. Let's get it out I'll just quickly go over a few key points and again, this is in the handout that I have for you take out the suckers suckers are They just cut her up the tree the bottom of the tree. They do nothing good for the tree Next take out the water sprouts those thin shoots are just like pencils that come up They don't produce fruit. They just clutter up the tree in the big picture. We want a young tree To be trained so it's like a Christmas tree up like a pyramid where the widest branches are at the bottom So for example, if you have up here A branch that's going to shade the lower branch cut trim it back and when you trim back A tree an apple tree you cut it just above an outward facing bud again. We want the tree to grow outward Okay, take out vertical branches. They're not fruitful We want to have the tree stop at about 12 to 15 feet tall Not any higher than that because it's too hard to manage So don't let branches get taller than the litter leader branch cut them out Any branches that are growing inward take them out They just clutter up the tree and any branches that are drooping or horizontal They will be fruitful but the problem is they're not sturdy when you get a fruit load on them those branches will drop They'll just crack and so ideally we're looking for like what we call a 60 degree angle or two o'clock Ten o'clock. Those are the strongest branches for us Open up the canopy. I like this drawing and that before we see all that wood in there But after a while look how open it is You know if you're not sure whether you're you're done pruning or not it means you're not done keep going Open that up and a lot of times after I prune a tree. I go wow I really did a number on that guy But he come back in the summer and you look at wow it really fills in nicely And there's lots of sunlight in that tree the apples are gonna be bright red and the leaves are gonna be rich green So get in there and thin out open up that tree And orchard is in Wisconsin gave me a tip once he said Tom If you're not sure whether or not you're done You're not done You should be able to pick up a rangy farm cat And throw it through the tree If the cat gets stuck You got to keep pruning there you go now Of course, I would never recommend throwing a cat in a tree That's just not right You know, you can break a lot of branches that way. So don't do that But on the other another way we can do it without worrying about cats is there's an old saying about You should allow a robin should be able to fly through the tree in the early spring time So those are some tips open up the tree and get it some sunlight Let's say lastly if you got an old tree, what do we do again the same principle We want to open up the canopy get more sun in it Get rid of the dead wood get rid of those branches crossing over and get rid of those water sprouts those vertical branches And lastly that apple tree if it's an old tree and neglected it's probably 25 feet tall It's you can't manage those kind of trees. So reduce their height And here's a diagram of how we're going to cut out some of that central trunk We've got to bring that tree down and we're going to look for some vigorous scaffold branches ones that not not the oldest branches, but maybe about eight inches and Lustrous wood still young wood young sturdy branches. That's ideally what we're looking for and we'll have a tree something like this Or sometimes in the oldest orchards like really a well-managed orchard Is really it's not gonna it's not gonna live more than 40 years before the trees lose their productivity But in some of these really old orchards These heirloom orchards You see these old trees that are more than 40 years old and over time We try to keep the height low and they develop more into like an umbrella shape So I see this in a lot of old orchards, which you could find still in North Dakota So maybe that would be the kind of way an old apple tree would look but still could be managed Okay, I want to thank all the photographers for making their photos available through creative commons And I don't know does anybody have any questions. I'd be happy to answer them Okay, there were several questions. Okay. Here we go Um from k Isn't the hazen on its own rootstock naturally semi dwarf and developed in north dakota Okay, uh, yes and no hazen is from north dakota hazen is naturally a semi dwarf rootstock And I personally I think that's about its only good quality Um, but when you buy a hazen it will not be on its own rootstock It will probably be on a dolgo crab rootstock. That's by far the most common one in north dakota Okay, uh another julie in the audience says the apples on my harrelson have black spots on them every year They still taste good. I just cut the the spots out. But what causes these? Okay, if they're a black blackish spot, there is a A disease called sooty blotch and fly speck And the sooty blotch looks like ashen blotches The fly speck looks they come in clusters of tiny like black pinprits It looks like about 30 or more pinprits all right next to each other and those diseases often Come together harrelson's very susceptible to that. So it's a fungus disease. So what are we going to do about it? Okay, I think first of all Anything we can do before early spring to rake or mow underneath the tree can help reduce the presence of that fungus But then the most important most important thing for that is you got to prune the tree to get more air and sunlight because Sooty blotch and fly speck love humidity and that's that's when I see it most common It's in a tree that's not being pruned hard enough Also, if in some cases Underneath the tree, there's not any air movements. It's maybe too grassy. The grass is too tall. So make sure you mow underneath the tree and You can prevent the spread of sooty blotch and fly speck by fungicides all the ones we talked about cap tannins most common or Sulfur for an organic product that can help and you would be a commercial orchard We spray all Every two weeks from a bud break to near harvest time So it depends on how extreme you want to go but but usually we can handle that problem just by Being more aggressive in our pruning All right, then someone asked about the name of the publication for fruit pests Which I went back into your presentation, but I just want to be sure that I got it, right? The midwest home fruit production guide cultural practices and pest management Is that correct? Yeah, there's There's there's a bunch. I mean if you're really into pest management The most extensive one is the midwest fruit pest Fruit pest guide midwest fruit pest guide in and that tuggers detailed information about insect and disease control that list all the fungicides all the All the bactericides all the insecticides and how to how to use them properly if you're looking for more general information that midwest fruit Production guide from produce good or I like those wisconsin guides too Are both of those on the internet? Yes, everything's online for free if you want and they're also available for purchase And you can get you can buy a copy from but it's all online for free Okay, we'll try to get those linked on our website with tom's presentation um Here's minnesota joe s for newly grafted baby trees Rootstock branches are fighting with new scion growth to be main leader How should I prune to rootstock growth to prevent from becoming leader while still trying to maximize photosynthetic potential for the very young tree Okay, so the rootstocks are the The sprouts in the rootstock Are surpassing The scion is that I guess that's what joe's asking. Yes. Yes. So, okay You can't okay the whole the whole thing the most important thing is what? branch Is that the top is that the apex? The apex because that will give the apical apical dominance and that will get special hormones So you just can't allow that rootstock to get taller than the The branches of the the rootstock to get taller than the branches of the scion. You just can't allow that So just prune it out Trinity gardens asks how many fruit mega traps they need Okay, it depends on the tree the size of the tree It depends on the situation Um, okay for a standard size tree Let's say five traps would be great if you could do that But at least three it'd be nice and focus on them on the sunnier parts of the tree On and on trees in your brushy areas where the maggots are most likely to enter the orchard first If it's a large planting Then we focused the the mega traps along the border of the planting Because that's because that's more likely where the maggots are going to come from Okay, so the sunny areas of the tree If it's a if it's a dwarf or semi dwarf Three traps would certainly be enough Larger trees, maybe five would be a better And here's a question from judy She says you mentioned that you need to have another variety of apple or crab apple tree near your yard Apple tree to have pollination Given this how can you ensure that the apple tree initially purchased from a nursery? And planted in your yard will continue to produce the selected apples of the type of apple tree that was initially selected Okay What let's say when you buy let's say our friend Hazen when you buy a hazen apple tree That will always produce hazen apples Because the fruit tissue is asexual. It's not affected by the pollen It's maternal tissue. It's hazen tissue Now let's say you got a let's say you got a honeycrisp planted with your hazen The hazen will always produce a hazen apple But the seed inside the hazen apple will be affected by the nearby honeycrisp So So it's the seed that's the issue because that's sexual sexually propagated So in the nursery trade, we never you know, unless you're dav bedford at the university of minnesota The only We only use cuttings. We only use hazen cuttings We never take seeds outside of hazen apples to uh to grow hazen apples. You can't Okay, so it's it's Maternal tish the fruit that we eat is maternal tissue. It's not sexual And here's a question from jen r What should I do to the soil to ensure growth? We purchased trees last year and they did not make it. We were wondering if it was the soil Wow Okay All right I okay. Here's the ideal situation is Before you plant an orchard you get a soil test and even in your and like right now like as soon as that ground thaws out Get out there do a soil test do a general soil test uh for a plant like an As adaptable as an apple is in North Dakota. I'd be surprised if the if the soil was the problem I really I don't think the soil was the problem something else happened there It was uh if it dies right away It's uh improper watering or the roots were rotten to begin with There's it's such a harsh climate in North Dakota. Maybe something happened there or maybe it was a maybe maybe if you bought it from um A less than ideal place the the roots may have been rotten or it was a big box door Maybe the roots were rotten from over watering But I'd be really surprised if the soil was the issue that's You know what what would what would that be it would be like ph it'd be too alkaline And that would have to be so extreme you'd have to have like the worst soil in North Dakota for that to happen And what you would see your the leaves would be yellow with green veins So I doubt if that's what you saw As long as it's Proper drainage that's the most important thing but let me also throw in LSA. It never hurts to do a soil test That is valuable information that can help you manage the soil And usually save money on fertilizer because we have a tendency to over fertilize our plants And I have one more question for you This comes from minnesota joe Which varieties have the best growth habits to lend themselves well to espalier? Oh, wow Keep me on your toes Uh, joe, I don't know I you know what I've never grown an apple espalier style And I think just about anyone would do the job if you're willing to do it pairs are more famous for espalier Um, you know what when I select an apple The thing I'm most concerned about is its hardiness that would be the thing I'd be most concerned with and uh Maybe for a espalier apple, I would also I just myself I would consider maybe uh A smaller shape a smaller footed. Maybe uh, like a chestnut crab apple. Maybe try that But I think almost any variety would work All right. Well, I will draw it to a close and I want to thank everyone for participating and I especially want to thank tom for a very entertaining and Very educational presentation. So thank you very much Thank you everybody and if anybody has any questions As springtime rolls on please feel free to ask me you can find me via email I'll be happy to help you And bob has just let us know that the links to tom's slides that a handout the fruit production guide and the fruit pest management guide are available On the field to fork webinar and his presentation will be archived Within the week. So thank you again everybody and please take the survey And thanks to bob and thanks to julie too. You guys are great. Appreciate it. You're welcome. Thanks a lot Welcome


Hello guys, welcome to the session on software testing quality assurance, quality concepts. At the end of this session students will be able to describe the quality concepts, what is quality and the software quality dilemma. What is quality? The American heritage dictionary that defines quality as a characteristic or the attribute of something. For software there are two kinds of quality that may be encountered. Quality of design, end campuses, requirements, specifications and the design of system. Quality of confirmation is an issue focused primarily on implementation and the user satisfaction it is a combination of the compliant product, good quality and the delivery within the budget and schedule. What is quality? Quality is extremely hard to define and it is simply stated fit for use or purpose. It is all about meeting the needs and expectations of the customers with respect to the functionality, design, reliability, durability and the price of the product. What is an assurance? Assurance is nothing but a positive declaration on a product or the service which gives the confidence. It is certainty of a product or a services which it will work well. It provides a guarantee that the product will work without any problems as per the expectations or the requirements. How to do quality assurance? The complete process, the quality assurance has defined a cycle called PDCA cycle. So, the phases of the cycles are plan, do, check and act PDCA. So, these above steps are repeated to ensure that the processes followed in the organization are evaluated and improved on a periodic basis. Let us look into the above steps in detail that is plan, the organization should plan and establish the process related objectives and determine the processes that are required to deliver a high quality end product. Do that is development and the testing of the processes and also do change in the processes. Check that is monitoring of the processes, modify the processes and check whether it meets the predetermined objectives. Act, implement actions that are necessary to achieve improvements in the processes. An organization must use the quality assurance to ensure that the product is designed and implemented with the correct procedure. So, this helps to reduce the problems and errors in the final product. What is quality control? Quality control popularly abbreviated as QC that is quality control. It is a software engineering process that is used to ensure the quality in a product or a service. It does not deal with the processes used to create a product rather it examines the quality of the end products and the final outcomes. The main aim of this quality control is to check whether the products meet the specification and the requirements of the customer. If an issue or the problem is identified it needs to be fixed before delivery to the customer. Quality control also evaluates the people on their quality level, skill sets and it imparts the training and certifications. This evaluation is required for the service based organizations and helps to provide a perfect service to the customer. Let us discuss the difference between the quality control and quality assurance. Sometimes quality control is confused with the quality assurance. Quality control is to examine the product or the service and check for the result. Quality assurance is to be examined the processors and make changes to the processors which lead to the end product. So, the difference between this quality control and quality assurance the product in quality control that associated in the quality assurance as process and in quality control it is a reactive and assurance it is a proactive and line function and in quality assurance it is a stop function and quality control find defects. So, in quality assurance means it is it prevents the defect it prevents the defects. The difference between the quality control and quality assurance where the examples of these activities are given the quality control activities are like walkthrough, testing, inspection, checkpoint review. So, these are the activities of the quality control and quality assurance activities are like quality edit defining the processors, the defining standard processors, tool identification and selection training of the quality standards and the processors. So, the above activities of the concerned with this quality control and quality assurance of any product and not essential the software. So, with respect to the software the quality assurance becomes software quality assurance and quality control becomes software testing with respect to the software concern. Let us discuss the difference between the software quality assurance and software testing. Software quality assurance is about engineering process that ensures the quality. Software testing is it to test a product for a problems before the product goes live. In software quality assurance it involves the activities related to the implementation of the processors, procedures and standards for example, the edits training. In software testing it involves the active concerning verification of the product for example, review testing. Software quality assurance that it is a process focused and software testing it is a product focused. Software quality assurance it is a preventive technique software testing is a corrective technique. So, SQA it is a proactive measure and testing is a reactive measure. The scope of software quality assurance is applied to all the products that will be created by the organization and in the software testing the scope of the software testing that applies to the particular products being tested it applies to the particular product that being tested. So let us pause the video for a while and answer the question. Mention the different phases of quality assurance cycle. So the different phases of the quality assurance cycles are plan, do, CA that is PDCA, plan, do, check and act. Let us discuss the best practices for quality assurance. The following table explains the difference between software quality assurance and software testing. So, it creates a robust testing environment and it selects the release criteria carefully applies automated testing to high risk areas to save the money, time and also it helps to fasten the entire process. Simulate the time appropriately for each process, the schedule allocation for each process and it is important to prioritize the bug fixes based on the software usage. Form the dedicated security and performance testing team. Simulate the customer accounts similar to the production environment. So these are some of the best practices of quality assurance. Quality assurance functions, there are five primary quality assurance functions that is a technology transfer, validation, documentation, assuring the quality of the products and quality improvement plans. Technology transfer means these functions that involves getting a product design documents as well as trial and error of the data and its evaluation. The documents are distributed, checked and approved. So this is a technology transfer activity and validation means here the validation master plan for entire system is prepared and approval of the test criteria for validating the product and process is set. So resource planning for execution of the validation plan is done. The documentation here the function controls, the distribution and archiving of documents. Any change in the document is made by adopting the proper change control procedures and assuring the quality of the product, quality improvement plans. So we discussed about the different the quality, the quality assurance activities and the concept of quality and assurance, the difference between the quality control and assurance. These are the references I refer. Thank you.


Campus legends right out the gate. So I want to apologize my voice is shot I'm honestly really hungover from the Jake Paul fight. I know you don't care But I just thought I'd let you know it's gonna be a tough one But I don't care because this looks like it's gonna be lit and I'm praying that it is but it's also electronic arts So you got to be really careful campus legends. I don't know anything about this all I know is on Twitter I saw a bunch of like college uniforms and I think I saw like Trevor Lawrence throwing a pass But in his college uniform right here it says college football rules pick a team play books full four minute quarters One and done games with NFL OT rules So these can end really quickly is what it looks like honestly I'm just gonna hop in and figure it out. This looks like it's gonna be so much fun I was just talking so much trash, but how EA does nothing to update Superstar KO and they update Superstar KO So I'm pumped. Let's do my oh Oh Man the Spartans Bro, I mean I guess I should have known that since they probably have all the face of the franchise teams They've got Nebraska Texas Miami LSU the Trojans the Ducks the Gators and the Spartans. I'm gonna go west coast I don't know much about the playbook. So we're about to find out. Let's go base 34.  Let's give you fun. Yeah, we got we got Morton Anderson at kicker. Wait a second So what so what players are on this team? I'm actually really confused on how this is gonna work It's like a little bit of NCAA football CD lamb on the suit. I'm playing a guy who's the Sooners.  Are these all-time teams? I think these are all-time teams Trey Waynes. Oh my god. This is like my dream come true Dude, it's literally an MSU all-time team.  No That is so unlucky that is so unlucky. We should be able to get this not a run. I totally thought Good defense, I'm gonna play on goal stand here Plexical Burris Plexical Burris Dante Fowler levy on Bell and probably Kirk Cousins is my quarterback, right? Yeah Yep, there's Plexical Plexical We're gonna go play action here. Oh That might have been open wait Wait, oh, I might have been able to rifle it to lie. All right. We're gonna go with the read option I'll see if Kirk Cousins got the wheels He does Take four yards, baby. All right, Plexical on the slam that might be there It is and you know dude. He's such a beast. Of course. He's gonna catch that I'm gonna put levy on Bell on a route That should be the open route. Yes, sir Bell to the zone. Let's go Levy on Bell easy.  It's learning all-time MSU team.  He can't throw over the middle. Oh, I should have known No No No, somebody there better be a pursuit angle from a corner. I Kind of ran a bit of an aggressive defense right there gaps to be Plexico in the window.  I'm 100% doing this with every college team, bro Oh my god. All right. We're gonna get Plexical on an out route for the two point You better get this buddy. Oh This is a run It's not I thought for sure that was a run, but we got to him with Bocci. All right engage eight I'm gonna try and lurk the middle here Play action. I got the middle and he throws it just in time fourth and four I know what you want. Don't get him. No, he's open. He's so open No, I think that was CD lamb to the 11 yard sec. That's huge Yes, sir dark quest dark was oh He got up fourth and 11. He's got to go deep. We're gearing up for it He's gonna scramble get the QB get the QB Players cannot be knocked out of the zone damn. There's no zones in this. There's no X factors That would have been dope. Let's see if we can get Plexical rolling all the way right side And then I should just be able to laser in here. So let's roll right Good Plexical. Oh, he would I he would have caught that too. I just passed it I'm oh, I didn't get that pass off.  This is so bad. He's in the goal line set again I can't say I understand it, but I'm gonna throw this to Bell and we'll see what happens Go go go. No way Bro, this guy's the luckiest dude ever doesn't matter. I'm still gonna win Oh, dude, I haven't used levy on Bell at all. That's embarrassing. Let's give Bell some reps. Yeah We'll have back dive here. Oh Gotta head to the end zone. Let's go. We're in a sketchy position now This guy running his goal line was pretty effective. No lie Keep going keep going keep going dots on 20 to 14. Oh, no, I just went off sides He has a free play oh my god, so I was off sides. All right, let's play underneath I got the QB spy. What do you want? Do you want something short across the middle? Tray wins was so close to that. Dang it. She'll eat Calhoun off this left side. It is a run.  We're gonna hit Plexical Burris underneath For some easy yards. Oh Wow, he totally saw it, but we can just take off Plexical get it, baby That was nasty from Plexical Burris. Let's see if this out route is there. Oh, it's so open Not a sight. Oh Let's go air truck air trucks been a demon today nine for eleven two seventy three touchdowns and one interception He's way too widened out. This should be there.  It's working. It's not my most impressive running ever, but it is totally working Plexical no, it was literally so open. He just got to me too quickly. I'm going for it. Oh, baby Let's see it Plexical Yes, sir. Get up, baby. Oh Holy no way. I'm taking a field goal. No, sir. What about Rivera in the middle of the field?  I think I do I might score another one just to have a big cock. It's over now, baby I could just shoot the clock, but I wouldn't mind to let me on Bell touchdown here especially because he's had it You know, he's been struggling today. Yes, sir. Yes, sir Let me on Bell with the touchdown dude. I love this mode.  Let's get Plexical the out route I'm gonna have him get it this time.  Gonna see if we can get this to Tyler got me winner Undivided you have Spartans versus the Sooners. Wow.  I hope this isn't a limited game mode I hope this stays in forever. This is so dope boys. I love you EA Good job, it's pretty sick. I'm a hundred percent gonna play with all the college teams I love a video on every college team in this. This is so dope. I gotta win with every college team for sure I appreciate you boys. Thank you for watching always. I'll see you in the next video. Peace out


Um, so I'm going to tell you a little story. I've dreamed of going to Purdue University since I was in sixth grade. So to hear that Purdue was making a high school was like really exciting to me because I'm like okay maybe this is my chance to get into my dream school. Here is everything's computer based so all the work we do is electronic. And then me being able to schedule my own classes and you get to work at your own pace. Having the chance to just have free time and prioritize on your own. That's how it really prepares you for college. I've always like growing up wanted to make some type of history so it's like I'm actually getting to do that with being the first class. That way we actually made a pathway for the other generations coming here in the future.


Howdy guys, Andy Pixel here, and in this next procedural modeling tip video, I wanted to go over a topic that was brought up by one of my patrons, and the topic was about how do you go and level paths for your game levels or your terrains after a designer is, you know, late down the curve?  And so what we're going to do in this video is we're going to cover that particular topic. And what we're going to do, let me actually stop this here, what we're going to do is we're going to cover two methods. We're going to do a really quick and dirty version that really just involves blurring the path. And then we're also going to go over and cover how to do it with a soft solver. All right, so a little bit more advanced, I would say a little more accurate. And so, yeah, let's take a look and see how to hook this whole system up. All right, so let's start our slow production by dropping down a geo note here inside of Fidini. And I want to create a curve. And then I want to create a height field. And for this height field, I want to also add some noise just so we have some sort of terrain to work with, because we want to try to reduce the slope on a walking path on a terrain. And so we just need some sort of random terrain. And here you can go and offset this guy, use the increment ladder there to move this thing around to find some interesting terrain. Looks pretty good. I'm not going to be too picky about it. I'm going to hit space bar two on the keyboard to go into my top view. And I'm going to select the curve node here and just template my height field noise. And then with the curve node selected, I'm going to put my cursor over the scene view and hit enter to enter into its edit mode. And let's just go and create some sort of walking path. I just want to make sure that it covers a good portion of the terrain here. Beautiful. And then I'm going to resample that. And what we're going to do is we're going to put a point every meter. So I'm going to set the length on the resample node to one. And let's also go and turn on subdivision curves just so we get a nice smooth curve out of that. Let's hit space bar one on the keyboard to go back into our perspective mode here. I'm going to hold down control and then click on the template flag just so I can display both the terrain and the curve at the same time. Cool. All right. So on the curve itself inside of this resampled node, I'm going to go to the tangent attribute and turn it on. And I'm going to actually replace that tangent U attribute name with the capital N. And what that'll do is put the normal direction or the flow normal of the curve onto the curve here. So it's kind of hard to see right now if I go to my guides by hitting D on the keyboard to bring up this display option window and scale the normal to 1.73 there. It's still kind of hard to see. Let's actually turn off the high field noise so you can kind of see it. If you go all the way to the end of the curve, you can see a little normal poking out there. So yeah, there we go. All right. So what we need to do first to get an idea of the slope of the terrain is we need to snap this curve now to the terrain itself.  There's a couple ways you can do this. So you can do this in a wrangle node or you can use a race op. And the race op needs to use a vector, not the normal. So let's do this. I just did a control shift to remove the expressions. And then I put one into the ray direction, then I have to copy this rain node. So I do an alt left click to copy it. Then on this guy, I just switch the normal direction to negative one. So there you go. So then I have the curve snap to the terrain. So that's how you can do it with the built-in SOP nodes there with the rain node. I'm going to call this snap to terrain. The other way we can do it is, and it's a little bit faster, especially when you're working with the Houdini engine is to actually sample the volume information from our height field. Remember that these height fields are volumes themselves. They're just set to display. If you actually dive inside the height field node, you can see that it's just a volume bop and it's generating a volume. Just like if you were to go and create a volume itself right here. So that's same thing basically. And so what we can do is we can actually pull off the height information. If you go to your geometry spreadsheet for the terrain itself here, if I click on this guy, you can see that it has this height name. And this particular volume has a couple intrinsic primitive attributes on it. So if you turn on volume min value and volume volume max value, you can see that we have this min and max value. So negative 96 to 90. Those are those height values on a per voxel basis inside of the volume. So what we can do is we can sample that information inside of a wrangle node here. So let's actually take a look at how to do this. All right. So the first thing that we need to do is we need to create a new sample position. And the sample position is going to be the position of the point, the current point coming into this first input here. And so I'm going to do, we're going to say set. And I'm going to do at p dot x and zero and at p dot z. All right. So the reason why we don't want to pull in the y position of each point is because these volumes are sampled in a 2D space, right? So zero is going to be, or y is going to be zero here. All right. And then we need to get the primitive ID that we want to sample. And to do that, we use the name to prim vex function. And we want to sample the height volume that's coming in. So remember, if you click on the height field here, it's creating this height volume. And it has a minimax height value of negative 96 to 90 there. All right. So then finally, all we need to do is we need to sample the height value from our volume. So we use a volume sample like so. There you go. And so we want to sample from the geometry coming into the second input or input one. And we want to utilize the prim ID. So that's the volume that we want to get. So what happens is this name to friend function basically looks for any volume that has a name of height and returns the primitive ID or zero in this case. All right. And then we want to give it the sample pot. So where do we want to sample inside of that volume? And that'll give us the height. All right. So let me actually turn on the display flag for the curve here. So you can see we're not snapping yet. We're completely flat. So now if I were to take that sampling value and pump it into the Y position for our points. So I'm just going to say height. You can see that we automatically sent. And like I said before, this is much more efficient and faster when you're working with Udini engine stuff. It's also here inside of Udini and slot faster. The rain nodes work too. I just tend to do this more often. And what I do is I once I get the code written out, I go and create a preset. So I say preset. So you can see I have my volume might sample there. All right. So I just wanted to point that out. All right. So at this point, I'm going to resample this again. Now that we're snapped, this helps to basically make the system run a little faster because we're working on this point. So I'm going to actually set this resample to a length of 10. I find it good to start with larger values for their sampling. And then, you know, you can work your way down to smaller values. Something like this, we're going to stick to 10. All right. So that basically is the first step in getting this working. So we snapped it to the terrain. So step one is snap to terrain. And we learned a little bit of X in there as well. All right. So let's move on to the next one. Our next step is to try to figure out how to find the slope of the curve. Right.  And so before we dive into all that, I want to explain, you know, how this works for those of you who might not know. So I'm going to call this angles example. And what I want to do in here is set up a scenario here where we have two vectors. All right. So I'm going to create two points here. Let's turn these guys on and keep them at the center there using an ad node. And then I'm going to split. So I have two points and I can create two different vectors. So I can work on them. So I'm just going to split on point zero. We're going to set this to points here. And on the first point coming out of the, the side of the split node, I am going to put a new normal on it. And to do that, I'm just going to do a zero, zero one for normal direction in a Z. So if I zoom in on this point, it's really tiny. So now we have a normal that's pointing in the Z direction here. So I'm just going to copy that and do that for the other point over here and then drop down a wrangle node. What I want to do is I want to kind of reverse engineer the slope calculation for you guys. So you guys can see how it works. And so for this to work, we need to have two vectors that have a different direction, right? So we're going to use these two vectors here to find the angle between those two. And so in order to do that, we need to have two vectors that are pointing in different directions here. So I'm going to rotate this particular vector over here that's on point two. All right. And so to do that, I am simply going to create a new angle variable. And we're going to make it so we can change it ourselves. So I'm going to create a new float channel. Just call it angle for now. And I'm going to create a new matrix because we want to rotate this particular vector. And this is going to be matrix three. And I'm going to just initialize it to identity, which is basically no rotation. All right. And then I'm going to do a rotate function. We're going to rotate that rot matrix by the negative angle that we provide. And we want to rotate it on the x axis. All right. Because our normal here is pointing in the z direction. So I want to rotate around that x axis there. So that's what we're going to do. And then all we need to do is say at n times equals a rot. There we go. So now we need to go and expose our parameter there. And let's start to add some values into this guy. Now you're going to see that we're going to go crazy here. And that's just because our angle value, we want it to be in degrees. But these most of these functions in here take radians. So we need to convert those two radians over here. There we go. So now we can go and change the angle of our normals. Pretty cool. So now let's say that all we're given is two vectors. Right. So a lot of times this will come up when your procedural modeling adventures, if you will, you'll just be given two vectors. You need to find the angle between those two. We don't know the angle up front, right? So I'm going to set this to something like 50 degrees. And let's just go through that scenario now. So how do I go and find the angle between these two vectors? All right. Well, it's pretty simple actually. Let's just drop down an attribute or angle node here. And I'm going to feed in my first point. So this is the vector I want to compare against. And this is the vector that I want to compare with over here. All right. So I'm just going to feed that into the first input. And in order to do this, I need to get the normal. So we're going to call this the other normal from the second input there, or input one. So we want to get the n attribute from point zero. There's only one point in this particular stream. So it's point zero. All right. So how do we find the angle? Well, we know, let's actually start out with this. So we know that the dot product, so if I do the dot product of at n and other normal over here, this returns the cosine of the angle between two vectors. All right. And so to find the angle from the cosine, we just need to do the arc cosine. So we say a cos, so the arc cosine, like so. Now this will return it in radians as well. So we need to convert it back to degrees like so. And if I do that, you can see that our angle, so let me actually template this guy here. So our angle is 50 degrees. And if I were to go and change the angle, you can see, let's go and set it to something like 65. We'll come back down here. You can see we have 65 degrees. All right. So that's the general idea of finding the slope on a curve and getting it back into something that's readable, the actual angle. All right, so let's move on now and start working on our slope reduction. So now that we know a little bit more about how to find slope on geometry in general on points here and like that, stuff like that, let's go and drop down a wrangle node here. So let's go find the slope of our curve here. So we're going to call this get slope. And inside of this guy, we are going to go and find the slope of this particular curve here. So what we have to do first is we need to create our reference normal. So currently on our resample node, we actually forgot to produce the normal. So let's do that. So we need our flow normal first. So that gives us a normal that follows the direction of the curve. Then we need to go and create a reference normal. So this reference normal is just going to be flat. So like just like we saw on our last example, we're going to flatten out the current vector, the current normal vector. So this is going to be equal to at n. Then we're going to say flat norm dot y is equal to zero. And then we want to normalize it just to make sure it's of unit length. So say normalize and normalize flat norm. There we go. All right, cool. So now we have two vectors that we can compare to find the angle. All right. So all we need to do is say f at slope just so we can store an attribute on these particular points. That's why I'm creating an attribute here. That's equal to degrees. And we're going to do the art cosine. So a class of the dot product. I can type today. So I'm going to do the dot product of at n and our flat norm. There we go. Cool.  So I'm going to say at CD is equal to 000. Just so we can visualize our slope. You can use a visualize note as well. But since we're here, I'm just going to do hit all inside the same box note here. So are the wringled note. All right. So I'm going to say that we want to clamp this by some sort of max slope value. So we're going to say max slope. If it is greater than that max slope, we're going to color you red. So one zero zero. There we go. Let's turn it on. And let's take a look here. All right. So it's going to create our max slope value. And as I increase the slope here, you can see that we're finding where the maximum slopes are. All right. So we're going to leave this at, let's say something like 15 degrees. So how do we use this information now to reduce the overall slope inside of our curve over here? Well, it's pretty simple. So there's a couple ways I wanted to show you guys. One of them is just going to be kind of like a brute force approach. And the second approach is going to be a soft solver. So we're going to, you know, actually do a little bit of a simulation for it. So the brute force approach here is just to blur it out. So I'm going to do an attribute blur. Stop this down. I'm going to blur our cd value here. I'm not going to pin my border points. And actually, we should pin the the ends here. So let's actually do this here on the same wrangle node here. So this one is to find the slope. And this one is to find the ends. So in order to find the ends, I'm going to do a new variable called nay count. And we're just going to get the neighbor count. I'll show this before in one of the previous videos here. So I just want to get the neighbor count from our incoming geometry. Now, if the neighbor count is equal to one, that means you're an endpoint. This really just works for curves. So if you're equal to one, then I'm going to set you on a group called ends like so. All right. So if I look at my groups and attribute list, and I go to points, you can see I have two points at the end there that are now grouped. So we can pin those guys. I don't want them to move at all. And so we need to put that in this attribute blur. We need to put that into this guy and just put an exclamation mark in front of it to say not. So basically the inverse of the groups ends. So all the other points. All right.   All right. And then finally, we're going to do an attribute blur for this guy. And we are going to just blur out all the points here except for the ends again. And we want to create this weight attribute. So this weight attribute basically takes a zero to one value. So it's going to blur it more where it's one. So we can use this color attribute here. So I can see at CD. And let's turn off pin border points. Now you'll see as I smooth this out some more or add more blurring iterations, what happens is it'll blur the areas that are more red and leave the areas that are not sloped alone. So you can just keep going with this guy. The cool thing is now if I were to run this guy again here, we actually need to produce new points here or new normals, I should say. So do a polyframe. So now if I were to visualize my slope, you can see I have just this guy is at that value. So if I just keep going, you can see we're getting rid of all the sloped areas pretty quickly except for that one larger mountain. So there you go. So there is your curve. So when you are finished with that, you're going to notice that you're pretty far off from your original curve. Right. And when you're developing like these sorts of paths for like world building or for game levels and stuff like that, you wanted to stick to where the designer actually placed the path. So all we're really interested in at this point is the y value of the point. So let's just take the x and z value from the original curve and pump in our new y value. And that gives us our final. So those are our final slope for the final reduced slope. All right. So all we need to do is get the position of the other point. So other pause is equal to points, the incoming geometry from the second input and P and at PT num. And this works because they have the same point numbers and they're in the same order. So they're ordered their number at the same. And then finally, I just want to say at P dot y is equal to other pause dot y. So now you've got the original curve on the x and z, but we have a new slope reduction on the y. Pretty cool. All right. So that's the first technique. And that's like I said, a little bit more bruised brute force. The reason why it's brute force is because you have to allow the users then to mess around with this blurring iteration value. Whereas it would be nice if we had a simulation that would run until all the points were basically below the max slope. But still valid. Let's call this step two. Basic approach. Go. Let's color this guy. And then let's move on now and do the self-solver. So I'm just going to drop down the solver here. These things are very handy for all this. Let's pump in the first input there and start taking a look. Okay. So let's finish this up by looking at the self-solver approach. So the first thing we want to do, every single iteration that we do on this particular curve, we need to regenerate the flow normal. So let's go and do that. Let's drop down a polyframe and let's switch the tangent over to the normal. There we go. So now we have a vector that's pointing along the direction of the curve. And then what we want to do is get our slope. So since we've already done that, let's go and get this guy. So I'm just going to go and copy it and paste it over here. All right. So now we know where our slope is. We can always actually already am doing all the visualization. Super cool. All right. So then what we need to do is we need to modify the neighbor point, the height of the neighbor point. So let me talk about this a little bit. So basically, if we're on this particular point right here, okay, and our point in front of us is less than the max slope threshold, then what we need to do is we need to move it down or we need to move it up, right? So currently we're on this point. We want to move this point up and down. So that's the neighbor point. So let's do at your wrangle and let's call this modify neighbor height. So there we go. And let's jump inside this guy and start typing some Bex code for this. So the first things we need is our max slope. So it's creating a new variable called max slope and a new channel float. So we can modify it. So we say max slope for the actual name of the attribute. And then I want to also do some sort of height reduction amount. So we're going to do height reduction variable. And I'm going to make another float channel for this. We'll call this the same height reduction. There we go. Let's expose these guys and give them some initial value. So I'm going to do something like 15. And we're going to reduce it 0.1 meters every single iteration. So we're going to either move up or down every iteration through the salt solver here. All right. So the first thing I want to do is create a weight attribute here. So we can visualize it. So we're going to initialize it to 0. And then finally I want to say if at point. So we're going to say if you are not equal to the number of points here. So I don't want to affect the end point. So the very end of the point here. So if you're less than then the point number or the point ID. So these guys right here. So if you're less than that, so the end point is going to be to 11. So if your point number is less than 211, then we can run this operation. So I'm going to then check to see if the slope. So I'm going to say F at slope is greater than our max slope threshold that we have defined. So if our slope is greater than that, let's get the neighboring point number. So I'm going to say nay is equal to at PT num plus one. All right. So what we're doing there is let's say we're on point zero here. So if I'm this point, so I'm going to say point number plus one, that means I'm going to get point one because that's the point that we want to modify. We're going to do a vector and I want to find the neighboring points position in space. So let's do a point and we want to get that from zero and we want to get the P attributes and we want to get the current neighbor point number. So basically we're getting the position of point one here. So let's just pretend we are point zero and we want to get the position of this guy and the reason why we're doing that is because I want to see if you are lower or you're higher. So if your max slope basically is greater than this max slope threshold and you're lower than we need to move up. But if you are greater than that max slope threshold and you're higher than we need to move you down. All right. So that's what we're doing right there. So I'm going to say if at p.y is less than napause.y then we are going to move you down. All right. So else you're above it and actually this needs to be a capital P here. So let's just copy actually yeah this will be fine. So basically if you are greater than then we are going to move the point up. All right. So let's do that now. So I'm going to say napause.y minus equals our height reduction like so. So now we're moving the neighboring pause down a little bit more and then we want to move it up on this side right here. All right. Then finally we need to set that point. So the neighboring points position using this new neighbor pause here. All right. So the we need to set it on the incoming geometry. We want to set the P attribute. We want to set the neighbor point. So this guy right here that we got right here. So that's the ID that we're passing in. So we want to set that particular point. We want to give it the new neighboring pause and we want to make sure that we explicitly set it like so. And we want to do at rib. And then finally we're going to say the weight is equal to one. We're going to use that particular attribute in a attribute blur node. All right. So with this done we can actually watch this work here. So I'm going to just do that and let's just take a look here. We're going to need the timeline for this guy. So these guys should start moving up down and stuff like that. So yeah there we go. So you can see that it's leveling it out appropriately until all the max thresholds are met. And we can actually visualize this. Let's do that really quick. So let's go and drop down a visualize node here. And we want to visualize that slope attribute as it's changing over time. So I want to do a marker. Let's turn off the update visualizer just so we get one. And let's go and find an area over here. Yeah something like this over here so we can watch it. So you can see that we have a bunch of values for slope that are over 15. Let me actually run this in real time here. There you go. So now we're going and fixing that until they're all below 15 degrees. Pretty cool. All right one last thing I want to do here and we'll wrap this guy up is I want to do that attribute blur and then I also want to make sure that I retain the original path that was drawn. So I'm going to do an attribute blur first. And we are going to set this to weight. So that's why we created that weight attribute. And I'm just going to do this like 10 blurring iterations. So every single frame we're going to blur it just a little bit. It really helps just kind of smooth it out.  I want to retain the original curve direction. So anytime you use this attribute blur node and you put it onto the p attribute there it's going to start to kind of shrink it and just change the overall shape. So I want to go and get the other pods here and that is equal to 0.1 and we want to get the p attribute and at pt num. And we just want to set the at py on the original curve there to the other pods.ly. And there we go. So then we drop down an all node here just to kind of make it official. Let's call this out and let's go back here and watch this work its magic. Actually we need the points on so we can see something. Or you can go and actually let's do this. Let's do a polyframe at the end here. Do some sweep geometry. We'll put in the flow normal and then we'll put in our curve directions. There we go. Then we'll do a sweep node. It just ensures that you get proper rotations for your sweep node. Set this to a ribbon and we'll make this something like 8. Maybe even bigger. Let's do 15. There we go. Let's reverse it. Cool. So now we got some geometry we can look at. So all these red areas are where it's above the 15 degree threshold. So let's watch this guy roll. Pretty cool. So you can go and see it's trying to resolve the total threshold for the slope. Alright so hopefully you guys enjoyed that. Those are always fun to put together. Let me know if you guys have any questions and thanks so much.


Deputy Chief for Mobilization Affairs Stanislav Rychitsky has been shot dead in Russia's Krasnodar city, the Russian media reported. Rychitsky was shot by an unknown person four times in the back and chest during his morning jog. The assailant fled the scene of the crime. The military official died immediately of the wounds he sustained. Stanislav Rychitsky was a second-ranked captain and a commander of the Krasnodar submarine. According to the Ukrainian media, caliber missiles were fired into Ukraine's territory under his leadership.