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Crabapple Variety?

trampledbyturtles

trampledbyturtles

5 year old buck +
Im looking to finalize my crabapple order for next spring. Would like something that fits zone 4b but would stretch to a 3. Good disease resistance to both CAR an Fireblight. Something fairly low maintantce-will get watered for the first 3yrs with pruning. Ideally looking to stretch out my drop time from mid sept-dec. Only slight issue is length of direct sunlight they would receive. Would be planted N to south in a 40ft wide opening, guessing around 6hrs direct sunlight.

Have 5 on order
1 kerr
2 chestnut
2 dolgo

Was hoping for some all winter hangover an Violas but cannot find any at this time.

Was curious if anyone has ever heard of or have an info on these varieties. They are through our local NRCS chapter. Have had very good luck with them in the past and already have an order started with them for shrubs an evergreens.

April Showers (weeping)
Cinderella
Coralburst flowering
Emerald Spire
Indian Magic
Golden Raindrops
Midwest
Pink Sparkles flowering
Pink Spires
Prairie Rose
Prairiefire
Purple Prince
Red Jewel
Red Splendor
Royal Gem
Royal Raindrops
Royalty
Ruby Tears
Sargent Tina
Showtime
Siberian
Snowdrift
Spring Snow
Starlite

Thz
 
Where did you find Kerr for sale?
 
Habitat-T member
 
Dolgo may drop before mid September.
 
If you want a non-edible, super cheap crab, my zumi crabs from Cold-stream farms are carrying heavy load right now. They just ripened (seeds are dark brown) here this last week of August. They are usually all dropped before xmas. Too tart to nibble on but wildlife gobble 'em.
 
So none of the varieties I listed are deer focused an I should look outside of the NRCS to fill the rest of my order?

Am I reading the tea leaves right. I've googled half of them an the majority seem like they r for the birds. Just though Id check with u fellas first.

Thz
 
Think you got the tea leaves right, those varieties seem to be more yard tree types and some are really good for birds and I have planted a few grafted ones from the list. If you can get em cheap means they aren't grafted and if you plant a bunch, you can expect some variation that might still yield a gem or two with bigger fruit but no guarantees. If you want more deer interesting ones I'd check other places and maybe search a few old threads on here for tree names

I do have a couple of trees with red splendor as a parent yet the fruit is over 1" dia that the deer have interest in but I probably planted over 50 RS (freebies thru NWTF, ok not free as went to banquets) at one time or another but most are tweety bird ones. The same can be said about sargent and siberian. The sargent tina they have listed I think is really a dwarf type tree, wouldn't bother with that one, siberian is much bigger.
 
trampledbyturtles said:
Im looking to finalize my crabapple order for next spring. Would like something that fits zone 4b but would stretch to a 3. Good disease resistance to both CAR an Fireblight. Something fairly low maintantce-will get watered for the first 3yrs with pruning. Ideally looking to stretch out my drop time from mid sept-dec. Only slight issue is length of direct sunlight they would receive. Would be planted N to south in a 40ft wide opening, guessing around 6hrs direct sunlight.

Have 5 on order
1 kerr
2 chestnut
2 dolgo

Was hoping for some all winter hangover an Violas but cannot find any at this time.

Was curious if anyone has ever heard of or have an info on these varieties. They are through our local NRCS chapter. Have had very good luck with them in the past and already have an order started with them for shrubs an evergreens.

April Showers (weeping)
Cinderella
Coralburst flowering
Emerald Spire
Indian Magic
Golden Raindrops
Midwest
Pink Sparkles flowering
Pink Spires
Prairie Rose
Prairiefire
Purple Prince
Red Jewel
Red Splendor
Royal Gem
Royal Raindrops
Royalty
Ruby Tears
Sargent Tina
Showtime
Siberian
Snowdrift
Spring Snow
Starlite

Thz
Click to expand...


I don't think you will get drop times through December with those three. My first fruit is on kerr, so time will tell if it holds until Dec.

I am probably mostly east of you a hundred plus miles or so. Dolgo tends to be ripe all at once and Labor day is the average. I hope to make some dolgo apple sauce this weekend. Chestnut is dropping some apples now and will drop through most of September. It's flavor will change through the month. They say kerr will run a bit later than chestnut, maybe considerably later.

Ask Turkey creek if he has any Big Dog or Yellow Dog left for late crabs. Consider them nonedible for humans. I suspect Big
Dog is Columbia.
 
SLN is listing Viola crab in their catalog. 26 bucks
 
I like your current list.

You might want to also consider a Wikson Crab. They're hardy zones 3 to 7 and ripen late October. I got one last year from Cummins and it's growing like a weed. I checked current stock and they only have them on dwarf and semi-dwarf rootstocks right now. I got mine last Feb on a larger MM.111 rootstock, so it might be worth an e-mail or phone call to see what they have coming down the pike.

Another on my wish list that I don't have is a Hewe's (Virginia) crab. They bare late as well and I saw no glaring flaws when I looked at them for zone 5 planting. Turkey Creek has these in stock on larger B.118 and MM.111 rootstocks.

You can't go wrong with what you currently have on order. Good luck!
 
Last edited:
Agree with apple junkie above. I actually got lucky and grabbed 8 of the chestnut crab, 2 hewes crab, 2 hyslop crab, and 6 wickson crab all from Cummins on B118 for next spring.

I planted wickson, dolgo, chestnut, centennial, and wickson this spring from cummins and all are growing awesome - so going heavy on crab trees this next spring as well.

So my advice is to keep checking cummins inventory as more might show up!
 
T- by - T ---- Look at St. Lawrence Nursery web site. They have early ordering for spring 2018 now. I can recommend All-Winter-Hangover and Trailman crabs for deer ( and eating ). I planted both of these crabs at camp and they are doing really well. They've been in the ground for 5 years now and the AWH crab put out a batch of fruit in year 3 and has kept it up. I bought 2 more and planted them 2 years ago. We have 1 Trailman crab and it's putting on fruit now too. No problems with either crab.

St. Lawrence Nursery ( SLN ) is in zone 3 and is right up against the Canadian border in N.Y. They graft all their trees onto Antonovka rootstock, which is VERY cold hardy and will give you full-sized trees ( around 25 to 28 ft. tall ).
 
Does anyone have any producing hewes crabs? Would love to see some pics. Tempted to add one from tc
 
Thanks for all the help fellas. Placed what I hope to be my last fruit tree order for the year last Friday morning.

Ended up with everything I was hoping for with a few bonus trees, cause sometimes it is just to hard to stop.

3 Dolgo - 1 extra to plant by other orchard to help with pollination
3 Chestnut - "
2 Kerr
2 All Winter Hangover
2 Violis
2 Liberty - extra, just cause I wanted to see what all the hoopla was all about
2 enterprise - extra "

And honestly at this point, I believe this will be it for Apple trees.
Want to really focus on last years an next years plantings an make sure they excel.

That will make 35 apple/crabs trees on the property, don't think I really should need many more on a qtr, Plus Im not sure where I would put any more at this point.
 
Need some fruit tree wisdom and opinions on a planting location. I have what I believe is the perfect place on the farm to plant a dozen crabapple trees this coming spring. Sets up on a funnel with a ace in the hole W NW wind tree stand location (those r hard to come by on the prairie). The tree grove is part of the original one my grandfather planted 30 yrs. ago to the west (trees r probably 20-30ft tall) with 3 new tree rows planted to east (trees are 8-12 ft tall).

The area in question runs north to slightly South East. The width is exactly 40 ft wide across the entire length. This is also the area that I planted a WR clover plot for the fall an coming years. Hope to maintain a perianal clover plot while the new trees get established.

Queston is, do you believe that these trees will get enough sunlight to be productive or am I just wasting time an resources?
Already ordered the trees thinking it was perfect, (high ground- out of frost pockets, available tree stand location, clover food plot, natural funnel location, scrape line an rub magnet, right next to one of the best Oct Nov bedding areas on the property) then got to thinking I may not be setting them up to succeed due to lack of sunlight. Know they say they should get over 6hrs a day to be productive.
The 12 trees will be planted starting where the curser is in the pic.

Any info or general thoughts appreciated

IMG_0171[1].JPG
 
No thoughts?

Hoping I don't have to find a new location.
 
I think you will be fine, assuming the trees you ordered are on good size rootstocks (Antonovka, B.118, MM.111 or similar), not dwarf or semi-dwarfs. Most of my trees are planted in pockets, and they do just fine. I have found that once I get them in the ground, most will find a way to survive and thrive.
 
I think you'll be fine as well. Should get a lot of midday sun. Where is your stand placement?
 
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