Dolgo seedlings/ rootstock
- Thread starter sandbur
- Start date
Chainsaw
5 year old buck +
We just planted and fenced a hundred pack of Dolgo rootstock we bought from Blue Hill. They went in a lot easier than five foot trees, that's for sure. We used them as continuous rows in creating a field crossing funnel. As such planted two in each fence to up the stems per acre look.
sandbur
5 year old buck +
What size fence did you use?
I have some areas sprayed and am going to crowd in 2-3 of Ryan’s dolgo rootstock per fence. I will clip off those susceptible to CAR and hopefully weed them out with time.
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sandbur
5 year old buck +
And what spacing did you use? A friend ordered 100 and asked about spacing. I said 25 feet for fruit on all sides when they are mature, but I told him I see nothing wrong with a fence row and fruit on two sides.
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sandbur
5 year old buck +
Chainsaw
5 year old buck +
The "field crossing funnel" so far consists of three rows of one year old grafted trees like Big Dog and other named crabs planted 24 feet apart in rows twenty four feet apart. This of course does not look very natural. The Dolgo rootstock are planted in rows ten feet apart with ten foot spacing bordering the just planted named varieties. The fence size holding two plants each is 9 feet long (a little shy of 3 ft. across). and it is five ft. tall. This size fence has been used in the past here over the last thirty years with zero deer damage.
The reason for the ten foot spacing is to encourage daytime crossing of the field thru this Dolgo funnel by simulating what the wild apple tree stands here look like. The wild trees here generally are spaced 6 to 12 feet apart and are often multi-trunked.
White Birch Farm
5 year old buck +
This is about the average growth for those planted last year in average quality woods soil. Just jammed the roots in a slit in the ground made with a shovel and fertilized once later. Many of the trees are out of the tubes already. 
White Birch Farm
5 year old buck +
Fyi...I put in 50 Dolgo last year. 25 from BH and 25 from Chief River. Only a few showed obvious signs of CAR and I have a lot of it here. Definitely less than one out of 3-4. I would not recommend putting a bunch together. They are good enough trees that if you dont like what they produce they can just be top worked down the road. Between last year and this I probably grafted over half of mine so far.
I have wild crab all over, so for me the dolgo just adds to the gene pool even if I dont graft them.
(Here is a 30’ wild crab, which evidences the genetic diversity I have on the farm already. It is likely the result of native wild crab hybridized with an ornamental that was planted on the farm decades ago.)
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sandbur
5 year old buck +
Why would you not recommend putting a bunch together?
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White Birch Farm
5 year old buck +
As I stated above, if you are planting them together because you anticipate having to kill 2/3 or 3/4 of them, I dont think that is necessary. Almost everyone will produce either a reasonable tree as is, or a suitable tree for topworking. My survival rate with minimal planting effort was 100% on 50, so natural mortality should also be very low.
4wanderingeyes
5 year old buck +
Just curious about the spacing. I hear on here, and mostly all recommended spacing for Apple trees to be ~25 feet apart, but yet almost all of the Apple orchards around me have them about 10 feet apart and the branches are touching, or close to it. If the closer spacing is more beneficial for orchards, why wouldn’t it be for deer as well?
chummer
5 year old buck +
Different rootstock. Orchards are most likely dwarf so 10’ is enough room.
Orchards need to produce as many bushels of fruit per acre as possible. They plant in high densities using dwarf or small semi-dwarf rootstocks. Those trees are relatively short lived compared to trees on standard or semi-standard rootstocks. They also don't get very tall. Not ideal for "deer trees"
sandbur
5 year old buck +
I agree with you.
I thought you meant not planting together due to some getting CAR and also had assumed’together’ meant not even in any close proximity.
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Chainsaw
5 year old buck +
I am done planting ordered grafted trees and the extra Dolgo rootstock I had ordered for direct planting are planted and have two weeks left before I start planting my grafts. So I called Blue Hill and he still has a few hundred Dolgo rootstock left at the sale price so I ordered another hundred. It takes me a couple of days to do what I used to do before lunch, otherwise I would have bought all he had.
sandbur
5 year old buck +
You are hooked!
I will probably start top works next week.
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I was out top working Dolgo seedling rootstock yesterday that I had gotten from Lawyer Nursery and planted twenty years ago. At the time, the leader buds had not been cut off by the nursery. All I can say is don't wait twenty years to top work Dolgo seedling rootstock. Mine are over twenty feet tall. My step ladder is not.
Has anyone suggested to Ryan at Blue Hill that in the future he could offer to sell some Dolgo seedling rootstock without the leader bud trimmed off for guys that are happy with simply deer apple trees, or that want to plant the rootstock as-is without watering it and come back years later to top work just the survivors?
Regarding the Dolgo seedling rootstock I ordered from Blue Hill this year, so far 97% of the scions I grafted onto it are showing signs of life. No complaints.
Has anyone suggested to Ryan at Blue Hill that in the future he could offer to sell some Dolgo seedling rootstock without the leader bud trimmed off for guys that are happy with simply deer apple trees, or that want to plant the rootstock as-is without watering it and come back years later to top work just the survivors?
Regarding the Dolgo seedling rootstock I ordered from Blue Hill this year, so far 97% of the scions I grafted onto it are showing signs of life. No complaints.
cavey
5 year old buck +
Im probably stating the obvious but holding them 25 - 27 feet apart (tree to tree) in a row then, stagging the next row against the previous plantings but pulling the row to row distance close in is an option too... Its kind of splitting the difference. I've done that in some of my orchard areas. Visually that breaks up the line of sight a bit too.
I even wondered if some kind of espalier type planting would work especially if you could find away to do it about the browse height. Im going to try espalier planting just have not figured out where I can do it... more of a garden setting thing but... food for thought apple tree fences.
I even wondered if some kind of espalier type planting would work especially if you could find away to do it about the browse height. Im going to try espalier planting just have not figured out where I can do it... more of a garden setting thing but... food for thought apple tree fences.
sandbur
5 year old buck +
What types and sizes of apples did you get from those 20 year old dolgo seedlings? Are there differences in CAR or other disease resistance?
Are any apple crab sized?
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