Recent content by Prof.Kent

If you want the same apple with the same late-dropping characteristic you will want to graft a scion from the tree to a few new rootstocks. Planting seeds will most likely get you a completely different apple because the seeds have the genetic material from the mother tree and the pollinator tree.

I've never had a pear tree behave.. before OR after trying to spread it.

Highbush blueberries.

Zestar and Liberty.

You should consider EMLA.111 and Antanovka. I had a Liberty on M7 that survived in a low spot that previously killed 3 or 4 pear trees. It usually sat in puddle, dormant, for a month in Spring.

Commercially grown apples are fairly fungal-free due to fungicides, but they are all washed with detergent and sprayed with wax to look perfectly shiny.

What variety? How old? What rootstock?

The big blotches are called "Sooty Blotch". Clusters of very small dots is called "Fly Spec". Both are caused by air-born fugal spores. They are both odorless and tasteless (at least to humans) and are evidence that the apple has successfully fought off the fugal attack, otherwise the fungi...

My grandpa had a solution for unpleasant looking apples. He always had a jack knife in his pocket. He used it to peel the apple as he ate it. Fact is, if you gave him a perfect apple he would peel it. because in his day, there were only scabby apples.

I have a Golden Russett. They're much better after the first hard frost. Before then its like gnawing on an oak branch... a sweet, juicy oak branch. They have less bird and insect damage than red apples do. If ever wanted a no-spray apple tree I'd go with a Russett. Their size is smaller now...

https://ipm.missouri.edu/MEG/2015/12/Getting-to-the-Root-of-Burr-Knots-on-Apple-Trees/

Roots. Burr knots develop when adventitious roots start to form on the aerial parts of the tree. At first only a single root initial may form, but over time more and more root initials develop in the affected area and the burr knot increases in size. It may take a year or two before the...

I can tell you this, don't use a bark graft on it. Bark grafts can grow over 6 feet tall in a year on a strong root like that and a strong wind can rip it right off. Graft on to available suckers, or cut back on the top branches and let suckers grow up, then graft to the suckers.

Usually people just call them a flowering crab, but it looks like a Profusion crabapple to me.

Wow, tough conditions. Apple trees are naturally drought resistant, the problem is that means when in drought they just tend to go dormant. And dormant plants and trees are in stress and that attracts insects, and a tree that is not vigorously growing is slowly dying. What you need to protect...