Anybody happy with their fruit tree population?

[bigboreblr]

Curious if anyone is just in the maintenance stage? Got enough trees, maybe plant one or two when things die. Would like to hear your story, or your approach to being close to done planting.

Got about 45 trees at home. I am part of a club which leases 600 acres. Got 3 or 4 trees by each food plot spot. MAybe 15 right now. Planting 4 or 5 more this weekend hopefully, and got about 3 or 4 more to plant in september. Adding 2 potential food plot spots with trees this year. I also hunt a few different spots of farmland. Got 3 or 4 trees in each spot I hunt. Planting 2 or 3 more up there labor day weekend.

Was tempted to put a bluehill order in, they were out of rootstock. Might add AWHO, Violi's, and Turning point to all my remote site for next year and be done.

 

[sandbur]

I am in maintenance and know I have more trees than I can take care of. I still do some pruning on most of them. Those near the house and that we like to harvest get better pruning, some fertilizer, and sprayed twice.

 

[Mortenson]

I am in maintenance and know I have more trees than I can take care of. I still do some pruning on most of them. Those near the house and that we like to harvest get better pruning, some fertilizer, and sprayed twice.

I think that's a good point. Take care of the most important trees the best. I planted more than I evidently like to care for. They all get some attention, but the earliest ones I planted got taken care of the best in the early years before I got bogged down. Now I'm mostly down to remote sites, like bigbore said, and they'll get lower limbs removed but not much more than that. Survival of the fittest. I think that subliminally I planted a lot of them knowing that would be the scenario. If All-Stars arise, then they can be treated as such.

 

[Native Hunter]

I have way more fruit trees than I need. I still occasionally plant a new one just because I enjoy it but that’s all. I could feed every deer within a 20 mile radius, so more trees is not a necessity.

I went with all DR stuff, so my only maintenance is mowing occasionally and cutting down any volunteer competition. I plant trees that support life rather than needing life support.

I can understand someone planting a tree that needs spraying because they especially like the fruit on that particular cultivar. Now that I’m retired I might even be willing to do that myself. What I can’t understand is planting deer apples that need spraying. Deer will eat any apple, and there are plenty to choose from that don’t require spraying.

 

[bigboreblr]

I have way more fruit trees than I need. I still occasionally plant a new one just because I enjoy it but that’s all. I could feed every deer within a 20 mile radius, so more trees is not a necessity.

I went with all DR stuff, so my only maintenance is mowing occasionally and cutting down any volunteer competition. I plant trees that support life rather than needing life support.

I can understand someone planting a tree that needs spraying because they especially like the fruit on that particular cultivar. Now that I’m retired I might even be willing to do that myself. What I can’t understand is planting deer apples that need spraying. Deer will eat any apple, and there are plenty to choose from that don’t require spraying.

I think when they're young they need spraying, or should be sprayed. I had 3 trees I caught in time before they got devoured by caterpillers. Far as Disease resistance. I try to buy them, but they might be false advertised. PRistine doesn't get cedar apple rust..... LEaves look as bad as golden delicious and droptine. Williams pride is touted as suspectible to cedar apple rust. Not a dot on the leaves. 20 yards away from a grove of orange blobs. Wife won't let me cut down the cedars that block the pool from the road.

 

[Native Hunter]

I think when they're young they need spraying, or should be sprayed. I had 3 trees I caught in time before they got devoured by caterpillers. Far as Disease resistance. I try to buy them, but they might be false advertised. PRistine doesn't get cedar apple rust..... LEaves look as bad as golden delicious and droptine. Williams pride is touted as suspectible to cedar apple rust. Not a dot on the leaves. 20 yards away from a grove of orange blobs. Wife won't let me cut down the cedars that block the pool from the road.

William's Pride is not touted as susceptible to cedar apple rust per the PRI breeding program experts. See the link below from PRI. They say it is "...field immune to cedar-apple rust..."

William's Pride

 

[fingers]

I'm mostly done but only because I'm out of room. Every opening is planted and anything left is too shaded.

 

[sandbur]

I'm mostly done but only because I'm out of room. Every opening is planted and anything left is too shaded.

All of my good soil is in apple trees or ag rental acres. It is time to stop planting.

 

[buckdeer1]

I just like fruit trees,mine are so overloaded and limbs are breaking.I will have to trim some but I planted 32 new ones last year.You can't cut all the cedars that are putting off CAR boles unless you own alot of ground.

 

[silver_yummies]

I’ve got 2 main orchards on my land now with each having roughly 75 apple trees each. I think I’m done expanding them and will reserve the open acres for yearly planted food plots. I still have 30 or so in my nursery garden to replace weak/dead ones over the next 2 years or so.

 

[Barndog56]

I've reached my limit at around 160 trees as I'm out of room. I've still got about a dozen left in the nursery that'll be used to replace any young ones that die.

I'll also be grafting varieties that don't work out, with the varieties that do. For example, my 3 Franklin Cider trees will be grafted over, most likely to Pristine.

 

[chickenlittle]

I'm closing in on maintenance stage with my 100 tree orchard. I'm pretty happy and would get a cider press this fall if I had more free time. I started with an order of 20+ trees from Cummins in 2015. I filled it out with my own grafts and few other purchased trees. Tree size ranges from too big to prune anymore to failed trees with rootstock sprouts that I need to regraft. About 10% need replaced/regrafted.

Things I'm pleased about:
I have a wide variety of trees
I focused on disease resistant varieties
I added a few varieties I didn't know much about knowing they might not work out.
I requested scionwood from the USDA for unreleased varieties of PRI Co-Op varieties. They look great - super pleased I did that. Wish USDA still gave out scionwood.
Electric fencing around the orchard limited need for individual caging. Expecting to shrink fenced area to just the more dwarf section.
Have only ever sprayed for pests and mostly just young trees - aphids, Japanese beetles, bagworms

Not please about:
Young trees didn't always get the care they needed which slowed progress.
Planting rootstock and grafting later was a pain. Starting grafted trees in a nursery bed was much easier.
Electric fencing discouraged deer but didn't keep them out. I cage some young trees.
Having to add stakes to some trees to keep from falling over. No real trend on which rootstocks needed staking.
Took me until last weekend to get a tree tag on every tree, not quite a full 10 years.
One of the Geneva rootstocks I used suckers badly.
Losing trees - borers, sunscald, unknown reasons

 

[gunfun13]

I have around 200 fruit trees and mostly out of room. I know I could find some room for more if I really wanted, but I think I'm done with the exception of maybe replacing a few.

I couple weeks ago I added a half dozen trees or so to my cart on Blue Hills website but in a moment of clarity decided not to procede.

I didn't add any this spring, first time in 8 or so years since I began. Instead I opted to do things like fertilize, lime, control weeds, etc on existing trees that I'd previously neglected. My trees responded in a big way and grew like I've never seen (I have poor soil to start with). I believe I'm much further ahead now than if I had allocated that time to adding more trees.

 

[sandbur]

I'm closing in on maintenance stage with my 100 tree orchard. I'm pretty happy and would get a cider press this fall if I had more free time. I started with an order of 20+ trees from Cummins in 2015. I filled it out with my own grafts and few other purchased trees. Tree size ranges from too big to prune anymore to failed trees with rootstock sprouts that I need to regraft. About 10% need replaced/regrafted.

Things I'm pleased about:
I have a wide variety of trees
I focused on disease resistant varieties
I added a few varieties I didn't know much about knowing they might not work out.
I requested scionwood from the USDA for unreleased varieties of PRI Co-Op varieties. They look great - super pleased I did that. Wish USDA still gave out scionwood.
Electric fencing around the orchard limited need for individual caging. Expecting to shrink fenced area to just the more dwarf section.
Have only ever sprayed for pests and mostly just young trees - aphids, Japanese beetles, bagworms

Not please about:
Young trees didn't always get the care they needed which slowed progress.
Planting rootstock and grafting later was a pain. Starting grafted trees in a nursery bed was much easier.
Electric fencing discouraged deer but didn't keep them out. I cage some young trees.
Having to add stakes to some trees to keep from falling over. No real trend on which rootstocks needed staking.
Took me until last weekend to get a tree tag on every tree, not quite a full 10 years.
One of the Geneva rootstocks I used suckers badly.
Losing trees - borers, sunscald, unknown reasons

Please refresh my mind on what PRI Coop varieties are.

I also got some old varieties from USDA and a couple of Kazak varieties.

 

[chickenlittle]

Many of the named ones are familiar but some some can't be found anymore or were released overseas. The un-named ones got advanced testing but were never released for various reasons that limit their commercial viability. PRI focused on scab resistance. Some varieties are susceptible to CAR or fireblight. I don't worry about CAR but I have avoided some due to FB concerns.

About PRI

Co-op Summary Table

I have Goldrush, Sundance, Enterprise, Dayton, Pixie Crunch, Crimson Crisp, Winecrisp, William's Pride, Pristine, Sir Prize. I lost a Redfree.
Unnamed, I have Co-op 11, 17, 28, 34, 36, 37 and PRI 1918-1, F2, and PRI 77-1 crab. Most all the later varieties I could get. There are some earlier PRI ones I would have gotten if the USDA hadn't stopped offering scionwood.

 

[H20fwler]

I probably have too many if that is even a thing.
I’ve slowed down but am not done planting them yet. Between three orchards I have well over two hundred apples/crabs/pears from ten years old to the five or so new ones I just put in this spring. Also have a few cherries, peach’s and a dozen persimmons
I don’t spray either, do prune and I fertilize a little.
Overall probably 75% are for wildlife, when I retire I am going to get into the cider game and make applesauce. Might even get a dehydrator and make chips like Native.

Fruit trees are just fun to mess around with.

 

[Dantana]

I’m not sure I will order any for next spring. Like gunfun, I too had a Blue Hill order that I let expire. After trying my hand at grafting this spring and really enjoying it, I plan to dive into that a little more the next few years.

 

[cavey]

I definitely have too many yet not enough all at the same time, but reality says stop..... I have enough in my nursery to fill some fatalities - I will struggle to get the rest out onto the land as I am saturated. I just went over to a chunk of land I have that i dont get to much anymore and was horrified at the state of many of my trees. I simply cant keep up to all of them so it is time to move on to other things like wildlife shrubs. Maintain what I have and try and do a better job with the ones I have.

 

[buckdeer1]

I have some persimmions that were supposed to be grafted but they should be old enough to be producing so either I dig up or I graft.Never grafted before but do have 2 native ones that produce fruit.

 

[sandbur]

I definitely have too many yet not enough all at the same time, but reality says stop..... I have enough in my nursery to fill some fatalities - I will struggle to get the rest out onto the land as I am saturated. I just went over to a chunk of land I have that i dont get to much anymore and was horrified at the state of many of my trees. I simply cant keep up to all of them so it is time to move on to other things like wildlife shrubs. Maintain what I have and try and do a better job with the ones I have.

I have a few acres that are separated from the rest of my place by a wetland and drainage ditch. I need to drive through the neighbors to get there. Those trees don’t get a lot of care, but the soil is good. They are doing ok.

I check them about every six weeks in the summer and can snowshoe to them in the winter.