Crabapple timeline
- Thread starter sandbur
- Start date
sandbur
5 year old buck +
Bowsnbucks
5 year old buck +
Bur -
Do you ever get late freezes there?? Are your crabs late bloomers, so they avoid late freezes?? Up there, you seem to get better fruit crops that we do at camp in pa. We seem to get late freezes / frosts 2 out of 3 years and our apple / crab crop suffers. This year is an off year again for us, due to late frosts / freeze. Just wondering.
Do you ever get late freezes there?? Are your crabs late bloomers, so they avoid late freezes?? Up there, you seem to get better fruit crops that we do at camp in pa. We seem to get late freezes / frosts 2 out of 3 years and our apple / crab crop suffers. This year is an off year again for us, due to late frosts / freeze. Just wondering.
sandbur
5 year old buck +
I have been lucky for a bit. It has been 3-4 years since a late frost.
My ‘Outback ‘ trees are on a slight north slope and the snow doesn’t melt as early back there. Later snow melt=later bloom time and I can sometimes get fruit there but not ‘Upfront’.
sandbur
5 year old buck +
I wouldn’t call this ornamental. I wonder if the scion ID is correct. Either way, it is a decent cooking apple. I eat some with oatmeal in the morning.
bigboreblr
5 year old buck +
bowsnbucks,
IF adding more trees, look at bloom groups. Some variety descriptions show a long bloom period as well. For me enterprise was a good option, late bloomer. Every well known variety I have is bloom group 3/4. Been trying to hold fast to cedar apple resistance and evening out ripe / drop periods. Can be tough alot of good apples are in the late august / sept window.
Folks up north have been known to shovel or push snow under a apple tree to get it to bloom later.
Hard to do anything in the back 9 orchard. But, when the orchard at home gets ready to produce. I plan on leaving 2 or 3 window fans running outside in the orchard.
For years I thought the windmills at orchards were wind driven irrigation. But, they use huge fans driven by large engines. They circulate the air on frosty nights. The orchard by me has a old buick v8 engine driven fan. They probably run it 2-4 nights a year.
IF adding more trees, look at bloom groups. Some variety descriptions show a long bloom period as well. For me enterprise was a good option, late bloomer. Every well known variety I have is bloom group 3/4. Been trying to hold fast to cedar apple resistance and evening out ripe / drop periods. Can be tough alot of good apples are in the late august / sept window.
Folks up north have been known to shovel or push snow under a apple tree to get it to bloom later.
Hard to do anything in the back 9 orchard. But, when the orchard at home gets ready to produce. I plan on leaving 2 or 3 window fans running outside in the orchard.
For years I thought the windmills at orchards were wind driven irrigation. But, they use huge fans driven by large engines. They circulate the air on frosty nights. The orchard by me has a old buick v8 engine driven fan. They probably run it 2-4 nights a year.
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Bowsnbucks
5 year old buck +
We're pretty much done adding more trees. Lack of clear space is the primary reason, but we'll plant new apple & crab trees if we lose any to bears or disease / bugs. Most of our trees are DR varieties, and our location doesn't give us CAR problems, so our main diseases problems will likely be scab or fire blight (no FB so far, thank God!!). Our location on a mountain top is colder than in surrounding valleys, so we get late frosts & freezes some years. We typically have snow on the ground into late March / early April (if it's been a snowy winter). We have a number of Enterprise trees at camp, as well as a variety of bloom times on other tree varieties. We can only hope for the best each spring. Lately, we've had spring warm-ups that encourage blooming, then we get several nights that drop down to frost / freeze temps. Our camp members will never rig up fans with any form of power to keep a breeze going at night. Many of our trees are spread out for hunting purposes, even IF members were so inclined to set up fans or windmills. It's not practical for us.
rocksnstumps
5 year old buck +
Nuther hang time report. Overall a decent fruit year compared to the last couple years of late spring frosts. The Ranetka mentioned are all seedlings and just starting to get to decent sized trees.
- Most/All still hanging: Honeygold, Enterprise, Franklin Cider, EMS crab, Ranetka D, Ranetka E, a bunch of red splendor/siberian crabs, and several wild apple trees ( these will start dumping at the end of Oct with one tree having some past Thanksgiving)
- Dropped about half: Wolf River
- Few dozen left and been dropping slowly since early Sept: Ranetka B
The enterprise are pretty good eating right now but they do have a thick/tough skin.
- Most/All still hanging: Honeygold, Enterprise, Franklin Cider, EMS crab, Ranetka D, Ranetka E, a bunch of red splendor/siberian crabs, and several wild apple trees ( these will start dumping at the end of Oct with one tree having some past Thanksgiving)
- Dropped about half: Wolf River
- Few dozen left and been dropping slowly since early Sept: Ranetka B
The enterprise are pretty good eating right now but they do have a thick/tough skin.
rocksnstumps
5 year old buck +
Those firecrackers are a decent size but still a crab I take it. Leaves look clean too. From a nursery and if so what one? Thx
sandbur
5 year old buck +
Memory says they came from Jungs and are also known as Bill’s Red Flesh.
A friend picked the tree up for me when he was coming this way.
The tree is still holding some fruit and I somewhat enjoy eating them with some watercore.
Truth be told, I have had to lay off any apples for a few days as my stomach was bothering me. I would guess I was eating 7-10 apples per day.
rocksnstumps
5 year old buck +
Thx for the info. Didn't realize part of the red flesh crowd as well.
sandbur
5 year old buck +
Our rifle season closed yesterday and I did part of my post season walk around. I haven’t visited these areas in 5-6 weeks . Some places have been almost three months.
This is a graft from a wild crab that we call Pilsbury Crab. I need to get a ten foot conduit this next spring and try and straighten it up.
