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.
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.
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.
And what spacing?
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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 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.
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.)View attachment 34595
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.Why would you not recommend putting a bunch together?
Different rootstock. Orchards are most likely dwarf so 10’ is enough room.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?
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"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?
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.
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.
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.