Establishing an Orchard, Blank Slate.

[buckvelvet]

Well guys let me first give you a run down. This is a 120 acre property that my wifes family owns, i've hunted here the past 4 years and started the food plot program here using LC's method.

1 Farmer rents some of the ground for asparagus, another rents some for corn. There is Corn/beans/alfalfa all around on the adjacent properties. We are not the property that has cover but right now I cannot address that.

I have been given the green light to establish an orchard on the property. Since i've shown initiative its my project, my baby to do as I wish.

I'm going to be planting 20-25 trees that I grafted this winter into it as a starting point. This is bare ground, will probably establish clover amongst it for ground cover as we move along. The PH is 6.0 and the green patch to the East of it that you see is a swamp that holds water, so it drains well off this embankment into the swamp.

This will be for people consumption and wildlife. We have a crazy amount of deer in this particular area, when I mean a lot, I mean if you seen 20 in one morning sit it was slow. This is a chance to corner the market on soft mast in the area and also feed my desire to have lots of trees to work with as I really enjoyed the grafting process and will look to diversify the portfolio of varieties. As you can see with 1 3/4 acres that could potentially be hundreds of trees. Given its sandy nature toward the west side of this property and more black loam towards the east of this acreage (shifts quickly in dirt) I am still heavily considering all B118 to Antonovka on the east side possibly (as I've read it does better with wet feet), in high rain years this part could have occasional standing water for a day or 2.

I'm curious what you guys would do with this much land to just plant whatever the heck you want? Disease resistance is good but this will be my play ground so I could spray potentially also. Would you possible consider a more semi dwarf rootstock if your thinking for people?

So many possibilities, Apple, Pear, outside the box with random cherry or plum additions?

Would love to hear your guys thoughts.

 

[Rally1148]

.... This is the blank slate that I wish I had. I'm at 13 of 20 acres that isn't swamp, and half of it is bordering an unfriendly neighbor that is a major PITA. It'll be fun to get to watch the progress!

If it were me, I'd put a bunch of DR varieties in for the deer. I'd say like 75%. I wouldn't spray them, and I'd let them be free. Since we're dealing with this many trees, the extra 25% has enough trees to have some "human" apples. I'd clump these together so that when (if) you spray, they are all together and you don't have to haul the stuff around.

Other than that, I'd go absolutely crazy with the natives. ninebark, dogwoods, hazelnuts, Chestnuts, american plums, all types of serviceberry, DCO's. Make some parts kinda like a "brushpile", and some other parts more orchardy. Lots of soft mast trees can be used for jams, so maybe look into certain cultivars of those (I'm thinking oikos would be a REALLY good resource). Get in contact with the Michigan Fruit and Nut growers association, they have a chestnut department, when I contacted them, they made it seem like the hypovirulent strain of blight is available to inoculate trees. If this is the case, you could get yourself some 100% americans growing!


This is 100% my dream. I don't think you can go wrong as long as you look at the longterm sustainability (e.g. will you be able to maintain all of it after you plant it).

 

[buckvelvet]

.... This is the blank slate that I wish I had. I'm at 13 of 20 acres that isn't swamp, and half of it is bordering an unfriendly neighbor that is a major PITA. It'll be fun to get to watch the progress!

This is kind of where its at me. There are stirrings that I'm going to inherit this place. It allows my grafting love/venture to continue, ya know what I mean? I can make this grow as my wallet allows kind of thing but plan it all out before hand.

 

[buckvelvet]

Are you 10,000% certain this piece of ground is going to continue to remain open and available for you to use/hunt?

Nothing is 100% in life. However yes i'm quite confident in it remaining available to me.

 

[buckvelvet]

Tell me about it....
As long as you're going into with the knowledge that at some point, you may lose it...then its all good.
As far as hundreds of trees...that will depend a lot on rootstock. A tree on b118 or antonovka is going to take up at least 500 sq. ft. when mature. I allow about 600 sq. ft (25'x24') for each tree as I want them to be able to be big trees someday. If you go with b9 or another dwarfing rootstock...then you absolutely could have hundreds of trees.

Yeah I was thinkin the semi-standard or full standard such as those I listed because the deers are thick as skeeterz. :) I think that is probably the way to go and I can get at least a few apples at arms reach to try a few varieties but the rest well, critters gotta eat too and I really love this grafting thing. Mine as well get the hardiest stocks available and let them thrive for years to come.

 

[chummer]

I am in a similar situation. I am assuming my wife and I will get the land some day. I have went into my projects assuming as much so things are done right. The first year I planted 8 pears and I thought that was a lot. The next year 12 apples and that was crazy. This year 34 apples and I say I am done but I doubt it. With your love for grafting I will bet you end up with hundreds of trees. It is so addicting and once you get the process down you add more every year until you are out of room.

 

[2ndHand]

I am in the process of creating an orchard using B118 root stock. My soil is generally sandy. This spring I planted 52 trees (by myself). For spacing I am using 17 feet between trees and 22 between rows. I recently grafted 35 that I plan on planting this fall. Best of luck with your orchard!

 

[aerospacefarmer]

I am told that it's not good to go with clover as many bees are attracted to clover and if you spray it can be a problem. Of not spraying then should be ok. Good luck and think about some semi dwarf trees. Can get a whole lot more in a smaller area and easier to spray and care for. Can always throw the Apples over the fence for the deer I started with B118 and now all my trees are dwarf or smi dwaf. I am planting my recent grafts 8 ft apart and they wil, bear fruit a lot sooner With the 60 or so I grafted I will approach 400 trees and it started with 5 Keifer pears in 3 gallon plastic containers from Lowes lol. What an addiction

 

[NY_Terrence]

I am told that it's not good to go with clover as many bees are attracted to clover and if you spray it can be a problem. Of not spraying then should be ok. Good luck and think about some semi dwarf trees. Can get a whole lot more in a smaller area and easier to spray and care for. Can always throw the Apples over the fence for the deer I started with B118 and now all my trees are dwarf or smi dwaf. I am planting my recent grafts 8 ft apart and they wil, bear fruit a lot sooner With the 60 or so I grafted I will approach 400 trees and it started with 5 Keifer pears in 3 gallon plastic containers from Lowes lol. What an addiction

If you have that many trees, and they are 8 ft. apart, how do you keep the deer from eating the trees? Do you fence them?

 

[aerospacefarmer]

Yessssss a big yesssss. Otherwise they would be toast

 

[buckvelvet]

I sure love talking to you guys.

17 ft apart on B118, won't that get pretty crowded? I'm using 15-20 ft spacing on M7 at my house.

I don't want a big fenced off area, i'm not going to be spraying much except probably bonide so I don't expect to be hurting my pollinators. I'm not looking for a commercial venture in the sense of a u-pick experience or anything like that just lots of diff varieties for my eye to behold as they bloom and grow fruit. That in itself will give me such a kick i'll never get over this new found affair.

I figured on B118 or Antonovka it'll take a few years to get fruit but hey, they'll last so much longer after i'm gone. A dwarf tree on that property, deer may just pull it over, lol. I certainly don't have any interest in staking trees. I plan to individually fence all of them as I go and once they get some serious height and girth i'll remove the primary cage.

I can't wait to dig into this. :)

 

[NY_Terrence]

Aero... I know my question sounded naive. The deer would destroy my trees without cages as well. I was trying to envision individually fenced trees 8 ft apart. My fences are cut to get 6 out of a 100 ft roll... so at 16 ft. 8 in. so roughly a radius of 2 ft 8 in. I love the concept of lots of smaller trees and more excuse to graft, but more $$$ for fencing also.

 

[Ben.MN/WI]

I like big trees, so now I purchase primarily Antonovka rootstock trees. I really haven't had much luck with pears in MN and WI, so through trial and error I've learned to stick with apples and crabapples. I purchased my trees from SLN and about half of the apple trees I planted in 2013 in SE MN have flowers on them this spring. I apply mulch around the trees which builds the soil and I also water the trees during their first year if there's a dry stretch. Since I'm hoping for large trees and I want to have room to shoot between the tree rows, I plant the trees 30 feet apart in rows and I also keep the rows 30 feet apart.

You might want to think about planting a windbreak along the north and west sides of the orchard to decrease the winter winds that can damage the trees. The windbreak can also be a future location for a ground blind and also an entry/exit route.

 

[buckvelvet]

Why guys gotta talk smack bout my sand, your anti sand!

Alas we have to plan LC mixes round here cuz we have beach sand. This particular area is a sandy/black dirt loam so not really ot bad, ph is 6.2.

 

[buckvelvet]

BV...is the soil at this location similar to what you have at your and your Dad's homes? .

Its about 3 miles north of my house.

 

[buckvelvet]

I dealt with beach sand for several decades on my folks' old place. I know what the challenges/shortcomings are.
Sounds like this area is better than what you have at your place.

Yeah its still sandy, don't get me wrong but the east side of the property is so much better than the west side where my first food plot started at a 4.5 PH. Yes thats not a typo, lol. Its on its 3rd year of LC mix and limed, looking really good this spring.

 

[wiscwhip]

Seriously, it took somewhere between 12 to 15 years for my dad to get even a few blossoms on his trees that he planted in the mid-80's. All I know for sure is that he put them on the north end of his large garden, which meant the soil was as good as it got on our beach, and so they could be watered and babied as much as possible. No idea on the rootstock, but I know they were some type of semi-dwarf. I don't even remember the variety for sure, but I'm sure they were either Macintosh or Red Delicious, because those were the only 2 apples my old man acknowledged the existence of at the time.

 

[chummer]

Every so often I have to remind myself how lucky I am with my property and land in New Hampshire. Even with all the clearing I'm having to do the dirt beneath me is great soil.

NH I thought we had similar set ups. Don't you have a lot of rocks?

 

[sandbur]

Yeah its still sandy, don't get me wrong but the east side of the property is so much better than the west side where my first food plot started at a 4.5 PH. Yes thats not a typo, lol. Its on its 3rd year of LC mix and limed, looking really good this spring.

I have blow sand with a pH of 4.6 where I live. It grows good red cedar trees, buckthorn, and a few jack pine. I don't mess with it for anything other than 2 tiny rye patches. I have better soils on the farm.

I just planted 2 grafts from 2-14 up north. I have 4 icnhes of black sand over gravel and I used the crazy ed method, minus the black plastic. I just laid the plastic bags down under the cedar chip mulch.

 

[2ndHand]

I sure love talking to you guys.

17 ft apart on B118, won't that get pretty crowded? I'm using 15-20 ft spacing on M7 at my house.

I checked various tree spacing calculators before finalizing the spacing for my orchard. The suggested spacing was 16 X 20.5. My primary goal is to grow apples for farmer market type sales - the deer can have all the ones that hit the ground. If I lived on site I would have gone with a different root stock, but since I am over 2 hours away I needed a hardy drought tolerant root stock that can grow in sandy soil. Best of luck with your project....