Bowsnbucks
5 year old buck +
Paleo - Those tree pix are great. I can see why the critters hang around. Loaded !!
How long do apple trees take to bear fruit? Shortest way?
- Thread starter eclipseman
- Start date
Fourteen years ago, I planted two trees on G16 rootstock in full sun on very sandy soil where even quack grass wouldn’t grow. I never watered them, but they did get mulched. They grew very rapidly initially, eventually slowing down at 50% the height that my standards slow down at on similar soil. However, they are both Northern Spy, which is notoriously late to bear, and have yet to produce their first blossoms. I was very impressed by the drought tolerance and rapid growth with that rootstock though.
buckvelvet
5 year old buck +
I think if your trying to grow a fruit tree of any type for 'instant gratification' your barking up the wrong tree so to speak. The apple trees that I have grafted are a love affair for me, I don't care how long they take in terms of years to produce. My enjoyment is taking in the journey to get there and trying new varieties I've never experienced, which will be the majority of them.
There are plenty of other things you can do for the instant reward for habitat/hunting endeavors, fruit trees isn't one of them.
There are plenty of other things you can do for the instant reward for habitat/hunting endeavors, fruit trees isn't one of them.
buckvelvet
5 year old buck +
Crabs are obviously great for pollination but if your main bone of contention is production I have no doubt Crabs are the way to go as the ones here get some crazy fruit loads. I do also 2nd that deer prefer bite size fruits however they have no problem biting through a Cortland the size of your hand. :)
If your targeting low maintence then obviously Crabs is your 90% way to go and sprinkle in some bullet proof big apples. The other side of the coin is where are you geographically, you guys in MN and the hard hard north have proven Crabs and a select full sizer apples are tried and true.
All good points Art.
yoderjac
5 year old buck +
I would agree. The fastest fruit tree I've seen is grafting to native persimmon rootstock which is 1" to 4" in diameter. It is typical to see the first fruit in the 3rd leaf. I actually had one that produced a few in the second leaf. However, that is the "first fruit". There is way to little volume to even have an attractant value for deer. You need a level of volume for attraction. With a mature tree with high volume, a deer learns it can return for more food as it drops. With a small volume of fruit, it is just a one time thing just like any place a deer finds a nice morsel as it meanders along browsing. For actually feeding deer you need volume in trees and volume produced from each tree.
So, even grafting a persimmon that is very well established, we are talking about 8 years or more before you see real attraction.
Thanks,
Jack
Bowsnbucks
5 year old buck +
Jack ^^^^ - You mentioned a mature tree attracting deer as fruit drops. We've seen that exact thing at an OLD apple tree at camp. Deer were bedding 100 to 200 yds. uphill from that tree and when 3 or 4 apples dropped, several deer would haul ass down to the tree. It was like kids racing to a candy handout. They'd eat the apples, then wander back up the hill until another handful dropped. A camp member used that attraction & racing down the hill pattern to bag a dandy buck in bow season.
We have ordered and fruited trees on second leaf in the ground , Bud 9 , g41, full dwarf rootstock max height about 8 ft needs full support thru life , usually remove most developing fruit first year let them fruit lightly 2nd year to encourage some structure growth would like 6 plus feet before full fruiting , full dwarf trees will probably not last more than 20 years but neither will I,, these days if im going to see fruit it has to come fast or its for my son just a fact not enough years left
buckvelvet
5 year old buck +
yoderjac
5 year old buck +
I'm using Bud 9 to get early fruit for evaluation of seedlings, but I would not consider it for wildlife. I either use seedling rootstock for full sized trees, plant seedlings and don't graft them for full sized trees, or use M111 for a semi-dwarf. I would find anything smaller too problematic for wildlife.
Thanks,
Jack
paleopoint
5 year old buck +
Re: YJ's post in #49 re: 111 and/or full-size …..I'm not so sure.
7's will get you a tree that near 20'....some under, some over. On my ground that seems to be enough. And 7's are faster than 111's or 118's. They say 106's and `126's can work too. I haven't tried them. My Geneva's are too young for me to judge yet. To be sure, I prune all trees so that the lowest branch is 6' minimum. They can reach higher than that (see the nearby pics of the deer rearing up for pears)…..but my 7's are working for me without excessive damage.
Now, if you regularly have a snow pack that is 3+ feet, well then, standards and near standard may be a better option.
And if you have bears.....can anything work for you?
7's will get you a tree that near 20'....some under, some over. On my ground that seems to be enough. And 7's are faster than 111's or 118's. They say 106's and `126's can work too. I haven't tried them. My Geneva's are too young for me to judge yet. To be sure, I prune all trees so that the lowest branch is 6' minimum. They can reach higher than that (see the nearby pics of the deer rearing up for pears)…..but my 7's are working for me without excessive damage.
Now, if you regularly have a snow pack that is 3+ feet, well then, standards and near standard may be a better option.
And if you have bears.....can anything work for you?
yoderjac
5 year old buck +
Don't get me wrong. I wasn't making a recommendation here. I prefer a semi-dwarf or larger tree size for wildlife. The reason is simply durability where wildlife is trying to get at the fruit. I've got some full size pear trees that survived a bear climbing them and breaking branches. I'm also trying to plant soft mast in enough volume to have an impact on my deer herd, so I'm looking for the lowest possible long-term maintenance. I really like trees like American persimmons that, once established, you can just forget about.
The only reason I'm selecting M111 as my semi-dwarf rootstock is because it does well in my heavy clay soils. I was not recommending a specific rootstock for the poster.
Thanks,
Jack
Our bud9 are where deer cannot contact them , Our deer population is high enough it would never work without exclusion , We produce for sales every year we pick and store more apples than we can sell , then process for baked goods for the next fall , press and freeze cider till we cant hold any more about end of Dec we usually have 60 to 80 bushels too many we pour those out on the ground outside our fence after all seasons are over . The deer move in on em and almost live there till consumed have placed a camera on the pile and will get 30 to 40 photos per day , first they eat the apples we get to mid jan apples are gone the dig and eat any mush left over by mid feb they move on to another food source
yoderjac
5 year old buck +
Yep, that makes plenty of sense for apples primarily for human consumption.
sandbur
5 year old buck +
Do deer eat the mash that is left after pressing apples?
My mash pile is not touched.
Just got the second to last gallon of cider out of the freezer.
The other one is probably for Easter.
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yoderjac
5 year old buck +
A couple years back, when I was starting apples from seed, I went to the local ciderworks and asked for some crabs for seed (They sell apples but not crabs). They were kind enough to sell me some. However, when I was discussing my project with them they asked me if I wanted the pressings. I ask why. She said that some folks take the pressings and spread them out on a field. Evidently there is enough viable seed in the pressings that they get seedlings that way. Even if not, it certainly can't be bad for my soil. I just did not have a practical way to spread it.
An antonovka or p18 with a g30 interstem might be interesting. Would still have a large tree that should be more precocious. The only down side is there could be potential problems with bur knots and no one has put a lot of effort into interstem combinations. You also can’t buy these have to do all the grafting yourself and lose 6 months to a year letting the Interstem grow before grafting on top of it.
They eat ours and we press over 250 bushels yearly they get more interested as the season grows colder hit it hard by dec then its gone
This accidental experiment was not by design or intended to feed deer, but the deer seemed to like mash every year after it had been sealed in air-tight plastic garbage bags from early September to early December and then dumped out, and some seedlings came up the following years where the piles were. That was on coarse sandy soil which probably got torn up as the deer pawed at the mash. I don't know if it would work for rootstock generation on other soil types. The mash had a really strong silage-like odor, and the deer found it very quickly.
