Let's talk Wolf River

[WTNUT]

I had three Wolf River trees in one of the orchards that was hit with Fireblight last year. They were 4th leaf trees and some of my favorites. They seemed to know where to grow laterals, they grew extremely fast, and were darn near maintenance free! And, they were suppose to be very disease resistant. For some reason, they were hit harder by the FB than any of the immature trees I had in that orchard. It is a very small orchard with 15 trees on B-118. The FB started in three mature trees that were red delicious and Red Rome. The three Wolf River were the only immature trees that were severely damaged. I changed them. To Libery yesterday. Any reasons why they were hit hard. As opposed to. Varieties that were not DR?

 

[wooduck]

Hard to explain and predict fireblight , every year seems different here , we have some wolf river here and have not had any issues yet but have with some others some years . Who knows?

 

[aerospacefarmer]

I have 2 wolf River and never had an issue with fb on those even tho some others around had some minor fb

 

[Turkey Creek]

Possibly what you thought was Wolf River was actually mislabeled as something else by the nursery. Then again it could have just been bad luck!

 

[WTNUT]

I don't know what it was, but some trees that were not DR were nearby and they faired really well. Maybe the nursery mislabeled, but they came from Grandpas Orchard and I have had the best luck with them. I switched from ADAMS County Nursery five years ago because I was having too many fatalities.

 

[Bnhpr]

Wolf river getting fb and having a good growth habit are two things I have never experienced. I have 50 or so wolf river on Ant, B118 and B9.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[WTNUT]

Ben,

So glad to see your posts continuing. Maybe they were mislabeled, I can't be for sure. I never let them bear. BUT, I can guarantee whatever they were they were FB magnets :)

 

[sandbur]

Wolf river getting fb and having a good growth habit are two things I have never experienced. I have 50 or so wolf river on Ant, B118 and B9.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Ben are you saying wolf River does not have good growth habits? Poor form, or slow growth?

 

[WTNUT]

Ben are you saying wolf River does not have good growth habits? Poor form, or slow growth?

I think that is exactly what he is saying. If they don't normally, who know what I had because my three were the easiest I have had to year four or five!.

 

[aerospacefarmer]

Wolf river getting fb and having a good growth habit are two things I have never experienced. I have 50 or so wolf river on Ant, B118 and B9.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

My Wolf Rivers have not grown well but have given me nice fruit the last 2 years and as I said before never any Fb. I am surprised such a slow growing small tree can give such big apples

 

[Maya]

I had three Wolf River trees in one of the orchards that was hit with Fireblight last year. They were 4th leaf trees and some of my favorites. They seemed to know where to grow laterals, they grew extremely fast, and were darn near maintenance free! And, they were suppose to be very disease resistant. For some reason, they were hit harder by the FB than any of the immature trees I had in that orchard. It is a very small orchard with 15 trees on B-118. The FB started in three mature trees that were red delicious and Red Rome. The three Wolf River were the only immature trees that were severely damaged. I changed them. To Libery yesterday. Any reasons why they were hit hard. As opposed to. Varieties that were not DR?

That sucks WTNUT.

Something I've been noticing is guys saying...."they are disease resistant trees". Well, that can be right or wrong, depending on what variety and disease you are talking about. Disease resistance is not an all or nothing thing. It will vary by variety and each disease. Wolf river does have good resistance to scab, mildew, some resistance to rust, but it is somewhat susceptible to fireblight from what I have read. I don't grow any, so I will yield to the others that do.

Honeycrisp are somewhat resistant to rust, they get it on leaves, but not fruit! Good resistance to scab and some resistance to FB. Liberty and Enterprise good to very good resistance to scab, FB, mildew and rust. So they will all differ some depending on disease.

A good place to check on resistances to disease is the Orange Pippin site....... http://www.orangepippin.com/

 

[chummer]

My wolf River are growing at a snails pace. They are the only variety that has not grown out of the 6' cage(planted two years ago). I was under the impression they were fast growers, apparently not.

 

[woodduck]

I was planning on adding a Wolf River to my small wildlife orchard next year but now I'm thinking twice :eek:

 

[Buckly]

I'm adding 6 this year. I think you can have problems with any tree. We'll see if it's going to be a challenge. Lots of people have them though and they're highly recommended for wildlife trees.

 

[CrazyEd]

Wolf River have been some of my best growers as well as easy to train. The trees I got form Cummin's were the biggest of the bunch in 2012 and the trees have done very well. I've only had one fruit so far but it was absolutely massive. Here's one of my trees from last February.

 

[WTNUT]

Thanks Ed finally someone with a similar wolf river experience. Mine grew like rockets - probably 15 feet tall at year 3.

 

[Bnhpr]

Good looking tree.I think wr favors the larger rootstocks. The ones I have on support system are hopeless. The light limbs can't support the fruit. I have some 18 year old ones on M7 that I have had major fruit load damage also. Watch those large leggy limbs when it puts on a crop. Tragedy can strike.

 

[Bnhpr]

Check out the battle scars on this one. I remove half of the fruiting wood every other year to keep the wr trees from oversetting and breaking. Its biennial, so on fruiting years, the growth is minimal and requires less pruning.

 

[CrazyEd]

You will notice the tree I posted above has a it of a lean to the left. That's because when this tree did put out its only fruit it was up top and I should have removed it but didn't. Lesson learned.

 

[Bowsnbucks]

We have a couple Wolf River at camp and they're on Antonovka & B-118. They are growing very well for us - 10 to 11 ft. tall in year 3. No disease probs. so far. Limbs seem to be coming out at good angles. SLN and Cummins trees.