Native Hunter
5 year old buck +
This little pup thinks it is already a Big Dog...
Yes, a whip planted this spring.Was that a whip?
Mine were whips from Blue Hill. Planted last weekend. Showing signs of life. Rather not see flowers right away though. :)
That is fantastic. The first apple trees planted here many, many years ago took up to ten years to get any blooms. I planted a row of Big Dog whips two days ago and blooms would be great to see. Naturally the apples will be picked off if any begin to form this spring.
It will be interesting to see how Big Dog performs in other climates. Drop times for me can vary about two weeks for nearly all of my apples, depending on weather for that year. Most often, Big Dog starts dropping about the 25th of October with a slow drop through most of the winter.
I have lots of red cedars within 50 -100 feet and cedar apple rust has never been a problem on this tree. I have not seen fireblight on this tree either, but fireblight pressure is not real high here.
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It will be interesting to see how Big Dog performs in other climates. Drop times for me can vary about two weeks for nearly all of my apples, depending on weather for that year. Most often, Big Dog starts dropping about the 25th of October with a slow drop through most of the winter.
I have lots of red cedars within 50 -100 feet and cedar apple rust has never been a problem on this tree. I have not seen fireblight on this tree either, but fireblight pressure is not real high here.
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I agree that it will be good to see how it does here. I've always admired the pictures you show of how it performs in your area.
I would also like to see how Big Dog on dolgo performs in the northern plains like South Dakota and North Dakota. I feel dolgo would be a good rootstock for that location.
What is your preferred rootstock for wildlife in your location?
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Yes, I use fence posts, and at some places I have just guyed to nearby trees with plastic coated clothes line.Some of myB118’s are tipping. Good idea about adding dirt around them. Do you use fence posts to anchor the trees?
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Steve, We get 70 MPH here and more on and off and it doesn't even make the news as a big event--just another hard blow. With all of the wild apple trees here, I can only recall ever seeing two that blew over. They were both growing inches from drainages. Of course being wild they are all on standard roots. I think that alone tells us something.
Fire Blight does show on some trees here (really only a handful) and I'm thinking that Fire Blight may have not been here for at least a sixty year period. When I first spotted it about five years or so ago I had no clue what it was, just that I had never before seen apple tree leaves drying up on a branch in the summer and then the telltale blackened sections of branch spotted later.
Art, I know how you feel about Big Dog. It has shown to take everything your area throws at it but will another area throw a new curve at it that it can't take? That's how I feel about Turning Point. It is a super great tree here with the conditions thrown at it so far, but will it perform so flawlessly in all or most of the neighborhoods it is now planted in throughout the country? I don't know but I sure hope both of those trees are as great and special in their new homes as they are in their original homes. If so both trees will feed many thousands of deer in their new homes.
Dave, I'm excited to get both Big Dog and Turning Point. Experimenting with new cultivars is a lot of enjoyment for me. The knowledge gained from trying some northern apples in the south should provide us with a lot of useful information that we won't be able to find anywhere else.
Ryan and I already know that some cultivars do well in both locations (i.e. Priscilla and Yates). We just ripen earlier down my way. Hopefully that will be the case with many others.
Little guy looks nice. If you pluck a few of those apples, doesn't the tree grow more that year? Did that with my younger toringo crabapples and potted citrus trees this year.One more year and I couldn't believe my eyes. I forgot to check it before today and found this. And look how clean the fruit and leaves look.
Yes, that is the right thing to do.Little guy looks nice. If you pluck a few of those apples, doesn't the tree grow more that year? Did that with my younger toringo crabapples and potted citrus trees this year.