Patience required for Apple & Crab Apple trees

[Bill Loser]

Planting fruit trees is definitely a long game. Some do fruit way earlier than others, especially crabs.
If you are new to it and want to see fruit fast plant a couple potted pears like keiffer and you will see fast growth and fruiting. That will give a good distraction and almost instant gratification while you are waiting on your apple trees to start producing.

Soil types and amount of daily sun also have big impact on how fast you will see fruit. More sun the better. Getting a good match with rootstock to soil type really helps..for me with loamy clay in zone 6A, M111 seems to do best.

Is there a big difference when pot planted vs ground? I have 2 pears planted in the ground 5 years ago and haven't seen a thing on them yet, some years not even flowers.

 

[White Oak]

I thought mine was dropping much earlier this year than previous years (planted in 2017). It was bare by mid December and previously held fruit until leaf out. A couple weeks ago I noticed some broken limb tips way out of deer reach, and suspect now that my earlier drop was actually racoons getting the apples.

I do have a cam on the area, deer under my Droptine don't trigger it but can be seen in background. From the cam it seemed deer were vacuuming up dropped fruit early October through November.

Thanks, at least I now know they will drop and the deer eat them.

 

[White Oak]

Is there a big difference when pot planted vs ground? I have 2 pears planted in the ground 5 years ago and haven't seen a thing on them yet, some years not even flowers.

A quick online search says "most pear trees take from three to 10 years to begin blossoming and producing fruit"

 

[H20fwler]

Is there a big difference when pot planted vs ground? I have 2 pears planted in the ground 5 years ago and haven't seen a thing on them yet, some years not even flowers.

By potted I meant buying pears from a store like TSC. Trees are way bigger than bare root and and establish very fast when planted.
A couple Keiffers I planted that way fruited the very next year. I’ve even seen fruit on the potted ones in stores before.

 

[White Oak]

By potted I meant buying pears from a store like TSC. Trees are way bigger than bare root and and establish very fast when planted.
A couple Keiffers I planted that way fruited the very next year. I’ve even seen fruit on the potted ones in stores before.

I have three potted Keiffers and one Moonglow from Lowes , have to be in the ground 3-4 years maybe longer and only a couple random pears on each. I also have 2 potted Callaway Crabs from Tractor Supply planted around the same time , and again only a a handful of crabs....In theory the bigger trees should fruit out faster, but the Whitetail Crabs bare root Crabs fruit faster for me.

 

[Bill Loser]

By potted I meant buying pears from a store like TSC. Trees are way bigger than bare root and and establish very fast when planted.
A couple Keiffers I planted that way fruited the very next year. I’ve even seen fruit on the potted ones in stores before.

The 2 I have were bareroot. Been in the ground for 5 or 6 years. Some years i have seen them not even flower. Last year they flowered but produced nothing. Its just weird, starting to wonder if maybe they are non fruiting trees.

 

[H20fwler]

Droptine are my fastest growers / fruiters from Whitetail crabs. I believe they had had a few crabs apples the first year in the ground . Definitely the 2 nd year in the ground, and 3 rd year I had several dozen crabs. With that said several if not most of it's crabs are still hanging along with some 30-06 crabs and Crossbow crabs. My first batch was planted in 2020 . Terry said once the tree gets mature at about 5 years is when you should get a more consistent and regular drop for the fruit....I hope he is right. If anyone is reading this with Droptines,30-06 and Crossbows over 5 years old are you getting a consistent drop and are they a draw for deer or do they just mummify and hand on the tree ?

I planted a bunch of trees from Whitetail Crabs 2015-16.
DropTine is definitely the most precocious of them. Fruited fast and grows fast, almost too fast. I fertilized a little and had trouble with branches getting weepy looking from fruit load and cracking, then raccoons go after them and they either snapped or stayed looking like a weeping willow. The main leader even horse shoe’d over and trees where over 12’ tall at the time. Kind of the same with 30-06 but not as bad.
I was very happy with the upward growth and wanted to see them get nice and tall but it was a double edge sword.
My solution was to prune those back pretty hard to strengthen the branch’s and had to ad a tall conduit pole to support main leader. That did the trick and they are much beefier now.
Now when I plant those I prune branches back on them at year 3-4 and it is a non issue.

Fruit sets are always great with those and yes the older they get the better the fruit drops. GH is another crab like that.
Of all the varieties I put in the ground from WC I’m still waiting on the Gray Ghosts to put on fruit, they have grown great. I suspect that they are Antanocova or very similar?
Yes deer and all kinds of wildlife eat all of the WC varieties that I have in the ground that are fruiting.

They do what they are marketed to do, heavy fruit, hold late, drop slow. They are smaller fruit though even on my bigger trees the crabs are nickel to quarter size.

 

[H20fwler]

I have three potted Keiffers and one Moonglow from Lowes , have to be in the ground 3-4 years maybe longer and only a couple random pears on each. I also have 2 potted Callaway Crabs from Tractor Supply planted around the same time , and again only a a handful of crabs....In theory the bigger trees should fruit out faster, but the Whitetail Crabs bare root Crabs fruit faster for me.

Maybe it’s an area thing or location as far as direct sun thing, the first Keiffers I planted were potted, fruited the next spring and have ever since. They might have even made a few pears the very first year.
I was at Walmart last summer and two of their leftover potted Keiffers had a couple pears hanging on them.

 

[White Oak]

Maybe it’s an area thing or location as far as direct sun thing, the first Keiffers I planted were potted, fruited the next spring and have ever since. They might have even made a few pears the very first year.
I was at Walmart last summer and two of their leftover potted Keiffers had a couple pears hanging on them.

Sounds good, I have 2 Rut Rage Pears on order from Whitetail crabs , it'll be interesting to see how they do. Another pear I'm interested in is the "Wildlife pear" from the wildlife group....thinking about getting a few of them spring of 2024. If My Tractor Supply Callaway crabapples don't pan out maybe I'll replace them with a Droptine or Golden Hornet

 

[Diesel5610]

I planted a bunch of trees from Whitetail Crabs 2015-16.
DropTine is definitely the most precocious of them. Fruited fast and grows fast, almost too fast. I fertilized a little and had trouble with branches getting weepy looking from fruit load and cracking, then raccoons go after them and they either snapped or stayed looking like a weeping willow. The main leader even horse shoe’d over and trees where over 12’ tall at the time. Kind of the same with 30-06 but not as bad.
I was very happy with the upward growth and wanted to see them get nice and tall but it was a double edge sword.
My solution was to prune those back pretty hard to strengthen the branch’s and had to ad a tall conduit pole to support main leader. That did the trick and they are much beefier now.
Now when I plant those I prune branches back on them at year 3-4 and it is a non issue.

Fruit sets are always great with those and yes the older they get the better the fruit drops. GH is another crab like that.
Of all the varieties I put in the ground from WC I’m still waiting on the Gray Ghosts to put on fruit, they have grown great. I suspect that they are Antanocova or very similar?
Yes deer and all kinds of wildlife eat all of the WC varieties that I have in the ground that are fruiting.

They do what they are marketed to do, heavy fruit, hold late, drop slow. They are smaller fruit though even on my bigger trees the crabs are nickel to quarter size

Do your Whitetail crab trees fruit every year?

 

[bigboreblr]

Any comments on crossbow? I planted one this fall, it has a huge double leader I can use as scions. Drop dates, relative bloom time?

Hoping pears take sooner... picked up 2 gin pears and a bartlet pear.

 

[Maddog66]

I have a Honey Crisp that I bought as a big 9’ bare root. Got 3 apples off it last year…..it’s 7th in the ground. It never had a fruit Bud until last year. Not even one!!!

On the other side of the yard I have a Wolf River, planted as a whip 4 years ago, that was loaded.

Fruit trees for me are like the stock market…….I got in expecting to play the long game

 

[H20fwler]

Do your Whitetail crab trees fruit every year?

Once they started yes.

Droptine will start fruiting very first year and it seems to keep it up regardless of frost. When I prune them hard that year they make less. Some years they are ridiculously loaded with fruit.

30-06 took about three years to get going for me and and is almost biannual, but still throws a little bit of fruit on off years. Same with Crossbow and Tenpoint.
The Sheepnose took about 5-6 to start fruiting, and as I said earlier the Gray Ghost has yet to start fruiting.
My original WC trees are all around 15’ tall now with trunks thicker than softball bats.

 

[H20fwler]

Sounds good, I have 2 Rut Rage Pears on order from Whitetail crabs , it'll be interesting to see how they do. Another pear I'm interested in is the "Wildlife pear" from the wildlife group....thinking about getting a few of them spring of 2024. If My Tractor Supply Callaway crabapples don't pan out maybe I'll replace them with a Droptine or Golden Hornet

I was to slow on ordering anything through WC this year. I want to try a couple of the Rut Rage pears, I absolutely love pear trees for personal use and wildlife. They grow great for me in my area and don’t need much TLC.
So far I can always find space for another good pear variety to try!

 

[White Oak]

Any comments on crossbow? I planted one this fall, it has a huge double leader I can use as scions. Drop dates, relative bloom time?

Hoping pears take sooner... picked up 2 gin pears and a bartlet pear.

I planted my first trees from Whitetail Crabs in 2020 (2) 30-06 , (2) Droptines , (1) Crossbow , so this isn't much to go on. In my observation The Crossbow grew as fast as the other two variety's , the Droptine had a small amount of fruit in 2020 and 2021 while the Crossbow didn't have any. In 2022 the Crossbow had several dozen crabs and no doubt each passing year the crops will improve.