Whats the love affair with crabapple?

[TenPoint]

I am 1 hour south of Albany NY zone 5a. My 600 acre hunting club is 200 mile NW of me near the canadian border. Besides being 3A, there is lake effect snows which can mess with trees n food plots up there. Got heavy clay at home, and sandy soil with lots of organic material up at camp. To keep stuff growing, you need to keep adding lime. The pH is mid 5's, but perks reight into mid 6's with a 1/2 ton / acre initial, and a maintenance dose of 500lb / year. Black cherry, spruces, beech, and yellow birch are common trees up there.

I contacted SLN nurseries, Ill see what they advise for up by camp. Their site says they only sale standard variety trees, no semi or dwarf. Not sure if this applies to crabapples or not, small fruit doesnt necesarily mean small tree.

SLN sells on antonovka rootstock. Full sized tree. Crab/apple doesn’t matter. It’ll be on antonovka from them.

 

[TenPoint]

Generally speaking…. Many of us like crabs because they can be hardy and bear lots of bite size fruit.

As guys above have pointed out, the trick is pick out the right rootstock and variety that fit your circumstances. For your area, I’d stick with P-19, Dolgo, Antv, or B.118 rootstocks (they develop big trees). The varieties of crabs I’d look at would be Kerr, Chestnut, Centennial, Dolgo, Northland, and Wickson (all good to zone 3). All need sun, and lack of skidders – that could be your biggest challenge. Good luck.

Did you mean P18? I’ve got one tree on that. I think it’s a chestnut crab.

 

[chummer]

My preference for crabs is zone related. I try to stick with zone 3 trees and there are not many disease resistant zone 3 trees. I also think deer prefer golf ball size apples. They suck them down like a shop vac and fill up quick.

 

[bigboreblr]

Chummer, your a short drive away down road #4 to stillwater. What specific crab do you like?

Tenpoint, I was debating just sticking with a 2nd order or antonovka bareroots. As per their site, this is basically what they use up there.

Every Sept, I have a job that puts me all over the rural areas around oneonta. I collected wild apples from the side of rural roads and have a few hundred seeds. No luck planting them though, didnt scarify. Might bail on trying ifrom seed next year, trees are alot of work for unknown results.

 

[Tree Spud]

My preference for crabs is zone related. I try to stick with zone 3 trees and there are not many disease resistant zone 3 trees. I also think deer prefer golf ball size apples. They suck them down like a shop vac and fill up quick.

What is a list of zone 3 crabs?

We are on the north end of USDA zone 5b, but I see temps often in winter closer to 4a. This spring I have seen about 6-7 1st year trees planted last year that have not come out of dormancy yet.

 

[sandbur]

Chummer, your a short drive away down road #4 to stillwater. What specific crab do you like?

Tenpoint, I was debating just sticking with a 2nd order or antonovka bareroots. As per their site, this is basically what they use up there.

Every Sept, I have a job that puts me all over the rural areas around oneonta. I collected wild apples from the side of rural roads and have a few hundred seeds. No luck planting them though, didnt scarify. Might bail on trying ifrom seed next year, trees are alot of work for unknown results.

I plant my apple seeds in the fall and they emerge in the spring. Cover them with about 1/4 inch of sand and protect them so mice don’t eat the seeds.

I have a Trailman on Antanovka from SLN and it has done very well. Per my memory Trailman is zone 2 hardy. Drop time is late August for me. I would plant later dropping apples in that same area. (I would use crabs).

Chestnut crab is hardy and disease resistant for me.it drops from Sept 15 into the first week ofOctober in my climate.

Kerr crab is prolific and might be worth a try on Anty. Later drop times. Into winter some years. On B118 it tends to bare heavily and not get as big of a Trees’s I like. Try it on Anty and strip fruit off of it for the first few years, so it grows taller.

And I also like the late dropping crabs from my farm,Buckman andBig Dog.


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[sandbur]

If you want a hardy apple that is earlier than Trailman, plant Norland.


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[chummer]

Chummer, your a short drive away down road #4 to stillwater. What specific crab do you like?

Tenpoint, I was debating just sticking with a 2nd order or antonovka bareroots. As per their site, this is basically what they use up there.

Every Sept, I have a job that puts me all over the rural areas around oneonta. I collected wild apples from the side of rural roads and have a few hundred seeds. No luck planting them though, didnt scarify. Might bail on trying ifrom seed next year, trees are alot of work for unknown results.

My favorite is Kerr. If I could only plant one tree this would be it. Others that have survived multiple winters and are just starting to fruit are Dolgo, chestnut, golden hornet, redfield. Not officially a crab but starting to produce delicious 2” apples is frostbite. I also have some Franklins that are growing and producing but have had fire blight so I can not recommend them yet. I am hopeful they can deal with it and produce. I have a lot of FB on my native trees so if it can handle it not a deal breaker.

 

[sandbur]

My favorite is Kerr. If I could only plant one tree this would be it. Others that have survived multiple winters and are just starting to fruit are Dolgo, chestnut, golden hornet, redfield. Not officially a crab but starting to produce delicious 2” apples is frostbite. I also have some Franklins that are growing and producing but have had fire blight so I can not recommend them yet. I am hopeful they can deal with it and produce. I have a lot of FB on my native trees so if it can handle it not a deal breaker.

Golden Hornet has done very well for me and is hardier than some earlier claims. It has experienced brief periods of -42.

It seems to hold fruit well into late winter and it takes a real vigorous shaking to get it to drop fruit. Then the deer eat it. Has that been your experience?


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[chummer]

Golden Hornet has done very well for me and is hardier than some earlier claims. It has experienced brief periods of -42.

It seems to hold fruit well into late winter and it takes a real vigorous shaking to get it to drop fruit. Then the deer eat it. Has that been your experience?


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Yes. I think they are listed as zone 4 or 5 most places but I tried a couple because of their late/long bloom time and they have made it through 4-5 winters with no issues. My only complaint is the apple size is under 1” but they make up for that in volume. I Shook some of them off in December and the rest in March.

 

[yoderjac]

Yes. I think they are listed as zone 4 or 5 most places but I tried a couple because of their late/long bloom time and they have made it through 4-5 winters with no issues. My only complaint is the apple size is under 1” but they make up for that in volume. I Shook some of them off in December and the rest in March.

They are prolific. I was amazed how quickly they had apples. I grafted them myself with scions from GRIN to M111 rootstock and grew them in Rootmakers for a year. I planted them the next spring. They had apples that year. Even more interesting was how they responded to adversity. I don't do any spraying or maintenance on my trees. These are still tiny trees, not out of the 5' cages yet. They were then completely defoliated by some kind of insect. I thought for sure they were goners They leafed out the next spring and bloomed!

I will say they do produce small fruit. Mine were well under 1" in diameter.


Thanks,

Jack

 

[Apple Junkie]

Did you mean P18? I’ve got one tree on that. I think it’s a chestnut crab.

Sorry... yes, P.18 is correct.

I have a Chestnub crab on P.18 too. I put it in the most inhospitable spot on our property and it seems to be thriving with NO love. Anty is a fine rootstock, but the P.18 bears sooner and I am impatient. For me, it often comes down to what is available on a rootstock I am comfortable with.

 

[bigboreblr]

i spent the last 3 days with a pole saw cutting off dead branches off the old orchard. Waited until stuff emerged leaves or not. Thought I still had 5 or 6 producers, think Im down to 2 or 3 now. Gonna need new ones.

Not sure what to do with the toringo crabapples. Thet produced marble sized fruit here n there last year. Looking like the fruit will be small on them this year too. Im expecting smaller than a quail egg. Maybe more like larger marble. I know the grouse would love these trees up north. My big yard at home is split into 3. My house, the parcel between me and my in-laws. It's deeded to my wife, her sister, and her parents. Not sure of the future of it, if my wife oldest son will build on it or not. The toringos replaced the dead old orchard apples there. The rows are a unorganized mess of toringo, asian plum, and remaining old apple.

Also, anybody make new trees from the suckers? I am leaving the sap suckers on the tree. Bending them down into a bucket of soil on the ground. And shading the bucket from the suns heat. Do I need to do anything to the suckers? Remove leaves? Strip some bark to expose cambrium? Rooting hormone? Any soil mixture advice? How long to cut them from the tree in the fall? Fertilize good, or just water it. I was planning on transplanting the suckers that live into their permanent homes this fall.

Also, one of my trees I plan of knocking down have what appears 2 sapling apple trees right next to the trunk. How should I go about removing the tree. Dig up the seedling then knock the tree over? Cut down to a stump and leave the sapling?

 

[bigboreblr]

Anybody have a pic of a mature antonovka tree thats not grafted?

 

[Bowsnbucks]

Im in zone 3A, so I definitely have the cold days for amost any apple. Although not well liked, Saint Lawrence Nursery is nearby. I had my doubts about the bareroots they sent me, small and few buds, not too many roots. Every one is taking off, and I have had a few days in the 90's too. They may have something.

Crabs - for us - have been easier to grow with less fuss and babying, or disease problems than regular apple trees. They just seem to be tougher than regular apple trees. No muss - no fuss trees. Even the smaller-fruited "bird crabs" as Sandbur calls them, feed birds of all kinds and deer too as the fruit drops. Our smallest-fruited crabs make 3/8" fruit, but grouse, turkeys, and other birds eat them - and they pollinate our other apple trees as well.

I've bought apple AND crab apple trees from St. Lawrence Nursery since Spring 2013. Our camp is in NC Pa. mountains, zone 5 & 6 border. SLN seems to be selling smaller trees now than the previous owners did, but if the varieties are the same, you should have good luck with them. They graft onto Antonovka rootstocks still, I believe, which look more like carrot roots than hairy tree roots like some other rootstocks do. Don't let that scare you - I've not lost any trees from SLN on Anonovka roots other than a bear-damaged one. They seem to take about 3 years to "kick in", but when they do - they take off pretty well. Our SLN trees are the biggest ones at camp by a good margin - which they ought to be since they're standard-sized trees.

When the previous owners had SLN, the trees they sold were averaging 4 ft. tall when I got them. I hear they're smaller now.

As for SLN crab apples, I can vouch for their "Winter Wildlife" crab and their "All-Winter-Hangover" crab. Both are GREAT growers and produce good crops in about 4 years - at least at our camp. I'd buy more of them if we had more open acreage to plant them in. Franklin Cider Apple and Kerr crab (from Cummins Nursery) are doing very well for us at camp too. Franklins are growing like weeds. I can't recommend Hyslop crabs for anything other than pollination purposes. They have a tiny window for being edible to man or beast. We also have some un-named crabs bought from our Game Commission seedlings sales that are good pollinators and make fruit about 1/2" to 3/4" in dia. Grouse, turkeys and deer all eat them despite being smaller in size. I hope this is of some help.