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Bareroot Apple trees


Dirtyhip

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3 minutes ago, Philander Seabury said:

Sounds good!  Crimson crisp are good too!  There is also Cosmic crisp. Empire is my standard apple. 

Well, I am slightly limited with what I can find locally.  The OSU extension office was very pro Gala. 

I am going to need to learn how to care for our apple trees.  Mistakes of the past have been when I sunk them in and just let them grow.  This is not the way.

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3 minutes ago, Dirtyhip said:

Well, I am slightly limited with what I can find locally.  The OSU extension office was very pro Gala. 

I am going to need to learn how to care for our apple trees.  Mistakes of the past have been when I sunk them in and just let them grow.  This is not the way.

The challenge will be if you want to go organic I would think. My grandfather had a prolific peach tree but I think the birds and insects always got most of them. Peaches and apples are some of the top attractions to pests I believe. I think dormant season oil sprays are one weapon. 

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2 minutes ago, Philander Seabury said:

The challenge will be if you want to go organic I would think. My grandfather had a prolific peach tree but I think the birds and insects always got most of them. Peaches and apples are some of the top attractions to pests I believe. I think dormant season oil sprays are one weapon. 

I don't want to spray.  We buy organic apples, so there has to be natural means of getting nice apples.  stay tuned for me freaking out about it.  HAHA

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1 minute ago, Dirtyhip said:

I don't want to spray.  We buy organic apples, so there has to be natural means of getting nice apples.  stay tuned for me freaking out about it.  HAHA

You poor bastard!  I do not understand how organic apples or peaches are even possible!  Good luck. We are all counting on you. Although I remember organic strawberries and raspberries did work for me for a few years, but I think viruses finally got them all. 

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3 minutes ago, Philander Seabury said:

You poor bastard!  I do not understand how organic apples or peaches are even possible!  Good luck. We are all counting on you. Although I remember organic strawberries and raspberries did work for me for a few years, but I think viruses finally got them all. 

I suspect we have ruined the planet and there are pesticides in the rain at this point.

I buy as much organic as I can.  I look it as pesticide light.

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4 hours ago, Dirtyhip said:

They are in.  I am going to buy a couple if I can find Gala and honeycrisp.  @Page Turner.  My Extension office told me that Gala does well.  Honeycrisp is also very cold tolerant and I like them.  

 

I love honeycrisp apples and, if I plant an apple tree, I only have room for one so I'm going to do a semi-dwaft "Twisted Apple" - two different apple varieties with trunks twisted around each other - honeycrisp won't self-polinate.  Here's an example:

image.thumb.png.73fbac756e6c6dd9d049461ec4e87989.png

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8 hours ago, Philander Seabury said:

The challenge will be if you want to go organic I would think. My grandfather had a prolific peach tree but I think the birds and insects always got most of them. Peaches and apples are some of the top attractions to pests I believe. I think dormant season oil sprays are one weapon. 

 

8 hours ago, Dirtyhip said:

I don't want to spray.  We buy organic apples, so there has to be natural means of getting nice apples.  stay tuned for me freaking out about it.  HAHA

 

8 hours ago, Philander Seabury said:

You poor bastard!  I do not understand how organic apples or peaches are even possible!  Good luck. We are all counting on you. Although I remember organic strawberries and raspberries did work for me for a few years, but I think viruses finally got them all. 

...I grew apples organically up in the foothills, but I coiuld only do it because I was some distance from other people growing apples, and the summer was short enough there that I only got a couiple of generations of codling moth, so I could trap the males with pheromone traps in sufficient quantity that what eggs got laid and hatched to infest fruit was off an acceptable number.  I lost some fruit, but not that much up there.

 

Here on the valley floor, we get a minimum of four generations of codling moth, some years five mating flights in a summer.  I tried traps for three or four years, and lost 80% of the fruit to moth infestation.  There is stuff that is a biological, that works on moth, but it's difficult to find for sale most years, and is quite expensive.  I've been using Sevin, timed using IPM and degree days, and it has worked well for me.  I probably spray it 4 times in the growing season.  Otherwise, my apples here have been both other pest and disease free so far.

There is one guy who sells organic apples at the farmers market, but his orchards are not close to other orchards.  I don't know how he handles moth.

8 hours ago, Dirtyhip said:

They are in.  I am going to buy a couple if I can find Gala and honeycrisp.  @Page Turner.  My Extension office told me that Gala does well.  Honeycrisp is also very cold tolerant and I like them.  

 

...Gala is a pretty early apple here, and keeps less well than some of the later varieties.  It's a good tasting apple when fresh, and crisp, but loses that crispness in storage faster than stuff like Fuji, Granny Smith, and Cripp's Pink.  You need to figure out the whole pollination thing,  A lot of the orchard guys, who are not pressed for space like I am, plant crabapples as pollinators, every so many feet, in their tree rows.

I don't know what it's like near you, but there was a huge number of different apple varieties available by mail to me here. And they come on different rootstocks, so you need to figure out what will work in your dirt, and whether you want standards or Semi dwarf. I think I bought my trees from Bay Laurel Nursery, by mail. Most of the mail places have closed to new orders now, and are busy shipping out what people ordered over the winter.  They do fine by mail, the roots are pruned and carefully wrapped in damp wood shavings or sawdust, or something that will keep them moist.  I'm not sure how they get transferred from the grower/grafters to the various local nurseries, where they often stick them in pots when they have stopped selling them bare root.  The one nursery near me orders so many at one time that they probably get a whole truckload. But UPS works fine for this, and you can pick and choose as to variety and rootstock.

So maybe try a couple of trees now, as an experiment, but think of the orchard as a longer term process. Then you can devote hours dreaming about all the different apples, and timing them to extend your season, and pollination, and spacing and layout (I used triangles on 8 foot centers, but I am pressed for space and grow on dwarf rootstocks.)

Sometimes here in California, I can't order plants from some sources, because of agricultural quarantines. I don't know about Oregon, but any place that will ship to you knows the rules and requirements. It was easier for me to just pick a source in California.

 

 

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4 hours ago, Page Turner said:

 

 

...I grew apples organically up in the foothills, but I coiuld only do it because I was some distance from other people growing apples, and the summer was short enough there that I only got a couiple of generations of codling moth, so I could trap the males with pheromone traps in sufficient quantity that what eggs got laid and hatched to infest fruit was off an acceptable number.  I lost some fruit, but not that much up there.

 

Here on the valley floor, we get a minimum of four generations of codling moth, some years five mating flights in a summer.  I tried traps for three or four years, and lost 80% of the fruit to moth infestation.  There is stuff that is a biological, that works on moth, but it's difficult to find for sale most years, and is quite expensive.  I've been using Sevin, timed using IPM and degree days, and it has worked well for me.  I probably spray it 4 times in the growing season.  Otherwise, my apples here have been both other pest and disease free so far.

There is one guy who sells organic apples at the farmers market, but his orchards are not close to other orchards.  I don't know how he handles moth.

...Gala is a pretty early apple here, and keeps less well than some of the later varieties.  It's a good tasting apple when fresh, and crisp, but loses that crispness in storage faster than stuff like Fuji, Granny Smith, and Cripp's Pink.  You need to figure out the whole pollination thing,  A lot of the orchard guys, who are not pressed for space like I am, plant crabapples as pollinators, every so many feet, in their tree rows.

I don't know what it's like near you, but there was a huge number of different apple varieties available by mail to me here. And they come on different rootstocks, so you need to figure out what will work in your dirt, and whether you want standards or Semi dwarf. I think I bought my trees from Bay Laurel Nursery, by mail. Most of the mail places have closed to new orders now, and are busy shipping out what people ordered over the winter.  They do fine by mail, the roots are pruned and carefully wrapped in damp wood shavings or sawdust, or something that will keep them moist.  I'm not sure how they get transferred from the grower/grafters to the various local nurseries, where they often stick them in pots when they have stopped selling them bare root.  The one nursery near me orders so many at one time that they probably get a whole truckload. But UPS works fine for this, and you can pick and choose as to variety and rootstock.

So maybe try a couple of trees now, as an experiment, but think of the orchard as a longer term process. Then you can devote hours dreaming about all the different apples, and timing them to extend your season, and pollination, and spacing and layout (I used triangles on 8 foot centers, but I am pressed for space and grow on dwarf rootstocks.)

Sometimes here in California, I can't order plants from some sources, because of agricultural quarantines. I don't know about Oregon, but any place that will ship to you knows the rules and requirements. It was easier for me to just pick a source in California.

 

 

I went against what you said and bought a hybrid.  I like honeycrisp apples. 

I tried to order bare root from fast growing trees site and they were like "Fuck you, we don't ship to Oregon."  Bah

The two plums we bought a moyer plum, or a prune tree. I will be old one day, so I am thinking ahead.  

This thread was for you.  I had such a great day.  Putting trees in the ground makes me so joyous.   I also bought a gallon size stone crop that was on clearance from the buy or die section of the nursery.  The cart where plants go to die.  I saved this one.  It was crying out to me. It will be very happy here.

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8 hours ago, MickinMD said:

I love honeycrisp apples and, if I plant an apple tree, I only have room for one so I'm going to do a semi-dwaft "Twisted Apple" - two different apple varieties with trunks twisted around each other - honeycrisp won't self-polinate.  Here's an example:

image.thumb.png.73fbac756e6c6dd9d049461ec4e87989.png

I have a crabapple tree and a gala.  I think the honey crisp will be happy.  I want maybe a pink lady too, but Xanadu takes time to build.  

Did you know that I love this place?  :D

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...here is a place that  sells over a dozen bare root apple varieties that is located in Oregon.

So they will mail you trees, because they don't have to come in across the state border and ag quarantines.

logo.gif

Of the apples on the list, they're all pretty good apples, IME.  Mutsu is a delightful, large greenish apple, that maintains a good texture,  when cooked in pies.

Arkane is seemingly trendy lately, although a product of early 20th Century breeding efforts in Japan, not unlike Fuji. The apples come early, and are smaller, but it bears heavily.

Cox's Orange Pippin, or the alternative Newtown Pippin are probably the best pie apple I've ever tasted.  I can't grow them here. But they do OK up in the foothills nearby.

 

I  have already told the gripping story of my Nazi Gravenstein apple tree, that refuses to produce apples with pollen from Fuji or Pink Lady.  But I'm hoping that it will eventually settle down from the vigorous early growth years, and develop some fruiting spurs.  It keeps acting like a standard apple tree, instead of the spur dwarf I ordered.  Not sure if they sent me the wrong tree, or it just goes nuts with the long, hotter summers here.  It's a good apple, if you live some place like Sonoma, where it grows well.

 

By far the best apple I grow at this place is Fuji.  It's some kind of branch sport, that produces a slightly later, even firmer apple.  It has been a workhorse in this home orchard, like Golden Delicious was in the previous one.

 

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8 hours ago, Page Turner said:

...here is a place that  sells over a dozen bare root apple varieties that is located in Oregon.

So they will mail you trees, because they don't have to come in across the state border and ag quarantines.

logo.gif

Of the apples on the list, they're all pretty good apples, IME.  Mutsu is a delightful, large greenish apple, that maintains a good texture,  when cooked in pies.

Arkane is seemingly trendy lately, although a product of early 20th Century breeding efforts in Japan, not unlike Fuji. The apples come early, and are smaller, but it bears heavily.

Cox's Orange Pippin, or the alternative Newtown Pippin are probably the best pie apple I've ever tasted.  I can't grow them here. But they do OK up in the foothills nearby.

 

I  have already told the gripping story of my Nazi Gravenstein apple tree, that refuses to produce apples with pollen from Fuji or Pink Lady.  But I'm hoping that it will eventually settle down from the vigorous early growth years, and develop some fruiting spurs.  It keeps acting like a standard apple tree, instead of the spur dwarf I ordered.  Not sure if they sent me the wrong tree, or it just goes nuts with the long, hotter summers here.  It's a good apple, if you live some place like Sonoma, where it grows well.

 

By far the best apple I grow at this place is Fuji.  It's some kind of branch sport, that produces a slightly later, even firmer apple.  It has been a workhorse in this home orchard, like Golden Delicious was in the previous one.

 

How far away can you have an apple tree from another, when you speak of pollination?  I think I want one more apple.  

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3 hours ago, Dirtyhip said:

How far away can you have an apple tree from another, when you speak of pollination?  I think I want one more apple.  

...depends on your abundance of pollinators. Orchards are generally set out to match the expected tree canopy reach, so that the pruned trees don't shade each other out.  But the old orchard I tried to rejuvenate a little in East TN was out in the cow pasture, and the trees were pretty far apart.  Bees fly some long distances, and once they mark a pollen source, they spread the word to everyone else in the hive.

Standard apple trees can get pretty big, both in height and in canopy spread, unless controlled by pruning.

 

Plum trees go nuts, unless aggressively pruned after they are established. If you want decent sized fruit, you have to prune and thin.

 

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