Fruit trees

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mattyq2402
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Fruit trees

Unread postby mattyq2402 » Mon Feb 06, 2017 5:14 am

My surrounding properties have no fruit trees, seems like a no brainier to get some started. Has anyone ever ordered and had trees delivered? Any recommendations on reputable nursery? Im in SE Ohio, any recommendations on type of trees.

What is the best location to plant? Are there any land features to look for, distance from known bedding? What is best time of year to do this project?


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Hawthorne
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Re: Fruit trees

Unread postby Hawthorne » Mon Feb 06, 2017 5:22 am

Yes I've planted them and had them shipped. You need areas with good sunlight and yes put them where the deer will travel from bedding. I've used Morse nursery in Battle Creek. All his trees come in jiffy plugs not bare root. Very good survival rate. He recommends planting his trees in spring after the last chance of frost. He said its usually the same time farmers are planting corn. I've had really good growth rates with his pears and crabapples. Here's the website.

http://morsenursery.myw2m.com/
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Re: Fruit trees

Unread postby Zona » Mon Feb 06, 2017 5:55 am

Keep your eyes on the garden centers at the big box stores also. Usually around the beginning of June they will start to put the fruit trees on clearance. Can't beat $5.00 for a 4' to 5' fruit tree.
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Re: Fruit trees

Unread postby IkemanTx » Mon Feb 06, 2017 6:23 am

Another option is a place called Stark Brothers. They send trees mostly bare root,but some potted. They have a HUGE selection of trees and are very knowledgeable as to which varieties will produce best in which growing zones. I was very impressed with their service. 200 years in business.
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Re: Fruit trees

Unread postby mattyq2402 » Mon Feb 06, 2017 7:39 am

Anyone ever plant chestnut? What apple type yields most attraction?
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Re: Fruit trees

Unread postby headgear » Mon Feb 06, 2017 12:24 pm

2nd the any deals you can find at one the big box stores, you can get a good sized tree for cheap and be years ahead of ordering them online. However if you need a lot of trees the online nurseries are the way to go. Deer will love just about any apple you plant so if its for them anything will do. Just make sure to keep them caged in or they will destroy them even before the apples start dropping.
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Re: Fruit trees

Unread postby DEERSLAYER » Mon Feb 06, 2017 8:23 pm

I would strongly recommend you do not buy your apple trees haphazardly. Do it correctly and you will have healthy, fast growing, loaded trees that drop all season long. Do it wrong and you could have problems like all your apples dropping at about the same time, only having apples every other year, slow growing trees, not getting apples for several years (up to ten), etc.

Wing it and you could get lucky, but it's unlikely you would do as good as if you did it right. Plus I don't like relying on luck. Another thing about doing it right is getting a soil test and doing it for clover recommendations. I have got tests done for apple trees and they suck. Allowed for too acid of soil and low fertilizer amounts.

Also be careful of who you buy from. Including some of the ones already mentioned in this thread. They will try to talk you into buying what they have and sometimes tell you it doesn't matter what you get for deer. Rootstocks and specific varieties ARE important. I strongly prefer having apple trees on BUD118 rootstock unless there are unusual soil or climate circumstances. There are others like MM111, EMLA111, M7, Manchurian Crab apple, etc that can be good, but BUD118 is almost always the best and many times by a substantial margin. It's hardy, truly handles a wide range of soil conditions, grows fast, produces apples quickly and produces large crops. Sometimes there are OK deals at the big box stores if you know what you are looking for. M7 is a common one to find at big box stores that is good to OK, but it often suckers a lot and I would still take BUD118 over it any day.

Also, expect to put some money into fencing and some T-posts. Circles 8' across or more are best. Deer will likely run into your fence at some point. Especially if your trees are along your food plots. So having some T-posts is preferable to help insure you don't get any broken branches and to make sure the deer can't browse them down.

There are plenty of varieties to choose from. Depending on your circumstances here are some good ones for your area. These drop times may vary by about a week in your area.
Liberty Drops apples in early to mid October, deer like them a lot and good disease resistance.
Freedom drops apples in October mostly, but still has apples in November and very disease resistant.
Goldrush drops apples after a hard freeze & good disease resistance
Enterprise drops heavily during November. Fairly disease resistance
Golden Delicious Not disease resistant, but deer love them and holds apples until mid/late November.
Manchurian Crab apple tend to drop all season, good disease resistance and are great pollinators.
Honeycrisp tend to drop through most of the season.
There are plenty of good varieties out there like Galarina, Arkansas Black, Fameuse, Idared, Granny Smith, Honeygold, Florina, etc and 100's of other varieties out there.

Also, ripening time is not a very good indicator of when the apples end up on the ground. Apples usually drop from 1 week to a month after ripening, but some varieties will drop before they ripen and some will not drop at all barring a late winter wind storm. Something else to keep in mind is that ripening times (& drop times) vary depending on where you are in the country. So if your researching varieties keep this in mind.
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Re: Fruit trees

Unread postby mainebowhunter » Tue Feb 07, 2017 12:44 am

Gotta love apple trees!
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IkemanTx
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Re: Fruit trees

Unread postby IkemanTx » Tue Feb 07, 2017 1:03 am

I'm far enough south they won't be heavily featured on my place. Just not enough cold hours for many varieties to produce. USDA zone 7b, just north of Dallas)
Now, pears and plums are a different story. I love both, and both do very well here.
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Re: Fruit trees

Unread postby brkissl82 » Tue Feb 07, 2017 2:05 am

I also want to plant 8-10 apple/pear trees but not sure how to keep the deer off them without spending thousands on fencing
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Re: Fruit trees

Unread postby Wetfoot » Tue Feb 07, 2017 6:32 am

Harelsons, an old variety are my favorite deer apple, they bear very heavily and drop over a long season. They also make pretty good cider as an aside. Use 5 foot tall concrete rebar for a good solid fence around your trees. A 24 foot length gives about. 7 foot diameter, which is just about right. This variety bears heavily annually and needs only one pollinator. Make sure you pick trees that flower about the same time, most good nurseries I'll tell you what works well together. Stick with full size trees if you can, they live much longer than semi- dwarves.
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Re: Fruit trees

Unread postby kenn1320 » Sat Feb 11, 2017 8:58 am

I wanted an apple tree for deer, wife wanted green apples like granny Smith. We bought a tree from local nursery. Took about 5yrs to get apples. They dont taste well at all, more of a baking apple. We dont spray them, so they always show bug marks. There are rotten ones still hanging as I type this.
Moral of this story? If your gonna plant apple trees, follow deerslayers advice. If you find a variety he mentioned on sale, great. Just planting any old tree could end up like mine. I will be planting a bunch at my buddies farm and they will come from Morse nursery. Early season pears are a huge draw.
"Its about taking the right shot at the right time with good equipment." Dan Infalt
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DEERSLAYER
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Re: Fruit trees

Unread postby DEERSLAYER » Sat Feb 11, 2017 2:23 pm

kenn1320,
You can top work that tree by grafting another variety to it or multiple varieties if you want so you can get some useful apples out of it. You should be able to do a couple branches a year with no problem since your tree is not real big. I would do the central leader right away. Granny Smith are awesome eating apples when tree ripened unlike in the stores, but they usually won't ripen in Michigan. Here is a good video on grafting. I like to use a carpenters knife and wax tape.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jy1Ca8RotRI

Also, for people that want to have apple trees but have to do it on a shoestring budget and don't mind having to wait a couple years longer you can plant your own rootstocks (around $3 ea) and easily reproduce as many of them as you want for free. Then graft your apple varieties to the rootstocks. You can buy "scions" which are a live dormant stick of one year old wood from an apple tree variety you want to reproduce. They are usually around $2-$3 each and there is enough wood to graft 3-4 apple trees from each stick. Or you can find a tree somewhere that is dropping when you want and the deer are hammering and then ask the owner if you can take a cutting from the end of a branch and then you can reproduce that variety. Here is a video that shows how easy it is to reproduce your own rootstocks. This is how most rootstocks are propagated. Some people just plant right in the ground and heap up soil instead of doing it like this guy, but they seem to get fewer shoots with fewer roots on them. Saw dust or even sand works best for mounding to get more shoots and roots.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gn9nzWr9Q1w
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kenn1320
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Re: Fruit trees

Unread postby kenn1320 » Sun Feb 12, 2017 1:55 pm

Lance my tree is fairly large now and I dont really see the main anymore. The trunk is probably 8" diameter. Grafting looks easy, but seems best on young trees? Seems like I could try it here and there, but it has to be on small branches so they dont get apples the first yr or 2 and over weight the graft.
"Its about taking the right shot at the right time with good equipment." Dan Infalt
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Re: Fruit trees

Unread postby DEERSLAYER » Sun Feb 12, 2017 6:41 pm

You could do some small branches just to get your feet wet. I would start off with some brush or scrub trees just to get some practice making the cuts, fitting the pieces together and taping them in place. Then once you are comfortable do some of the smaller branches on your apple tree. Apple trees are about the easiest most forgiving trees you can do so as long as your scion wood is dormant and in good condition you will probably have near 100% success.

I like to use a cleft graft. It seems like the easiest graft for me to get a good mechanical lock between the cambium layers which is the key. You can successfully graft doing it just about any way you can think of as long as you have a solid mechanical connection between the two cambium layers and you make an airtight seal using wax tape, plastic, tape or string with liquid wax, etc to keep the graft union from drying out before the graft takes hold.

Using a cleft graft on large branches or tree trunks can result in a deep split in the branch so a bark graft would probably be the best way to go if you want to do any sizable branches or the trunk. I have never used a bark graft and there aren't any good videos that I could find on it but here is a crude video of a rind graft which is the same thing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LrE2CkQHudI

As long as the tree is healthy you can graft to it. It doesn't have to be young. You wouldn't want fruit setting on the new scion the first year but that usually doesn't happen. Waiting a couple years to let it fruit would be even better.
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