These are the 5 year old trees. Had I know about the tall spindle system I never would have planted these but they are getting pretty good sized right now. These have been chemically thinned and the population of apples is pretty good, not crowded:
Well it is a good guess but Kade is a Duetsch Drahthaar. However he is a throwback to the Kurzhaar in the line. Kurzhaars are analogous to what the AKC would call a German Shorthair Pointer. Note the tail is thicker.
Bump. Quick question Firewood Bandit I'm looking to plant some Apple trees for the deer. Which varieties would you suggest for this? My Goals are: Little to no maintenance ie spraying, etc Would like a later ripening fruit. Deer season starts oct. 1 here and If possible, I'd like them to hold fruit later than this date. I'll fence them off, fertilize as needed, and mulch, but that's about all I wanna do. Thank you sir!
You do not want to fight Mother Nature. Look into "scab resistant" varieties grown on M7 or M111 rootstock. These will grow much larger trees which is good when you are out in the wild as long as you can keep the munchers off them until they are big enough. Liberty would be a good one. Prices are very good after you order 100, they really don't want to deal with you on orders under 25. Scab-Immune Varieties — Adams County Nursery
Thought I would up date this. Had some hail damage so they aren't as nice as I would have liked. A few pics of Honeycrisp apples on 18 month old trees.
I sent a soil sample in for analysis and got the results back. PH is on the bottom end of the scale but OK, 5.9. Phosphorous and Potash are low. The 1st will be dealt with via the drip irrigation and the 2nd through topical application. Next week a consultant from the local Crop Production Services office is coming out for an recommendations going forward. It's always something. I have posts ordered and want them in for next Spring. 140 more Premier Honeycrisp and then I might call it quits...........maybe.
Firewood Bandit From your pics, it looks like you are doing what I saw up at Sacia's orchard just south of Galesville. It almost looks like they will double the size of their orchard using way less land.
The Sacia project is a major one. 37,000 trees and 2 million bucks. I am perplexed they installed posts first as they now can't use the tree planter they have that plows trees into the ground, does an excellent job of closing the ground and setting the graft union at a uniform depth. The consultant coming to see me next Tuesday was their production foreman.
I had a friend who owns an orchard over in La Crescent take cuttings from my "old fashioned red delicious" tree to get some new trees started. Deer broke into his tree nursery and had them for lunch. If you are up to showing your new orchard, I would love to stop by and take a close look at it. Warren
I'd be glad to have you over anytime. PM me if interested. Where are you at? I am must North of Lacrosse.
I am 5 miles east of Holmen. I believe we made contact on that other wood site a few years ago. I will PM you.
Starting to think about Spring. I have 140 Premier Honeycrisp coming April 23rd, then I am mostly going to say, "That's enough". But then we'll see. I have all the end posts in and braced. The 3 extended rows only need one more post and then the wire needs to be spliced and this is easy peasy. I changed my mind this last fall, the trees on M111 rootstock (the big ones) were growing way to vigorously and not producing so I cut them down, pulled the stumps by roots with the John Deere 2305. I will expand 3 rows of the trellises. Where 8 trees were will be replaced by 75 on the trellis. This year it took me about 2.5 hours to trim 250 trees. Prior to this project the old standard sized trees could take 3 hours to prune one tree. Here are a few pics from last year, planted a few flowers and roses too:
Lol. Timely update sir. I just reread this thread today to get that nursery name again and place an order. They seem to be out of stock of everything. When do I need to order these to get them in stock? Do you still recommend m111 root for feeding deer, or go m7? Sounds like the pruning went much faster....awesome time savings!
