I second that motion.
Seedy,
Sounds like you are in the promised land for apples and pears. If I am not mistaken, Western Oregon offers some of the best pomes growing conditions in the world.
Welcome to our gang.
Thanksā¦I really like it here.
Seedy,
Looks like that tree got chewed on the bottom by some animal. Rabbit?
Tony
Right you are. I keep meaning to take some chicken wire down there to protect it. The teethmarks are pretty big so it could be a beaver, too, but it doesnāt matter, it needs help. It has three stems and two are undamaged so itās not as bad as it looks butā¦that is another āwildā tree here on my land and it is ready to fall in the creekā¦itās barely hanging on the bank. I also want to graft from that tree to try to save the genomeā¦itās going in the creek either way. It could be any day now or in five years.
Hi everyone, my name is Pete. I was introduced to this forum by Alan the other day, as it turns out I am (indirectly) buying some trees from him. My wife and I are moderately experienced at gardening but brand new to orcharding.
For a few years now we have owned an old house in eastern Dutchess County (NY, zone 5b-ish). When we bought it we knew that there were two old apple and a couple old pear trees, but they had mostly been enveloped by woods. Knowing very little about fruit trees we didnāt give it much thought: the pears are spitters and the apple trees (one red, one green) looked to be on their last legs to our untrained eyes (one was totally fallen over but had sent up new growth - hence my handle). The apple trees never produced much (if at all) so we just assumed there was nothing we could do for them, and that was that.
Then in 2015, out of nowhere the red apple tree set a ton of fruit in the spring, and it led us down a long path of investigation to figure out what the heck was happening. We learned that the sudden bumper crop was partly due to the new growth having finally reached a height that cleared enough shade from other trees, and partly due to the āsnowball effect.ā We also learned that the red tree was probably biennial (we didnāt know that was āa thingā!), which partly explained the seemingly random nature of its production. After extensive comparison tastings and a little expert opinion, we think we have a couple of very old Baldwin (99.9% likelihood) and Newtown Pippin (70% likelihood) trees. Which then also explained why the red tree sometimes produced well and the green barely did: we have one triploid and one diploid.
Going deeper, we also realized that the two surviving apple trees are so far apart (about 160 feet) that they were part of a full orchard planted a long time ago, not a couple of random trees planted as landscaping. An old aerial photo we found from the 1940s appears to confirm the existence of the orchard. Which brings us to today, where we find ourselves recreating the orchard that (we think) was there all along.
We have a little bit of knowledge, which is a dangerous thing as they say. 
But weāre excited to give it a whirl and gain some practical experience to go along with the book learning weāve picked up so far. And weāre excited to have found a forum like this - it seems really high quality compared to some of the others we have perused.
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Welcome FallenTree. Our community getting bigger by the minute. I am glad you found Us.
Tony
Of course, itās high quality! Itās composed of high quality members. 
Welcome aboard! You are in for an adventure.
Alan knows his stuff, especially when it comes to orcharding in your growing area. Itās easy to tell that heās always striving to learn even more about it, and generously shares his knowledge. There are many here who are equally striving to understand more and share what theyāve learned.
Iām glad youāve joined us, and look forward to hearing more as you venture into growing fruit.
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Welcome!! I love your handle!
Welcome Pete, I did say you could save yourself my usual consultation fee by coming to this forum- didnāt I?
Iām guessing you are the one who Steve was trying to fulfill that shopping list of heirloom varieties for last Friday.
If you search for it, somewhere there is a record in the archives here of my suggested spray schedule for the northeast. You might want to look it over.
Last year brought you a bumper crop not just for the reasons you mention- it was a perfect storm of perfect conditions for fruit production (this year seems to be the opposite) and even untended apple trees often produced heavy harvests. Our worst apple pest, plum curculio, was on sabbatical from many locations, the squirrel population crashed and the sun shone whenever needed and just when it was excessively dry rain cameā¦
In short, it was the best fruit year in my 25 years of growing it in the northeast- like being back in CA, almost. However, most years you will be able to get a good harvest once you have learned a few tricks from this forum.
Thanks Alan, yes you are right on all counts!
In addition to those trees we are also planting some whips and will eventually look to graft scions from our existing trees onto new rootstock, probably next year. It will be an interesting environment for learning, given the mix of aged, adolescent and infant trees. Weāre also planting a small number of stone fruit and pear trees, rehabbing some neglected sugar maples and generally trying to (gradually) return the property to something closer to what it was 50+ years ago. But the apples are our focus, and everything else is sort of a āwhile weāre at itā kind of thing.
I certainly do feel lucky about the great growing season last year. We planted Brandywine tomatoes for the first time and they did so well that either (a) their reputation for finickiness is undeserved (unlikely), (b) Iām a tomato savant (yeah right), or Ā© we got really lucky and those conditions will never happen again.
Welcome, Pete, very glad you found us, and what a great friend to have in Alan! lots of very experienced list members here, We look forward to your budding orchard stories!
Patty S.
You hit the jackpot. Have fun with it. Welcome to the group.
Welcome Pete,
Great story. Love the idea of tracing the history of the place and recreating it, even if just in part.
You never know what you will find when you look into the history of the place. Fantastic project.
Mike
Hi allāIām Marc, and I am finally making the move from the āotherā forum where I met Alan and so many others who have helped me along on my fruit-growing journey. Scott, thank you for establishing this great forum. 12 years ago my wife and I left the city and bought the old farm in SW Ohio where I grew up. I am caring for a few surviving fruit trees my father planted 50 years ago this spring. It was quite a struggle to start out learning to manage old, mostly neglected apples trees on M7. Since then I have established my own treesāapples, pears, peaches, plums, cherries. Most of our efforts are focused on a commercial pawpaw orchard. I have also recently become interested in hicans and improved hickory varieties. I must confess that I have found nut grafting to be very challenging compared to apples and pawpaws.
I will continue to consult the experts here who generously share their knowledge, and will occasionally share my own experiences when it might add to the conversation. Thanks to you all!
Marc
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Welcome, Marc! Glad you came over, and Alan can be very persuasive, lol!! We look forward to your posts and your pictures of your orchards!
Patty S.
Welcome Marc- what took you so long!
Wow, commercial paw paws. I hope they are more reliable there than here. Those crazy black buds sure are vulnerable for a long time before they show any growth. All mine got fried about 3 weeks ago in a crazy hard frost, but they are not showing any signs of leafing out yet.
Seems I lost them every other year which means they are much harder here than peaches, apples or any common fruit grown in Z6.
Iāve been looking for this forum ever since GW went south! Finally found it!
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Itilton how are you its Mrs. G!!! Glad you found us!!!