Frankly, northwoodswis4, it is too much work to keep up with who currently owns them. I suggest you Google and be prepared to spend half a day, and let me know if you actually find out.
But, here are some tidbits: In 1980 Gurneys was sold to a factor. “AMFAC, INC”. Through Lehman Brothers. Amfac had German owners…whose stuff was confiscated in Hawaii during WWII…but that’s getting off track
By 1991 the same conglomerate of corporate owners controlled Gurney;s, Henry Fields, Stark Bros., Brecks Bulbs, Jackson & Perkins roses, Spring Hill Nurseries, Michigan Bulb Co…and I don’t know what else.
I don’t have the interest to keep up with it. Suffice it to say the families who built the reputations of these companies are not the owners today! B
this is what it says on starkbros page: On the now-historic morning of September 11, 2001, a bankruptcy auction determined a new path for this great company, then 185 years old. Stark Bro’s was purchased by Cameron Brown and Tim Abair, and was once again under family ownership. It remains one of the oldest businesses in the country.
I had no idea this had happened. Glad these two men bought the company. I hate seeing old companies like Stark Bros go out of business. What mail order company owned Stark Bros before the auction?
Been eating Evercrisp and Pink Lady from a local grower (Apex) for the past month or so. Every week we go back to the farmers’ market and buy about 20 total for the coming week. The last two weeks Pink Lady has been going kind of soft. Evercrisp still extremely crunchy. Next week the kids want only Evercrisp; they have taken to calling it “Twenty Sugar Apple” after we measured brix at 20 the first week we bought them.
@KlecknerOasis, @murky, @BobVance, et al,
Just want to hear from you guys about the progress of your Baker’s Delight and Crunch A Bunch.
Mine were planted in 2017 and are on super dwarf rootstocks. They are now a bit over 4 ft tall. This year, Baker’s Delight has several blooms (not open yet), mostly on tips of branches. Tip bearer?
Crunch A Bunch had flowers last year but I pinched them off. It has blooms this year, too. It looks like Crunch’s flowers will open later than Baker’s. It hope they overlap. I don’t have many apple blooming this year.
I planted semi dwarf there about 6-7 ft tall they both bloomed pretty close together by a few days so I had some overlap. this year more than a few, I took all flowers off this year I’d like at least a couple more years before they set for me. I’d like my trees to be about 9-10 ft mark.
Where did you get semi-dwarf? I thought they were only available in tiny dwarf or essentially standard.
Mine is the standard. It’s healthy, but I didn’t water or fertilize much and don’t have a ton of growth yet. I’m not expecting flowers for at least a couple more years.
Last year I also got a Cosmic Crisp bareroot that I planted out late. Its a similar size although a year newer.
I planted at the same time as you on full size (MM111, I think) rootstock. There are no flowers on the two trees, but I made a backup graft of each and those grafts have flowers. I’ll post if I get any fruit from it this year.
When I said semi standard I should have said m111 which I believe is called semi standard. It’s gurneys standard tree which I think there was a discussion about what rootstocks gurneys uses. I was surprised that they bloomed this year but that whole new row I planted bloomed for some reason. Even spy-gold had 2 blooms on it this year.
Edit should have said semi dwarf. To much graveyard then day then graveyard not enough sleep. Sorry
I don’t know why they call M 111 “semi dwarf”. It is supposed to grow up to 80-90 % of an full size apple tree. Meanwhile, M7, also called semi dwarf, is about 65% of a standard tree.
I am surprised that your tree in M 111 flowers this early. Mine are super dwarf rootstock already so I’ll let them fruit if they have cross pollination partners.
Any Rubinnete apple updates? I chopped down most of my apple trees to make room for the low maintenance Honey Jar Jujubes. I left one multi grafted apple tree with Red Fuji, Hudson Golden Gem, Kiku seedling, Yellow Delicious, K. De Sonneville, Clark in KS seedling apple, and just grafted Stan Rubinnete Scions to it.
My Crunch Bunch which I planted last year Seemed to get sickly and so I cut it back to right above the graft. It came back and is putting shoots out, but I’m guessing three years before I get to try.
Last summer I saw a CrunchABunch at Lowe’s for sale for $49.00…or maybe 46 I forget.
It was a 7 gallon…that had been topworked by grafting 8 or 10 limb tips with this new variety!
I looked it over, but decided not worth it. (Any pruning would have removed the variety…and it was probably a red delicious or something once you got back into older wood.)
bb
