Stark Bro's Sale - (In case you wondered...)

General Fruit Growing
#82

This is a link. It is 80-90% of standard according to this web site.
http://www.willamettenurseries.com/clonal-fruit-tree-rootstock/apples/bud-118

#83

I looked it up on the Treco site. They consider it a standard rootstock. Since this is my first tree order in 25 years, I was hoping for more semi than standard!

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#84

Based on information passed on to me the Pristine apple grows slower than others so you effectively have a semi dwarf tree.

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#85

I didn’t know that. Thanks.

#86

I avoided this thread like the plague as I didn’t want to order any more trees but guess what…

Could not pass up Zestar, Pristine, and Golden Russet at those prices. I too am concerned about planting this late but I’ll give it a shot.

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#87

Speedster,
I didn’t know if anyone else was going to order a semi dwarf golden delicious or not. Since you like yellow apples I should have mentioned if you buy two of the gd there is an additional savings.they are great pollinators! Zestar seems like a great choice for $5 so I planted some of those like you did. It is way to late to be spring planting so I’m considering this early fall planting lol! I don’t here a lot of talk on here outside of goldrush on yellow apples.
Bill,
I suspect pristine or any of these other apples won’t grow over 15’. Starks confirmed these are 12-15’ trees. I figured they are 3-4’ of the way there so they will be bearing in 2-5 years depending on the type of scion. I will do my best to keep them alive because that will gain us one year. I think if we fast forward 3 years we will realize these $5 trees were a real steal! The first 3lb bag of apples we get is our break even point. My 4 honeycrisp semi dwarfs I planted years ago produce a couple of hundred pounds of apples each! I paid $35 each for those and let’s face it honeycrisp are $1 per apple half the time at the store. I can’t grow honeycrisp as good as they can but they are close enough!
Anne,
I don’t think you will regret planting that tree it’s supposed to be a fantastic choice. You can prune it to whatever height you want it. We have clay soil so my honeycrisp have never gotten over 12’ and they are semi dwarfs.

I think some of us missed this thread but it tells you the rootstocks by tree Sneak peak at Stark Brothers rootstocks thanks @Chris_in_GA . Chris gave us this link http://www.starkbros.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/2016-03-18_CommercialAvailabilityCaliperGrade.pdf?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=2016-03-23%20WH-%20End-of-Season%20Sale&utm_content=2016-03-23%20WH-%20End-of-Season%20Sale+CID_6117179f59752bf2b89916f550577a84&utm_source=campaign%20monitor&utm_term=Download%20the%20Latest%20Inventory%20List in his post so I used it to look them up and found there are none of the rootstocks they use I cant live with. The muscadines, rasberries etc. are on sale as well if you missed it http://www.starkbros.com/tags/end-of-season-sale. I just focused on apples myself http://www.starkbros.com/products/fruit-trees/apple-trees.

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#88

Regarding planting bare roots late–> I planted a bare root Shiro plum in the middle of May which is somewhat late. It immediately hit 80 degrees for awhile after I planted it. It didn’t do anything for about 3 or 4 weeks, which had me a little worried. It finally started leafing out a few days ago.

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#89

That link is very helpful. Thanks @clarkinks and @Chris_in_GA. I was able to track each tree from the packing slip to the specific rootstock. Yes, I bought 3 trees!

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#90

None of the numbers (some varieties are not even listed)match up to the numbers on the apples I ordered .

#91

Chris,
Some of mine matched and others are newer than what’s on the list. Here is an example Zestar is product id 8510 which uses the rootstock Bud 118.

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Unfortunately the list has been updated and we don’t have the latest key so product id code 133228 Idared is not on the list. Bud 118 is a bigger rootstock than most call semi dwarf https://www.grandpasorchard.com/page/Rootstocks-and-Tree-Spacing-made-simple. Though B118 sounds bad because it’s big it’s actually good for me because it bears faster than the 5-7 years it usually take for mm111 Apple Rootstocks. As another example product id 8509 for SnappyMac® Apple is on M 7 and we can use this link to see it will be a 12-14’ tree http://www.centuryfarmorchards.com/rootstock/rootstock.html. The rootstocks are not important as much for me because of size as they are for soil types they are tolerant of and disease resistance. I suspect the tape mark they add to the bottom of the rootstock is significant as well so likely green tape means something whereas yellow means something else. The obvious thing is tape is where the soil line should be unless you want a standard and then bury it below that line so the tree scion roots but I noticed the different colors which are likely rootstock types. I noticed one rootstock had some galls on it so likely a m7 http://www.gardening.cornell.edu/factsheets/ecogardening/appleroot.html. There are other ways we figure out rootstocks such as when it suckers we know it’s m7 http://extension.psu.edu/plants/tree-fruit/commercial-tree-fruit-production/cultivars-and-rootstocks/apple-rootstocks. Every rootstock has some characteristics that make it identifiable within a year.

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#92

That’s exactly what I found as well. My trees are doing well as I still have them in pots and watering daily.
Too hot to go dig holes! :slight_smile:

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#93

Think my sisters cat or my ferals are going to be happy thanks to Starks

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Their YouTube channel is is www.starkbros.com/videos if anyone is interested

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#94

All my late planted Stark bargains faced a week of 95 temps and have leaved in 3-4 days. Water is the key.

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#95

Mine are supposed to arrive thursday and high temps are supposed to be 88, 89, and 92 Friday Saturday and Sunday. Brutal time to plant new bare root trees. I dug the holes tonight. I’ll soak the roots in water for a few hours tomorrow after they get here and then stick them in the ground followed by Lots of water this weekend. A high UV index in set for this week. Do you think I should shade them somehow?

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#96

Yes, on giving them some shade if you can. It’s hard on trees to come out of dormancy into high temperatures and the most direct rays of the year.

Also, I’m a little bit proud of myself, even if pride usually comes back to bite me. I didn’t even once look at their site during the sale. I was tempted. I reallllllly wanted to ‘just take a peek’, but I know where that peek led me last year. I had to figure out what to do with 17 trees after peeking. I feel like I earned a little gold foil star sticker for self-control this time.

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#97

I almost got some more trees about a month ago from Adams County Nursery. I was looking to add some more peach and cherry trees, but they didn’t have the ones I thought they had. So, I ended up not ordering any of them, which is prob a good thing. Got too many other chores to deal with besides dealing with more fruit trees. Plus, I don’t think my wife would’ve been too keen on me ordering more trees either, especially after going from zero last year to 19 this year!

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#98

I would try to shade them…i’d keep them moist…might even mist them just to keep them cooled off. They should establish quickly. The best thing is if you got a few days of cloudy weather.

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#99

I peeked after the sale was over today and everything was back up to $30 per tree. I really needed more apples so I don’t have any regrets from buying some. I’m growing way more pears than apples and I’m trying to balance things out. Let’s face it when it comes to fruit trees I have no self control.

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#100

Then I’m totally safe. I’m not paying $30 just to roast a bare root tree arriving in summer.

Besides, I knew life would laugh at me for patting myself on the back. I got a call today and wound up buying another citrus tree and fig tree. Yeah, so much for my little gold star sticker. It got replaced with a happy face sticker. :smile:

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#101

Received mine today. They looked okay. From left to right Golden Russet, Pristine, and Zestar. The rootstock of the Zestar looks like it will likely send up a bunch of shoots. Reminds me of a rooted fig. They are in the ground now. We got a ton of rain earlier today so it was a hell of a mess getting them into their holes.

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