I am already growing many of those varieties, including the triploids. I have yet to get apples though.
I thought to plant the rows of triploids between rows of good pollinators.
The first five varieties are on my list. And there are only a few in the second list I probably wouldn’t grow. I read Orleans Reinette is a dryer apple, Mother is a variable cultivar, I had not considered Empire, not sure on Pitmaston Pineapple.
Scott has Blenheim Orange as his favorite cooker, so I thought to perhaps grow it along with Calville Blanc.
Pixie Crunch is not off patent until 2021, but we could buy trees.
You haven’t responded to an earlier suggestion that you visit other orchards in your area. If there is the potential to make a profit growing fruit where you are there would almost certainly be existing orchards and they would be your best source of useful info. It is such a big investment that you should start with what you know works and experiment from there. I’m sure you realize that if you don’t generate enough revenue quickly, the whole thing will be an absolute bust.
As I recall, higher elevations in AZ are subject to some dramatic turns in weather which is not what an orchard keeper wants. You may even want to explore growing fruit under tunnels.
If you can grow cherries there, they might have even more draw than apples.
Pitmaston Pineapple although as all accounts say are an excellent eater they do not produce any sort of heavy crop. I would think although great for planting personal consumption, planting it for a commercial sources wouldnt be a good idea.
Where exactly in AZ are you? I live in Oracle at about 5000 feet and there is a large you-pick orchard in Willcox (southeast of Tucson at about 4000 feet) called Apple Annie’s that seems to have things figured out pretty well. I’m sure whatever does well there would do well for you as well.
For us, variety has been the key to getting some fruit each year. Two out of the last five years we had a decent amount of snow in mid April, almost two months after apples and other stone fruits flowered. I know some people in other small AZ towns at higher elevation (Camp Verde, Young) that unfortunately live in frost pockets and have never gotten stone fruits to produce because of late frosts. But persimmons, jujubes, blackberries, and figs, among others, tend to break dormancy later and might be a great addition to your orchard plan to ensure you always have something to offer.
I like the idea of growing blackberries in addition to the apples. It would give you an earlier income and also help build your customer base. The people picking the blackberries will also be the people picking the apples later.
I would check to see if there are any apple growers in the area. You would at least want to make sure the apples grow and produce in your area. We had a peach orchard go in our area about 15 years ago. The problem is peaches are very hard to grow here. It went under pretty fast. However, blueberries grow well here and we have several people with u pick farms. One person even put in a pear, grape, blueberry and Kumquat U pick place that seems to done well.
Thanks for pointing out my oversight Allan.
Blueberrythrill had a good suggestion, that makes sense.
We are in Skull Valley Arizona, about 18 miles west of Prescott. We are surrounded by mostly ranch land.
We have seen a you pick about 40 miles from here, on Date Creek, but it was small, and not impressive.
I looked at the varieties Apple Annie’s is growing, and can tell you we are in a much cooler climate. They are further south, with higher day, and night temps.
Our neighbor right next to this land gets apples dang near every year, and he does nothing to protect them from frost.
Yes, we do get late frosts, but for those few nights that can be a problem, gas burners and fans might be a feasible option, when a good crop is at stake.
My family has property in Young, and it is rare to get apricots, or peaches there, but they get apples almost every year.
We get apricots occasionally, and peaches frequently, doing nothing to protect the trees. One year, years ago, my father in law canned a thousand quarts of apricots off of their trees.
Honeycrisp was very popular in our local u-pick orchard. And they charged the premium price for them. About 1.5 $ more then for all the other varieties.
I think the biggest issue is being in a cold microclimate. I live on top of a hill and some friends on mine on the bottom of the hill, where a wash passes through, can get 5-10F colder than us, which can mean a hard freeze for them while we are 35-40F! You know your land better than any of us dummies, and it sounds like a good spot for apples. I still highly recommend persimmons, though!
I’d ditto nolpolaske’s comments, it will very much depend upon the details of your site. I am at 8300’ elevation, but often get fruit when folks lower down get frosted out; likely because my spot is S facing and has good air drainage so that cold air does not collect.
If you are familiar with the details of your site you should be able to adjust/compare to other neighboring locations and how they fair.
Sounds like you have a real shot. How much traffic do you have nearby? Any well traveled roads to steer traffic from? Only 18 miles from Prescott? Wow, that’s probably a great location you got for a u-pick. Somehow I’m guessing Prescott has grown a bit since my family moved from Scottsdale in 1963.
Better make sure you have an iron-clad contract with the land owner. Money can create conflict.
This place is less then 1/2 mile off of Iron Springs Rd, which is fairly well traveled. It’s the main truck route from hwy 89 to Prescott.
We would certainly want a contract with our neighbor. He’s a really neat guy, but the orchard could outlive him, and we would want to know, if that sad day came, that it wouldn’t be a major mess.
We were thinking maybe 25 yr lease.
It’s real hard frosts near bloom on that are fatal. Apples and peaches can crop even when it gets as low as 26 during bloom, but much below that an your crop can be destroyed. There are charts that have been provided on this site that shows the effects of frosts at specific temps and to the specific state of bud development. Maybe someone can provide a link.
Here I think Honeycrisp and Sweet Sixteen seem to the the most popular apples from my observations at U-pick orchards in Iowa. Here they are early to mid-September apples, so right when we start to see the first signs of summer turning the corner into fall, many years. I think this is the prime time people think “I should go pick apples.” If you haven’t had Sweet Sixteen (aka Song of September) it is an apple worth seeking out, it can have a lot of cherry flavor to it, but without it it still is a good apple. It isn’t a long keeper though.
Smoothee is a good Golden Delicious strain that is supposedly russet resistant (also called “Improved Golden Delicious”).
I’d say that Crimson Crisp is also a good late Sept apple here. OrangePippin.com has it in group 3, but PRI’s table puts it after GD in bloom date. Besides Goldrush and Pristine it is probably one of the best 3 PRI disease resistant apples. Folks here like their Jonathon for cooking too.
BUT… we are a very different climate than you. So my experience is somewhat heavily weighted towards the scab-resistant apples because of our 40+ inches of rain/year and high humidity from June 10 - Sept 15.
Excellent chart. I was going to add it to the Reference Category then saw it was already there. A reminder to myself and others that there is some very useful info in the Reference Category.
I appreciate the info and suggestions.
Sweet Sixteen is on my list, but like a lot of others I need to first graft a MM111 tree or two to grow budwood.
The rootstocks we have ordered are heavier stock, and would be easier to bud this summer.
My list for this year is made up of varieties we have trees of, for budwood.
So far I’m thinking of the following for this year.
Goldrush
Ashmead’s Kernal
Calville Blanc
Spitzenburg
Gala
Honeycrisp
Jonagold
Karmijn de Sonnville
Braeburn
Freyberg
Mutsu
The graft for later list is longer, but we figure there is no substitute for actually trialing a variety, and top working some would be easy if they really didn’t work.
Sounds like a great collection for knowledgeable apple connoisseurs, might be a tad on the intense side for your typical u-pick customers. The Mutsu, Gala, Honeycrisp and Jonagold will have kid appeal, anyway. The others are apples for grown-ups. .
Can I ask a general question? Why do people always go for you-picks first if they want to make money? Me, personally, I’d hate dealing with all the people.
Is doing anything else on 5 or 10 acres simply unviable if you hope to make a profit?
