i think i need to find a late bloomer to graft on the ark black to befriend it, most the rest are finished and it’s only now showing flower buds
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I hope to verify an anecdote saying Gen30 can handle wet feet for a while. It won’t sucker unless the budwood entirely dies, makes a modest size (even small if the cultivar is low vigor) tree and has hung onto every variety I have grafted to it so far.
(I am not keen on Gala, so that isn’t an issue.)
This year I will graft onto Gen210 first time, for comparison.
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Is that 2,4-D?, looks like broadleaf weed killer drift, it’s sooo pungent, grapes come to mind.
Where did you find Geneva 30?
EMLA111 is supposed to be pretty adaptable, but nothing really likes having wet feet.
Plant on mounds? there are a bunch of threads if you search where people make different kinds of mounds and berms and stuff.
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Not all clay is created equal. I once grew apples in yellow granite clay in Franklin County NC. It would get so hard in Summer, sparks would fly when I smacked the earth with a mattock and digging iron. I grew M111s and M7s there although they were somewhat stunted. Very poor drainage, no issues.
I currently live in an area that sees between 25-75 inches of rain per year. The soil is low to mid density orange clay. M111s grow too large here. Commercial growers running larger trees branch them at near ground level and keep them around 12’. If you don’t have deer issues, I would certainly try to branch your trees at the ground and keep them short. This may help the trees resist the winds.
Sidenote, NC saw probably the wettest decade ever between 2013 and 2023. The pendulum swings, and now it has been very dry. 2001-2012 was extremely dry. Your weather won’t be the same. Your trees look fine. They will soon be large, and you will be overwhelmed.
Some apple varieties bloom over a period of 2-3 weeks when they are mature. If a frost does hit, only a fraction of the blossoms will likely be affected. I call this natural thinning. It really saves time.
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I just googled Geneva 30 stocks: Raintree & heirseed in smaller numbers, Willamette wholesale. I got mine from Raintree years ago. Quite likely I will be stooling it the rest of my days. It pushes fewer suckers than most, but that is a plus in my book and I need only so many.
@resonanteye … my Novamac is still blooming.. it normally starts around April 1 and continues for most of April. It is in FG4.
I have a graft of Pristene on it and it bloomed with Novamac for the first half of its bloom.
I added a graft of Enterprise to it this year.. it is a FG4 apple too.
Those are my later bloomers.
TNHunter
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are any of them not GD based? how are enterprise anyway? I’ve tried pristine and put one in on dwarf rootstock, i liked it so much. novamac is a macintosh type or just the name?
the pristine here already is blooming though.
Novamac is from Mcintosh but has more disease resistence bred into it.
That is what they look like.. ripen end of July first of August here. They drop from the tree when ripe. Very nice balanced flavor sweet and tart.
I have not tried Pristene yet… think it is from GD and GD is one of my wifes favorite apples.
I have not tried Enterprise yet either… have read that it is delicious. It does have a thicker skin than most apples which helps it be more pest resistent. Some prefer to peal them before eating. It is known for disease and pest resistence.
TNHunter
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those are some pretty apples. they almost look flattened, kind of cool. i may try them. i have a lot of GD genes here and I’m gonna try not to get too many more.
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I like enterprise, but I understand why people take digs at it. I think the taste is good (not amazing, but good). It’s not crunchy like honeycrisp, but it’s not soft or spongey. It does have thick skin and the skin can be slightly bitter. The skin doesn’t bother me at all, but I see why others might dislike it. The taste is good enough that I ignore the skin.
It stores okay and I think the ones I got last year were better after a month in the fridge.
I wasn’t sure that two of my mystery trees were enterprise until I got some from a local grower. What I have matched pretty exactly. These trees in my yard did really well with a lot of neglect for 10 years, no pruning. They set a lot of fruit. I only sprayed twice that year and still got buckets full that looked good.
Also ripened in October for me which is a good time of year. Anyways, they’re better than a really amazing tasting apple tree that gives you no fruit!
Since then I’ve pruned them heavily and they’re growing back well so I guess it’s pretty vigorous. This year, I grafted over a full-sized tree with enterprise. The old tree never produced anything and would defolate every summer completely, even if I sprayed it. I figured if it was the location that was bad, maybe enterprise would still be okay there. - So I guess I liked it enough to have another tree of it and think it’s hardy enough to take some abuse.
edit: lol. I’m looking back on my notes about the taste. I wrote “tart and sweet. nice spicy flavor. chewy.” And I put a star next to it, which is good since only the ones I like get stars. =)
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I can’t comment on their “growability”, although I have heard good things about them. I planted at least one of each of them this year. These varieties I have tried myself:
Pristine: great for a July apple around here. Was more on the tart side with plenty of sweetness behind it. Definitely not a “make you pucker” kind of thing. The ones I got were also probably just slightly under ripe. Bruised easily. Not dense and has a “tender crispness” to it.
Crimson crisp: One of my favorite apples of any kind. I thought it had a great sweet tart balance. It’s very firm and broke off in big chunks.
Goldrush: I am sure you can find plenty of folks on here raving about this apple. I greatly enjoyed this one. The ones I got from my local grower in November are still in perfect (or what I would consider) perfect storage in my fridge. I’ve got three left. None of them are wrinkled and the one I had last week still had great flavor and crunchiness. This one had a more complex flavor I guess you could call it. Spicy type notes. Really really good.
Rubyrush: This is a cross between Enterprise and Goldrush. It was also a crunchy apple that stores well and broke into big chunks. Mostly sweet with just a hint of tart. Probably more like Enterprise. Basic apple flavor is a good way that I would describle it. Really liked it and could see it being popular with a lot of folks.
Other’s I have not tried, but planted this year:
Dayton
Triumph
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@resonanteye I did remember that @KPS said that Enterprise, Freedom, and Liberty did very poorly just one state south of me in North Carolina and will hopefully chime in.
Just to say I think you’re in the PNW so probably better than the South, but it apparently doesn’t like some climates.
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inland Northwest- intermountain, Eastern WA so it’s high desert, lots of chill hours but hot dry summer.
Unfortunately all my fruit trees were blooming and then we had two nights in a row of “ frost or freeze warning”. I just looked at my fruit trees and this week and all the blossoms look wilted and brown. Very few blossoms made it. They all look like Wethinkyoushouldgrow’s frost zapped blossoms.
Hopefully I will get a little fruit to at least taste.
I am glad others have had better luck this year.
I will see what actual fruit I get this year. A disappointing spring.
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I have a summer banana, about eight yrs in ground. Usually sets a decent crop but apples always get some kind of rot mid summer. Never got an apple off that tree
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I think Black limbertwig should be flowering group 5. I only just grafted it, so no personal experience. Nothing has flowered so take this with a grain of salt but my notes for the others I’ve grafted/ have say CrimsonCrisp is right on the cusp of 3/4, Yates is 4 and possibly trailman. But, I think you have trailman so that would imply it’s not?
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Being I removed a full grown blight ridden Williams Favorite tree that was formerly adjacent to my Williams Pride, I’m happy to report the WP finally has set fruit with zero FB strikes on the spurs. I do believe spraying the trees with Serenade has helped, but my GD was sprayed as well and it’s still seeing too much and will be whacked this Winter. The pressure is high again this year, so much so, the Ark Black is seeing some. The AB was not sprayed with Serenade. I have a couple new B9 trees, both have been treated with Serenade, and both have no blight and have bloomed heavily.
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