Go you have much fire blight? Its more common in pears but I have seen it in my apples.
Also seen apple trees die of unknown causes.
Fire blight can get rough down here.
Red - Apple
Orange - Citrus
Peach - Peaches
Green - Pears
Spacing is 6ft between trees, the circles are 6ft. Then 8ft between rows but a wider row down the middle. Open areas on all sides, well the house is to the west. (Top here)
I want the citrus together to protect, I might switch those to be in a straight row as it will be easier to cover a 6ft wide area but I do like the look of them all together in a 2X2 arrangement, Iâll figure it out.
I put the pears on the end of the row so they can have a little more room to grow, that will be blocking morning sun but there is absolutely no trees to block the sun at any angle besides these going in and south will be wide open.
I have room on the surface for more, however utilities are ran underground about 6 feet past the last row and cover about a 10-12ft strip.
Iâm assuming that you are ordering dwarf rootstock for the apple trees .I did have one dwarf rootstock that had been mislabeled from semi-dwarf. Did like the tree despite its relatively small size. It finally died though. Semi-dwarf trees can grow to be quite huge depending on variety.
No real experience regarding the close spacing.
Most are on semi or half root stock, I know they will need to get pruned heavily. That is a big part of back yard orchard culture.
I am wondering if I should be doing my initial shaping cuts as I put these in the ground or if I should get them in and do the big heading cuts and vase cuts when they go dormant. They will get a good 2-3 months of good temps for root growth before they go dormant.
Tasks such as pruning (including height control), spraying, thinning, and harvesting is much more challenging in tight spacing. I have 5 apple trees on semi-dwarf rootstock at various spacing including 14â, 18â, and 22â. Of course this is all very wide spacing compared to the spacing that you are doing. But that is not the point⌠The point is that when Iâm spraying the trees at the 14â spacing there is nowhere to stand between the 2 trees because they are jammed together. I prefer the wider spacing (the 22â spacing maybe is real estate wasting but is so convenient!) so that the tips of the adjacent trees are never even close to touching each other. The wider spacing simply allows easier access to the trees. That is going to be problematic with the tight spacing.
I think most apple orchardist prefer modified central leader pruning to control the height. That involves being able to get a step ladder close to the trunk of the tree to prune out the upward growth each year. .
To be honest if I could go back in time I would strongly consider dwarf rootstocks.
You asked for advice.
The commercial apple farm near me flat tops semidwarf trees at 7â high. They use 9â = 7â + 2â spacing between tree centers in rows. A non-commercial operation would add 1 foot to the spacing to reduce disease pressure.
Iâve seen plenty of posts with regrets about spacings <= 8â when using semidwarf rootstock.
But Iâm also in Minnesota. I attended a permaculture planning presentation up here last week and they were recommending 12â spacing for semi-dwarfs in this region. Said to use 15â if you want to walk between them. I am squeezing that down to 11â spacing to maintain trees 11â - 3â = 8â tall. Thatâs 1-2 feet higher than arms reach. But our cold climate isnât so good for dwarf rootstocks.
One Green World and Rain Tree Nursery sell âcombinationâ trees with 3-5 cultivars grafted to 1 semi-dwarf tree for Zone 5 and above. Iâm in Zone 4, so all multigrafted trees I have to make myself.
You drew a chart where you have 4 trees in a space measuring 12â N-S and 15â E-W. Thatâs a semi-dwarf plot size with the 15â being the space between rows.
I do see dwarf rootstock being planted closer in You-Pick orchards. But do you want to be doing the work of a commercial orchard? If dwarf rootstocks work well in your area, maybe it is a good choice at the spacing you showed to get the variety. Plus youâd get the ability to dig out and replace in modular fashion a dwarf that isnât working well.
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So called âsemi-dwarfsâ.
Iâve got a tree that I grew up from a seed from an apple that I purchased from a grocery store. Went thru the refrigeration bit and planted it. Then grafted a Braeburn scion to the standard rootstock seedling tree. So I now have a standard rootstock size Braeburn apple.
The only strange thing is is that now the Braeburn tree after 12 or so years is actually smaller than 3 of my other trees that is supposedly on âsemi-dwarfâ rootstock. How can that be?
The way I view it is that the industry put the label of âsemi-dwarfâ on apple trees just as designation in order to sell more trees. There is nothing dwarf about a :âsemi-dwarfâ⌠Its a misnomer. If anything it should be semi-large⌠And even that is doubtful.
Okay my rant is over.
Not all seedlings reach seedling size
Each variety has a different vigor and âmax sizeâ thatâs why dwarfing is expressed as a percentage
For example: 60% of max size (for that variety)
âSemi-dwarfâ is a large range. M111 gets big if you donât summer prune it, there are rootstocks that are labelled semi-dwarf that are much smaller
The dwarfing amount basicallt seems like it doesnt matter ynless you plan on not pruning your trees.
For a small backyard orchard get grow a little fruit tree. I dont keep any of my trees THAT small but the techniques are good
Instead pick rootstock based on what disease resisdence u need and like soil type
All dwarf and semi-dwarf trees which are cloned and used as rootstock today⌠Started life as a seed which grew into a smaller sized tree. Most seedling apple trees probably want to grow large/tall. Not all thoughâŚ
That is where I am getting most of my information. I donât want to go that small however I was hoping to find people who have used the techniques. My grandparents had MASSIVE citrus and pear trees and most went to waste. I am fine with getting a smaller ladder out for a 10ft tree, maybe even 12ft for the pear trees.
Pruning is fun IMO, I also have the dewalt pruners for bulk pruning, for the shaping cuts I will break out the coronas.
If you cannot reach apples to spray insecticide on them here (Minnesota), they will be full of worms. I want my trees short. Without an extension wand for the backpack sprayer, I tested my sprayer using water while moving a ladder. I just donât want to spray higher than a 10â and preferably no higher than 9â. The extension wands are cheap on amazon, but I havenât tested one myself to see how high I could spray. People here who have standard rootstocks have worms in the top half of their tree.
I havent gotten that far with fruit trees but i do japanes maple pruning snd roses and my friit trees are now like 2 or 3 depnding on the tree and its going well. Planning my cherry trees to be more in the larger range just because they are street trees, but my apples will be around 8 or 10 feet i hope.
My figs are kept quite short and open.
The apple goal is 8-10ft, they should be less vigorous than the pears. They will get soaked.
Moving back to plums, a local nursery about 20 miles north has Santa Rosa, Bruce, Methley and Burbank that they have had success with. They get a couple hundred more chill hours there but the trees are nice and cheap. Is a combo of Bruce, Santa Rosa and Burbank worth trying out?
I am not even trying figs! One nobody else eats them, second they are free from just about everywhere when in season. I LOVE the look of a large sprawling fig tree, I just canât justify it.
I have to do multigrafting myself, but my advice is check that the harvest times are spread out:
I got 5 fig trees and theyre one if mt faves. Theres a reallt wide variety of flavor in them plus they fruit in like their 2nd year which is nice for a new orchard.
Does anyone meaningfully prune paw paws? I just see topping them at 8ish feet suggested
I ended up with 3 plum trees from the semi local nursery.
Bruce, Santa Rosa and Autumn Rosa. They had some NICE looking Methley but recommended against them. They were really big on Burbank but I think that needs even more chill hours than the other 4. My plan is to plant these and see how they do, if they donât produce would grafting other varieties on them be an option, even the gulf varieties? I might grab a Methley just as an ornamental and pollinator at some point, it is a really attractive tree. I am still on the hunt for a decent Byron Gold to use as an ornamental and possibly some good fruit.
I also picked up a La Feliciana and La Festival peach. I grabbed another orient pear because it looked really nice⌠I am not sure I will need two. I really shouldnât be left unattended.
I also did some rows like that where two rows were close and then a gap. I called them double rows (the two rows close together). I planted the trees in those double rows in a zig-zag so there was not quite so much head-to-head competition. I think it worked reasonably well. Some of the trees got really big and took over the whole double row, especially the plums did that. The advantage is it gives you a wide row which will remain open for easy access to the trees.
One thing you really need to watch out for is you are in a very hot and humid climate. Itâs a lot more challenging to have things close together in such an environment, the diseases will thrive. The trees also can be extra vigorous with all the heat and the long growing season. I would go into it realizing you might need to thin out some trees in the not too distant future.