Well done Mam!
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A single spring app has been consistently effective in my region to control PLC if made right before trees break dormancy. I never do apps in the fall and won’t until I know I need to.
But then, you are going for insecticide free production which includes bagging. The bagging is an absolute non-starter for me. For organic production I completely rely on Surround to get decent insect control, but for myself believe the West is the place for organic fruit production. Just much too little bang for the buck here.
You are having great success with a hybrid organic-synthetic system, but I wonder how labor intensive it is.
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Thanks mamuang. Much appreciated.
It is labor intensive. I have a small yard with a few trees. It is doable.
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KoP varies in size; it tends to overset which will make smaller apples unless you thin ruthlessly. On apples with lots of clusters you need to thin a lot more than on apples with fewer clusters; I often don’t fully get there on the heavy-clustered varieties. KoP is bad, but the worst one is Abbondanza; this apple is just packed with clusters. You can guess where the name came from. This year I thinned one graft well and the other not so well. I have big apples on one and golf balls on the other.
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Trees usually keep getting bigger.
I don’t have any tree on standard rootstocks or M111. My trees don’t get very big and I like it that way.
I’ve picked 25 bushels of apples from a Rome tree and 25 bushels from a Winesap tree…on Seedling or Antonovka roots.
I’ve picked up to a bushel from MM111 / 28 years to evaluate, and up to half a bushel from M7.
Size isn’t everything. I still like standard trees, if you’re equipped to pick them with ladders…the crops are huge.
But, am trying newer dwarf trees.
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Could you keep getting standard trees and just cut the branching to where they stay small, i.e., keep horizontal branches and cut the vertical branches to make the tree the height you wish to keep it? I see a lot of local fruit orchards that have done that. Small enough to pick fruit mostly from the ground.
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Of course you can do that, but the training is time consuming, depending on the growth habit of the variety. The Japanese have long done that with vigorous cherry trees, tying branches to horizontal as they grow, as many of us do with peaches.
I have managed 100+ year old N. Spy apples (extremely upright growth habit) trained to horizontal scaffolds not more than 12’ in height at highest point. They are an orchard in a single tree, but a time consuming one to manage.
In decent soil, full sized apples require a lot of pruning- even relative to yield.
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Good points. Just with a better rootstock the tree will possibly last longer and will not have to be supported by something the whole time you have them.
A couple favorite winter apples, both pretty hard off the tree, great keepers, but similarities end there. GoldRuah and Black Oxford
Look at that shine!
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So, Black Oxford or Gold Rush…which you prefer and why?
The best Apple I have ever tasted in my life just happened today. It was a grocery store apple—-called an Envy and it was phenomenal.
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Envy has some rich pear like flavor…I get the popularity of Envy. Opal on the other hand I have found exceptionally boring.
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Honestly, I’m not a fan about the reporting of club apples and how they taste on the fruit growing part of the forum. Seems more appropriate for the lounge, since it isn’t about growing fruit really.
I hate the club concept even though I understand the need for it. Breeders have to get money back for the investment in their programs, but not selling individual trees to hobbyists seems like overkill. There should be a way to stop commercial growers from propagating and selling their brands for profit without banning us from growing them as individual trees in our hobby orchards.
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I must have eaten almost 10 club apples by now. It really depends on when you have them in store. How long they have been in storage. If you get them at their peak, they are wonderful. Otherwise, nothing impressive.
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Yeah these Envy’s were very firm, ripe and fresh. Purchased on US Army post Fort Campbell commissary. Going to have to go back and get more.
All good @alan you’re going to be ok. Lol
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Yes, it did have some pear like flavor! Maybe that’s why I liked it so much! Never tried an Opal.