My Daughter and SIL purchased a house and 4 acres out in the country here… last summer.
I have planted a CH Fig for them this fall, and protected it… plan to transplant a callery pear and graft it over to kieffer next spring… and going to transplant a persimmon this winter… and graft to it next spring (probably Kassandra).
So… Yes… I am loading them up with fruit trees.
They have a flowering crab apple tree that has some good size to it… but was planted (by who ever years ago) in a not so ideal location. It gets some good morning sun (9 am - 1 pm) but then because of larger trees is shaded (indirect light only the rest of the day).
I saw it in bloom last spring and it blooms well… but later in the summer when they actually bought the place, it had no fruit at all on it. It may just be a flowering crab ?
I would like to try and convert it over (top work it) to a Fruiting crab.
Some things to consider… it gets 5+/- hours of morning sun only, the indirect light the rest of the day. I can’t change that, unless they get rid of a few huge trees in their front yard.
They live in a hollow, low elevation, in a creek bottom, with creek just across the road from their house. When I get a 29F at my place (ridge top)… they get more like 25F… They are going to have more frost issues than me for sure.
Is there a fruiting crab… good for fresh eating… that is known to produce well (or perhaps better than most) in those conditions ?
PS… they have creek bottom soil, very nice, rich… much better than what I have on my ridge top.
Oh my yes I’d say. Chestnut, Whitney, French, Wickson come to mind. Small applecrabs too. Yates, Hall, Vixen and other tough, care free customers. Or this beauty I am hopefully ordering if the wife will get to the store and load my Christmas debit card:
Bred by one of our fellow posters. I’m getting 2 sticks worth myself…lol 39th has them. Clark’s Crab!
My opinion is that any normal apple will take constant spraying there. I’m sorry to say that. The most disease resistant apples i have are haralson. They will still need sprayed at times but much less than others. Clarks crabapple will require spray as well. @39thparallel grows empire and others that are very disease resistant. He has told me many times empire is about the best full sized apple to grow.
i have 5 different apples grafted to a sargents crab so i imagine anything could be grafted on any type of crab. may not be as productive as if on a larger tree but should still produce.
It is a great idea to spray during bloom time if you do not have time to patrol them daily. And you want fruit. I’m retired and patrol mine many times a day tending to critters.So I get away with no spray.
But there are a lot of no sprays that do very well. See Blue Hill Wildlife nursery. They are awesome for it.
I re read some post here on crab apples… and some say crabs that do well in the north for example (chestnut was mentioned) when grown in the hot humid south east they are mealy and blaugh.
I have a note from LuckyP who is about 140 miles north of me in KY state… that Cintennial crab does well for him… as does Kerr.
Kerr is earlier to bloom… Cintennial is mid bloom… sounds like Cintennial would ripen late July into Aug here.
Later blooming needed for late frost issues here.
Novamac, Pristine are FG4…
I will try those two and prehaps some Cintennial crab FG3.
Man, so how many years has the owner of the 39th nursery been growing apples and to what extent is his knowledge based on a wide range of sites?
I’m not saying this to brag but to emphasize that no grower in KS is an expert on how varieties perform even in their own region unless they’ve observed it in many different local ecosystems. Maybe he has, but does he know how trees will perform in Tennessee? I don’t.
Certainly his suggesting that Empire is disease resistant is not useful info for growers in NYS where it is highly susceptible to scab and also relatively attractive to PC. The crabs are naturally insect resistant because one bite can destroy an apple, but crabs have so many.
Here’s a list made up by Cornell of relative disease resistance. As far as insect resistance- there isn’t much research on that. Generally, the harder the apple the better and a thick skin also helps. I’m not sure why older strains of Yellow Delicious seem resistant to insects but they are… at least here in NYS. Some insects may generally be more attracted to red color.
A site with eastern light is not necessarily particularly susceptible to fungal disease- it is drying off the morning dew that is the most important thing if my observations are steering me straight.
I feel im speaking for someone else here in saying he does grow at more than one site and for many years. His reputation proceeds him in his reliable and honest information particularly on apples. That said ofcourse in Kansas i have no idea what works best for other locations any better than you do outside of new york. You might wonder why do i mention that one then that he mentioned it was disease resistant at his site correct? It is because Kansas is worse case scenario in my experience similar to Nebraska or Colorado. The #1 thing @TNHunter has to worry about is fireblight it kills trees in that area so something resistant is good. Here is a list of those apples Disease Susceptibility Ranking of Apples – Database of Apple Diseases
Here are 6 more well known nurseries that say exactly what i saw and @39thparallel said about enterprise apple being a good choice.
The minor diseases will still need to be sprayed for. Apples are hard to grow here in Kansas and require constant care. It might be worth mentioning since 39thparallel sells apples all over the country and guarantees them he knows better than me what works in apples so i listen when he says something about apples. Certainly in New York if i want an expert on caring for orchards Alan i would consult you. We all have our areas of expertise.
My Chestnut does well enough in costal NJ. I do hit it with antifungal in the spring to quell CAR and quince rust with the addition of surround for PC.
I put a Kerr (on g.214) in the ground this fall. It’s still a whip so who knows how it will fair.
You didn’t need to post all those sources that probably got their descriptions from the same source. Your main concern is FB- maybe it is just as much a problem in Tennessee, I wouldn’t know.
Empire also gets rots here and is not an especially easy to grow apple- sometimes most of the crop gets round rots that destroys the fruit, but FB is not a key issue in orchards I manage and I’ve not lost a single apple tree to it in all the years I’ve been managing trees here. But it is a concern for commercial growers in many parts of my state, especially on fully dwarfing rootstocks where entire trees are often killed, sometimes entire rows.
You’re absolutely right in my area, and the @TNHunter area that is our only concern is fireblight. The rest of the diseases are minor annoyances. My experience tells me a non fireblight resistant tree will be killed to the ground in that area quickly. I only know that little insider information because he and others mentioned how fireblight can be problematic there on pears. The second a bartlett pear blooms there it will be dead.
I will stand down. You obviously know more about conditions and requirements in Tennessee than I do. I’m surprised that Empire works well there- it’s a nice little apple that kids tend to love. I wouldn’t bother growing it and consider it pretty ordinary, but there aren’t any popular apples we can’t grow here.
Yes, the thick skin of enterprise actually seems to help us as well with insects, but that is more of a henderance in your area. I know it is susceptible to many fungus diseases a fungicide will take care of. I’m also aware it is a good apple but not a fantastic apple. We pick our battles in fireblight country and resistance to fireblight unfortunetly is a big deal here. My harrow delight trees all had damage and some were completely killed from fireblight this year. It is a new level of that disease i had not seen until this last year. I’m still surprised how devastating it and the ongoing drought have been.
Just realized i was talking about both in my posts. @39thparallel should speak for himself i think. I may be remembering what he said incorrectly so i’m going to let him say it. He sells empire and so that is the likely what he said. They were nice looking apples.
ive only seen a handful of fireblight strikes here in my life. i dont think its a real problem as I’ve never seen it on our wild apples. with our warmer, wetter summers though its likely going to become a issue.
