Agree. MM111 produces a beautiful stately tree that is well anchored. Can be kept to 12-14 feet with judicious pruning. If you are inclined to graft new varieties rather than purchase new trees, it provides a lot of room and scaffolds to do so.
I have lamented on this forum about waiting for some MM111 to bear fruit, but have others which fruited in about 4-5 years and provided a significant amount of harvest.
In the unlikely event that fireblight strikes your tree, there is little you can do on a dwarf if the strike extends. I have found this to be problematic on dwarf pears primarily, but have had a few apples that had FB hit. The larger MM111 trees took it all in stride and the loss of limbs was negligible in the overall growth and shape of the tree.
I looked at your website and found an existing grafts spreadsheet. Very impressive!
Are all your apple trees on M111?
It looks like some were first grafted 2 years after planting, some up 8 years. I am curious as to why. Maybe trees were different age / size when first planted?
It relates to when I started to graft. I’m a relative newbie on grafting with my first ones in 2021 most of the trees were already established but some were still young or not yet planted. I’m not grafting on my first year planting, but might the second year depending on the trees structure.
No I have some dwarfs and some semi dwarf but rootstock not known, but the majority of apples are MM111.
If your soil is anything like mine and @hobilus’ then you have very heavy clay and that in itself will be somewhat dwarfing (maybe you can see it in the mature pears you have now)
As far as plums, I would reach out to Eric at Plum Hill in Charlotte VT @PlumHill or go to their website; he and his wife have a couple thousand plums nearby and it would be great to pick their brain. I think he also had some postings on what did best for them on this forum.
I have Mt Royal, Green Gage and Empress & Valor - the last 2 based on recommendations from @alan; I also plan on planting Castleton and BlueByrd next spring also; but my euro plums are young and planted either the summer before or this summer. We are 90 min from Montreal so Mt. Royal made some sense - lol.
I would suggest a more dwarfing rootstock on the apples - you might want to plant 4-5 dwarf apple trees on G.41 or some other similar rootstock and get a staggered crop of different varieties, esp if you like several different types; you can really pack dwarf trees in a high density way. There are pluses and minuses to dwarfing rootstocks but given you are space limited, it allows you to get more varieties and they will produce very quickly.
Apricots I have not grown and have heard from multiple people in VT they are hard
This is Eric’s list as it was over 5 years ago. I live elsewhere, in NYS and his ratings don’t necessarily apply to my region or palate.
Empress is certainly a good place to start though. Valor tends to be a bit sweeter in my orchard but those Empress plums are a delight in their own way. So big and so productive.
Production
Taste
Hardiness
Japanese Plums/hybrids
Production
Taste
Hardiness
Peaches
Production
Taste
Hardiness
Cherries
Production
Taste
Hardiness
Starks Blue
4
2
4
Shiro
5
2
4
Wisconsin Balmer
4
4
4
Kristen
4
3
3
Early Laxton
4
3
4
Ozark Premier
3
4
2
Intrepid
4
3
4
Starks Yellow
5
2
4
PP 6995
5
3
4
Comet de Kumetz
5
1
5
Reliance
3
2
4
Black Gold
3
4
2
Mt Royal
5
2
5
Methley
5
3
4
Hardired
3
5
3
White Gold
3
3
3
Fellenburg
5
4
4
Toka
4
3
4
Madison
Hudson
1
3
2
Long John
4
3
4
Kaga
4
3
4
Contender
Evans
5
3
5
Early Blue
5
2
5
Gracious
5
3
4
Millers Superhardy (not?)
Balantin
3
4
3
NY71
5
3
5
Surprise (may be Kaga)
4
3
4
Surecrop
Sure Fire
3
4
4
Castleton
5
3
5
Alderman
4
4
3
Red haven
General Hand
Purple Heart
5
5
3
Ranger
3
4
2
Early Transparent Gage
Early Costello
4
4
3
Polly
4
4
3
Ersinger
5
4
5
kahinta
5
3
4
Georgia Belle
3
3
2
Pearl
2
Ptistin #5
4
PF24C
Empress
5
5
5
Pembina
5
3
5
Seedlings
4
2
5
Alabaster
3
4
4
Pipestone
5
3
5
Cambridge Gage
Red heart
1
3
2
Imperial Epinese (not?)
Starks Delicious
4
3
4
Hungarian Red
3
3
4
Red Glow
3
2
4
Opal
5
4
4
Superior
4
4
5
Kirkes Blue
4
4
4
Marisopal
Peach Plum
3
3
4
Obil’naja
5
4
4
Jefferson (blue prune)
3
4
3
Rema
5
3
3
Ratings are 1-5, 1 is low, 5 is high
De Montford
4
4
4
Au Auburn
3
3
3
Schoolhouse
5
3
5
Rose Marie
4
5
3
Trees with no ratings have not produced enough for ratings
Mirabelle De Metz
3
4
3
Formosa
3
5
2
Mirabelle de Nancy
2
4
2
Sumumo
4
4
4
Hardiness is determined by how many trees have died, and how often they have not fruited due to weather
Thank you very much for your input, all very pertinent and valued.
I am not sure of my soil yet. I just sent a sample to UVM Ag Extension for testing. Digging shows it’s definitely not sandy. The pear trees are between 5 and 8 years old according to neighbors and are 13’ and 15’ high.
Thank you for pointing out Plum Hill. I will reach out to them. Their Mirabelles were delicious back in 2019. Your own selection of E plums is well curated. I wish you much success growing these babies.
If you know someone who grows apricot in VT, I’d love to connect with them. So far the only place I know is Scott Farm about 4 miles north of me.
It does look like Empress would be a good variety to start from. If it has productivity and hardiness of Mt. Royal and better taste, it is surely a great candidate. I will research it, especially disease resistance, as black knot is a problem in the area.
Eventually, I would like to add Mirabelles as I have a soft spot for them.
Empress is susceptible to BK and about average in this regard. The only E plum truly resistant is Bluebyrd. The problem with it is that ACN sends me tiny trees that are very sluggish to get going. It has good plums.
I have American Mirabelle, and it’s not in a great location, but to me it is a sugar bomb without much character or texture and way too small to be really useful. But the graft I have of it grew well and then runted out with excessive cropping, so I haven’t really given it a full chance, but the Mirabelles are small and I don’t like small fruit. I like big, rich plums.
For me it isn’t just about the experience of picking and eating the fruit- I fill my freezer and try to grow just about all the fruit I eat. Processing is time consuming even with good sized fruit.
Bluebyrd crossed my field of view yesterday while I research different varieties. I believe grandpasorchard has them. What else can you say about it other that it’s BK resistant?
If you already addressed it in this forum, I’ll find it.
It gets up the sugar like any good prune plum but is smallish. It is not as reliable as Castleton or Empress. I can’t exactly endorse it as the only one I have on my property has always struggled, but I manage another where black knot had killed previous plums and I planted it with a scaffold of Oullins I had grafted to it. On this site its been reliable and we only have to cut BK off the Oullin scaffold. We need two varieties for cross pollination, but the Oullins also provides plums before BB. The customer has been delighted with the contrast between the two plums- Oullins is an early Gage type.
I don’t see Vision on Eric/plumhill’s list. I love it. A late large, meaty, sweet plum from Canada. It said Vision is the best Euro plum from that Canadian breeding program. I agree.
It is larger than a large egg.
What said that? A later list from Eric? On what criterion? I like how your plums look- they have turned fully amber while still looking crisp, but my Valors are a deeper amber. The ones I like best are firm fleshed and not mushy, but are over 20 brix- there are several varieties that can do this and I can’t really separate them in terms of which is best- it varies season to season. Productivity begins to be the final decider for me, but even that varies a great deal site to site although Empress and Castleton have the highest composite score, but Castletons are smallish and ripen at the wrong time for me. I want my E.plums in Sept and even into Oct.
My brother found a perfectly ripened Empress on one of my nursery trees yesterday and thought it divine- it was probably the last one anywhere on my land- I harvested all I could see because so many were starting to crack over a week ago following a heavy rain, with some crawling with ants. He grows tropical fruit in Kauai with similar passion to you and me. He is accustomed to a tropical level of sweetness and also raved about a Korean Giant pear he had from one of my trees.
Incidentally Eric was surprised that I considered Reema exceptionally delicious, but when he thought about it, it was one of the most popular J. plums among his customers. It has been consistently productive and delicious here. .
I don’t think Adams would ever rate a plum as the best of any series- that’s not their style. I’d expect them only to say something like “excellent quality”.
I’m not sure how closely they test their Euro plums. I had to tell them when they lost track and were propagating something else as Valor. They never figured out what that one was, and as you know, when it sets (in Castleton’s window) it is sweeter than Castleton… except on years when its dry enough for plums to hang on the tree to obtain highest sweetness. They also suggest that Valor ripens earlier than I think it even does in PA.
Fruit, Nut and Berry Inventory rates Valor as having “excellent eating quality” while rating Victory as “good quality”. I can’t find any other comparisons or evaluations of Victory.
You might find it interesting what Cornell has to say about Seneca- mother’s are always so proud of their children . "Seneca – This variety was released by Cornell in 1972. The fruit has a maroon/
purple skin color, oblong shape with size often one and a half inches thick and two inches long. Its eating quality is unsurpassed! Pollination is required. In the same article they rate Valor as only good.
Im about 1/2 hr north of you- Bellows Falls/Rockingham. Being in town, you probably have anthropogenic soil. The high point of glacial lake hitchcock was roughly the hospital so if youre below that you probably have some type of “Hitchcock Loam” (not a real class of soil, but common parlance). in which case its quite good. Higher than that youll be into some silty loam glacial till most likely, unless youre on a drumlin or gravel deposit
Thank you for pointing it out. Unfortunately, I am not a fan of sour cherry or very tart fruit. As much as I like currants, I stay away from the most tart ones, lol.
Wow, that’s the most detailed info about the location I ever got! Thank you for sharing your knowledge. I am on the north side of Western Ave. Houses on the south side have backyards that drop to Williams St and Whetstone brook. So my site feels like being near a ledge of some sort.
Digging produces a lot gravel.
. "Seneca – This variety was released by Cornell in 1972. The fruit has a maroon/