How tall is the Cummins nursery one year old Apple trees. Did they flower the same year you got them
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With 50 or so varieties of apples, and a dozen different rootstocks, and 5 different caliper sizes on the ordering page……….
there isn’t a way to answer so general a question.
I am going to move your post to the General Fruit growing category as it is more relevant to your question…
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The short answer is yes. My trees from Cummins on G11,G41,and G16 all bloomed the first year. All of these are apples on dwarf rootstocks. Each tree was literally a stick covered with blooms. And I very carefully removed all of the blooms because I didn’t want the trees to runt out and stay sticks for the rest of their lives.
I think the question you really wanted to ask is can you let the trees set fruit the first year and the answer is no. In general, you probably want to wait until the third year after planting to let a dwarf tree set fruit. You let it set earlier and the tree probably will stop growing and always be super small.
Now commercial orchards trained to the tall spindle system will let the trees set a small crop in the second year but I wouldn’t recommend it for a backyard grower. For one thing commercial growers are supplied trees that aren’t headed back and are well feathered which is needed for a successful crop in the 2nd year of a tall spindle planting. Generally, trees supplied to retail customers are headed back (cut back) to be ready for training to a central leader system and also save the backyard grower shipping costs.
Also trees are not generally sized by height but by diameter of the trunk (caliper). I think this link to Grandpa’s Orchard website explains the sizing process well.
https://www.grandpasorchard.com/page/Fruit-Tree-Grades-Explained
For trees on less dwarfing rootstocks (M7, G890, M111, etc.) the tree will start flowering later in life. In many cases you will be in the 5-10 year range. If you could explain what varieties, rootstocks, and what size of tree your looking to buy we could probably give you a more precise answer.
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By the way, none of my Cummins trees flowered the first year…on G41, G11, or G222. Only one set a couple fruits the second year…and then died in August. And two other trees died from drought, the others have yet to flower, but I think maybe in 2021. Maybe Hudson’s GG on G41 and Campfield on G222 might bloom in 2021. And two new trees in 2020 might bloom in 2021, from Cummins…we’ll see.
The only apple trees I recall as fruiting the first year were 2-year-old forty dollar trees from Trees of Antiquity, on M111.
And two dwarf (possibly M9) trees that were 2 years old from J.W.Jung Nursery.
I ordered the largest caliper trees they had but the trunk diameter varied across the 8 trees I’ve purchased from them. All were clipped at 4 ft to fit in the box. The ones on g890 and g30 had a couple of branches. Overall I’d say 6 out of 8 tried to flower right away but I picked off everything. These were very robust trees that grew like crazy. They got to 8-9+ ft at the end of the first summer. I have them on irrigation and have long growing season here in AL which helps, and some ferts too
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