There are numerous tree selling nurseries and orchards in the state of mich where I live but it seem that all of them are just middlemen or brokers. does anyone no of some actual growers who supply the trees to these tree brokers.
There are lots of commercial growers. What do you want to know? Are you looking for something specific?
Hey Dale! One major supplier is Moser in this area.
Even they don’t grow all they sell. They sell to Adams, and Grandpa’s, and other nurseries.
http://www.mosersnursery.com/
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Drew, where did you hear they sold trees to Adams? I thought they grew all but their Dave Wilson varieties unless they experience some crop failure. One year their warehouse collapsed under heavy snow and they fulfilled orders with trees they acquired from CA nurseries such as Fowlers.
Pod, with clones and bare root trees, buying fruit trees from a nearby nursery that produces its own trees is not essential, although it can reduce shipping costs. The most important thing is purchasing from a nursery with a good reputation, and this usually means a nursery specializing in fruit trees.
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It goes both ways, they trade stock. Van Well is another. They may buy more than they sell, unsure? I do know from time to time they trade stock.
You will notice many commercial nurseries will tell you if you want something not listed, ask, as they are in touch with many other wholesale nurseries and can obtain stock for a specific buyer.
Drew,
Maybe Adams has purchased trees from Moser before, I don’t know. I know Adams doesn’t seem to offer other nursery grown trees in the last few years I’ve been buying from them.
I generally get an inventory list from Adams every year, and when the trees on the list are sold out, they are no longer available. Additionally, when I receive the trees, the phytosanitary certificate always says the trees were from PA or DE (Adams two growing locations).
Podpiper,
If you are not opposed to ordering bare root trees, you can search various nurseries on this site by using the search function magnifying lens in the upper right hand corner. If you type in nurseries you will get lots of nursery threads w/ comments from forum members. Here is one example thread:
I agree w/ Alan’s comment (who himself owns a nursery) the most important consideration in ordering fruit trees is ordering from a nursery which primarily deals with fruit trees.
Make sure the nursery you order from has a good reputation. If in doubt, you can ask the folks here, and you will get plenty of good feedback.
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Yes. A good reputation is important.
Yes, and don’t purchase your trees from me- my reputation totally sucks.
(Seriously, I only sell locally and only quite expensive larger trees- I absolutely never ship).
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Got 22 trees from grandpas orchard last year and although all of the trees except 1 are doing well I was not impressed. First I talked to Matt at mosers because I tried to get some taller trees with all the side branches in place and he disagreed with the guy who practically invented or maybe he even did invent tall spindle method.
So I placed my order for a pick up so that they wouldn’t trim for shipping and they didn’t head the tree to fit in a box but they wrapped them like a Christmas tree and snap off 99 percent of the feathers on every tree.
There r a lot of places in mich that sell fruit trees but seems very few of them can even tell you what root stock there on. Stark bros can’t even tell you.
Just lookin for some feathered 2 yr old trees.
Feathered apple trees are generally sold by nursery that cater to commercial growers. Trees do not naturally grow this way and multiple applications of growth regulators are used to produce these trees. They are in high demand and often sell out early.
Most retail nursery sell branched trees. Often the branches are pretty large and will need to be removed to produce a tall spindle tree. I learned by trial and error that purchasing a perfect highly feathered tree saves about a year of production time. In the past, I purchased what I could get and made it work for my situation, but I’m trying not to do that
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Maybe not? I thought they were a full service nursery, but appear only to be a grower. Moser probably only buys from them, not sell, for customers with needs they can’t fulfill with their own stock.
Please correct me if I get this wrong, but I had to look it up so I thought perhaps others might as well. I didn’t realize there was a difference between a “feathered” and a “branched” tree. The distinction, as I now understand it, is whether the leader and the branches are the same year’s growth. Feathered trees are either headed or treated with hormones to cause them to either branch and sprout a new leader in the second year, or branch a lot from the first year growth. Branched trees have a leader selected in the first year, and branches are formed in the second year. Feathered trees are more vigorous growers than branched trees, at least in terms of growth along the scaffolding.
Feathered trees I purchase grow in one season and I’m not aware of the requirement for hormonal input. I would have guessed that would depend on the variety, but maybe FN has some information I’ve not seen. The majority of these “feathers” are of excessive diameter for me to use as permanent scaffolds. You need to have at least 3 well positioned similarly sized branches to create the form I want using pre-formed branches.
To my knowledge, the kind of feathered trees he may be talking about aren’t available from any of the nurseries I do business with, which are mostly commercial suppliers. I’ve only heard of Euro nurseries supplying 2 yr feathered trees.
It’s possible 1 or more of the nurseries I deal with provide feathered trees on a contract basis and have never informed me of the fact- but that seems unlikely- why provide a service and not advertise it?
My understanding is the same as yours. The feather should be small in diameter and not too long. The really good 5/8 feathered trees I purchased had a dozen or more feathers, each of very small size and almost no branches more than 1/2 the size of the leader. Some of these may have been 2 year old trees, so in that case the feather was not technically a “feather” - just a very small branch.
This type of tree is suggested for use in tall spindle or other types of high density planting where the trees are spaced very close together (often 3X12 or less). Its cost a lot of money to plant a commercial high density orchard (about 50K acre in Washington) and the economic success of this new orchard depends on getting the trees into high production as quickly as possible. Over time the production of a less dense orchard is about the same as the high density orchard, but the cost of pruning, picking and spraying are higher.
http://www.newenglandvfc.org/pdf_proceedings/highdensityapple.pdf
Fortunately, the back yard orchard has a big advantage because he is not under as much pressure to get his trees into production and many folks are not trying to stuff a bunch of trees into a small space. In this situation, any quality tree will work fine.
My guess would be that even if I could find someone that has them would require a couple year advanced order and probably not sell in small quantities. Thanks to everyone for their input.
thepodpiper
Not necessarily shoot me a PM. I am not sure how Scott wishes for people to discuss business’ they have. I dont want to sound like an ad on the general forum. You are correct in the two year wait, nature of the tree development for some varieties, but we are certainly interested in helping the small grower.
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Trees of Antiquity sells some nice trees by mail order.
Drew,
I planted a few trees from Adams today. Part of the peach trees were not from Adams. About 1/2 the peach trees were from Sierra Gold Nursery. They were very short on trees when I ordered from them last year. You were right, apparently when they are short on trees they buy them from other nurseries.
Actually somewhere on the ACN site it says they supplement their peach inventory from other sources if necessary.
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It’s amazing that competitors can work together really. it says a lot for the industry. Also these places are selling a lot of trees! They seem not to be able to keep up with demand. It might be a way to make money, supplying rootstock, or even grafting seedlings on planted rootstock. Somebody has to grow and produce the rootstock seeds too. A lot more complex of an industry than it seems on the surface.