We planted 6 fruit trees last spring. Two Peach, two pear, and two apple. They all seem to be growing a little differently from one another. One of the 6 currently has no growth, a couple appear to only be budding from the bottom, and the final 3 all look good. I’ve included a picture of one (new user it won’t let me add more) but I’m curious how long we should be waiting to see if the one with no growth is dead, or how to know. Also, should we be concerned with the growth from the bottom? All of the trees came on dwarf or semi dwarf stocks and I’m hoping we’re still growing fruit and not whatever root stock we have.
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Welcome to the forum! I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but that pear tree looks extremely dead above the rootstock. Shriveled, peeling bark, etc. If you scrape anywhere, do you see moist, bright green tissue? If not, than the grafted portion didn’t make it.
But fret not! If you select one shoot from your rootstock to grow out this year, you can re-graft it next spring with scion, either commercially purchased or obtained through the trades section of the forum. Pears are pretty easy to graft, and you will probably not be too far behind where you would have been anyway.
There is a slight chance it might have survived above the rootstock. Can you tell where the graft union is? I’ve encountered in the past where the tree was dead to within millimeters of the graft union, but had healthy adventitious buds coming up in those few millimeters. With careful nurturing of those buds and diligent removal of rootstock growth, I was able to turn that tree right around. It’s now a nice healthy specimen.
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Also, you should be able to add additional pictures one post at a time. Could you show us pictures of the other two that haven’t woken up yet?
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I’m noticing a lot of rodent/gnawing damage on all these trees. I suspect some of them were completely girdled, which would kill everything above the damage. Based on the height, I’m guessing rabbits or porcupines.
You’ll want to protect those trees with cages, hardware cloth, or spiral tree guards, especially over the winter.
The fact that it’s girdling damage actually gives me some hope that your pear may have something alive above the graft. Maybe the contender peach as well. Honeycrsip looks like it’s coming back right around the graft. Hard to tell for sure whether it’s root or scion from this angle. Looks nice and green above, though, so there’s hope.
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Rabbits would be my guess. We’ll make sure to get something around them. Suggestions on next steps aside from that? I ask because the two that look potentially dead to me both came with 1 year guarantees that expire in about 2 weeks. Also, do you think the “girdling” you mentioned might be causing the delay in the peach contender? Seems to be the only tree without any buds yet.
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Contender looks heavily gnawed. If it’s gnawed through to the wood all the way around in a continuous band, everything above that wound is dead or will be soon. I would enquire about the guarantees instead of waiting. Worst case is they say no. If you wait, you know what the answer is.
I circled in yellow the potential girdling (being gnawed all the way around) on the contender peach. I also see what might be a rootstock shoot coming up and I circled it in red.
If you can’t get the tree replaced you can try grafting to it but peaches are much more difficult to graft.
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They’re pretty easy when bud grafted in late summer. But yes, traditional dormant season grafting is harder to do with peaches.
Welcome to the forum. And condolences on your rabbit issue. Do not feel alone. Many of us are at war with Rabbits.