Looking up Topaz, I see Keepers in the UK consider the tree “compact in habit” meaning it isn’t big. Sounds like it got that from Lord Lambourne, also a compact & productive tree. I think that shows up in the parentage of both Vanda & Rubin, which are direct parents of Topaz. Should be tidy on G11. (Strip it until it gains size or it’ll remain extremely small. Lord Lambourne is Oh so precocious.)
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Nutting: When you say “strip it”–precisely what do you mean?
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If Topaz turns out to be as precocious as Lord Lambourne, which features on both sides of Topaz’ breeding (seed and pollen parents), then it is altogether possible it will bloom the year after you make the graft, especially if you make the rookie move I did by grafting the end & retaining the tip bud. Lord Lambourne is a partial tip bearer, which means it sets bloom spurs along branches in their second year & bloom buds at the end of branches. (They are rounded, as compared to angled foliage buds.)
I took pictures and removed any applets that set after blooming. The successful graft needs a couple years to grow before supporting fruit. Thus I needed to strip Lord Lambourne several years before it was mature enough to do a good job of growing any fruit.
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By stripping, do you mean not allowing it to set fruit?
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Yes. Your Tydeman’s Late Orange and others planted five years ago might be old enough to allow some fruit next year. Are all 4 espaliered?
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Tydemans & Kidd’s are espaliered. Sierra Beauty & Goldrush are pruned to be very small, though are on M111. The whole grouping is in the same bed. Soil was practically sterile when I started; lots of amendments have gone in, topdress every season or two with something to help out. I did have one apple off the Goldrush a couple years ago.
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MM111 is rather “tardy to bear,” so give it a couple more years. My GoldRush is on Bud118, similar in size to MM111, but reputed to bear younger & more heavily. That is my experience, since helping a friend to graft 100s onto MM111.
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@Momlongerwalk, I started this post more than a month ago and then life got in the way, so some of the info in the first couple of paragraphs is maybe a little stale. New posts since then arose that I’ll address that should help answer a question of two.
Apples can set on two years and older wood, to be precise, not only two year old wood. If you don’t mind adding some details regarding your orchard expectations, I have a few questions. As a fellow Renoite, we at least have geographic proximity in common, although soils and growing conditions can vary in the region.
First a little info on my location and orchard. I’m in the ravines of older southwest Reno in a frost pocket, mostly growing on hillsides and with drip irrigation (no lawn trees). My trees, including around 75 apple trees, tend to grow slowly even on fairly vigorous rootstock aside from three MM111 trees, which are difficult to keep to the maximum 8’ height I shoot for. A couple pears and an apricot I’ve ignored for the past two years are also exceeding the height limit, but the remaining trees are generally maxing at 8’ and pretty easy to keep there. It helps that they are spaced 8-9’ apart in rows the same distance apart. Competition is fierce, and helps restrain growth, even more so once the trees carry a crop. I also do not water heavily or amend my soil unless a tree is really struggling to grow, which is almost exclusively an issue with a few stone fruits and with Asian pears on betulifolia.
I grafted Topaz on G890 (which has nice vigor here, so maybe isn’t the best choice for the height limit you are looking for) in 2018 and planted it into the orchard in 2019. It grew steadily to 8’ last season, although the canopy was still comparatively skinny. I’m certain it would have achieved that growth by ‘21, but for the droughts conditions since I planted it plus my watering regimen. This year it both fruited (I allowed it to carry around 30 fruits) and continued to grow well due to all the soil moisture we saw after the last winter/spring’s record precipitation. The apples looked great, clean with no cracking, rotting or other issues until in early-mid September, the first fall bear decided that sampling fruit at four-paws-on-the-ground eye level wasn’t satisfactory and broke that tree and a similar size Goldrush off at their bases. I gathered all the fruit and set it on the counter for a month before tasting it. It was fine, but another month on the tree would have been perfect. I think it’s a keeper in our conditions. I’ll be looking for a stick of Topaz this winter to graft again next spring. Fortunately, I have two more Goldrush, so I won’t be without fruit from it while a new tree grows.
I wish you good luck trying to restrain your M111 trees to six feet. You might have some success with Goldrush, as it’s one of my weakest growers. I don’t grow Sierra Beauty, so I make no predictions there. Unfortunately, keeping M111 at 6’ will probably extend your initial fruiting considerably, since you’ll probably be cutting off lots of vigorous wood every year to keep it at the height you want and, as mentioned by Mr. Bumpus, eliminating most of your fruiting wood. Maybe if you tie your branches down to or below horizontal, you can both slow growth and induce earlier fruiting, although with M111, I wouldn’t be surprised if that stimulates lots of water sprout growth, but treating them like you should be treating your espalier sprouts should do the trick, although you’ll likely have to prune them back several times a year. Also, unlike Mr. B’s experience, I haven’t seen any die back issues in late season cutting back of lignified growth from the current season, although doing that in September probably won’t produce fruiting buds below the cut as it more likely would in July or August.
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Chiming in with HighandDry, you might do best with Gen11 to keep Topaz smaller with little effort on your part.
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Thanks very much for your observations! You’ve reinforced what I’ve come to realize, which is most helpful.
Maybe you didn’t see the information in my post above? 84/89? The espaliers have robust trunks and good horizontal growth. Come winter pruning time, I’m going to reduce the upward growth (again) on the side branches by a significant chunk. I’m thinking I overpruned for years, which certainly kept the Sierra Beauty & the Goldrush small–under 4’. Everything in that bed was planted in spring of 2018.
I’m in NW Reno, just outside McCarran, older tract housing. Soil tested almost sterile (Northern Nevada desert dust underlain w/very hard clay), so I amended the heck out of it, mostly with Full Circle. Drains well on a mild slope. I drip water well, as otherwise it’s tough sledding.
Ordered up a Crimson Topaz on G11 for different bed (to replace the virus-laden multi-graft cider tree–boo).
(I have two cherries planted 2014ish on Gisela 6 in old turf area, now covered in DG w/drip which bear a gazillion cherries. I keep them below 6’ and topdress with compost, Full Circle, whatever else seems appropriate. So I know growing fruit here can be done!)
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I’m hoping to prune in Feb and have spent the snowy days staring at the trees. I also hope my grafts that took, make it through to spring
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I wouldn’t worry about your grafts, if they had time to harden off before winter set in. Am confident you aren’t the sort of gardener to broadcast Miracle Gro in August! This has been a gentle shift into the cold. I never lost any growth in these conditions. Only when a drastic drop occurred in October did I lose grafts or appreciable lengths of first year whips.
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I posted in the PNW thread, but I think I belong here. I’m in Central Washington
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Samwise: welcome! You may find this thread more to your purpose. Resonanteye & I are both in Spokane. SpokanePeach in the valley just upstream of us.
What are you growing?
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Everything 
. Blackberries, raspberries, peaches, apricots, plums, nectarines, apples, mulberries, gooseberries, pluots. But everything has been in the ground for 1 to 4 years, so I haven’t had much harvest yet. A few peaches and blackberries, some raspberries, 15ish apples. So it feels like I’m not really growing anything. A few more years though and I’m sure it won’t feel that way. I can’t wait.
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Glad you are going deep & wide.
My emphasis was on growing apples without using poisons. I wrap applets individually with orchard sox or organza bags that have some Kaolin on 'em. Experience has shown that some varieties cannot hack the near-desert conditions of north Spokane, so I had to discard true russets & others that seem to exhale flavor in low humidity. I also lost Queen Cox (bud sport of Cox Orange Pippin & touted to be more grower friendly) entirely: shriveled up & died, its fruit worthless.
What has worked for me so far?
Winekist, Maiden Blush, Lamb Abbey, Redfield, Claygate, GoldRush.
What are already in the works & at least show promise?
Shackleford, Orange Colorado, Otterson, Sundance, Hewes Crab.
Ersinger Plum on St. Julian A stock has fruited twice. We love it. Kirke’s Blue plum got planted last year perhaps too close to an old apple stump & did not grow; will see if I can help it thrive by tearing out some of the roots of the apple.
I started in 2008, with lots of failures along the way.
My back yard is where most of this goes on, while some are growing in the orchard of friends. Sounds like you have some room to maneuver - Nice!
We enjoy thornless raspberry. I grow several black currants for jam & cordial. My wife at least likes the cordial. I’m a big fan of the jam & cordial.
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I have a dwarf Fuji apple. I planted it with a honeycrisp, but my dog was too young when I planted them, so the honeycrisp was eaten. I actually thought I was buying a semi dwarf Fuji, and planted it where I wanted a tree with a little size to it, but later saw the faded label on the pot (small new nursery) that said “Ultra Dwarf Fuji”. The following year (must have been 2021), I relocated it to a corner in my front yard where it has thrived. It flowered the first time last year, and set about 30 apples. I thinned a bunch, and ended up with around 15. It didn’t drop any naturally. I wasn’t actually expecting it to set fruit, because I didn’t know if there was a pollinator nearby, so I wasn’t prepared to protect from insects. I decided to try what I had, so I used diatomaceous earth in water in a sprayer. I don’t know if it actually worked, or if the bugs just haven’t found my tree yet, but I had no bugs in my apples.
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I had a Honeycrisp come my way - mislabeled - & IMHO you are spared heartache. Junk tree & low return on your investment for any apples you can eat from it.
I started grafting in 2010, chip-bud first time around, with 50% success. Never looked back. Have done whip-&-tongue, saddle (can’t recommend) and cleft ( so helpful when another graft hadn’t worked before).
If you look up Colorado Orange on the magnifying glass icon, top of the page, you will see the graft I made of it last year. Twice, in June & September. No one says how precocious it is, so will report when that happy day arrives. The prospect is pretty exciting.
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I’ve never posted photos here before, so I don’t know if this posted.
My project this winter is growing trees from seeds. In this photo are 4 nectaplums, a pluot and an apple. The 3 on the right and the red one are nectaplums, the other left corner is the pluot. I have a few more pluots. I’m excited to see what kind of fruit I get from these. I know they’re all hybrid types, so nothing will be the same as the parents, but I still think I’ll get good fruit. I might graft onto the apple.
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I read somewhere in another thread that GoldRush requires a very long growing season. You’re able to make it work in Spokane? I’ve been wanting to plant one. Where I live (south Central BC), the climate is similar but the growing season is definitely shorter. I grew up in the Spokane area and spring comes earlier there.
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