I have grafted 10+ varieties on my HC. The tree is already established so anything grafted on it has fruited between 2-4 years.
That’s something you may want to consider instead of removing the tree. As you may know, grafting apples is very easy.
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Thanks, yes I will definitely graft it over, too late to get dormant scions, or I would do it now.
If I thin my Fuji tree(known for being biennial?)
If I thin at flowering stage, I’m nervous I’ll over thin, is it a bad idea to wait till nickel size fruit?
Wouldn’t over react honeycrisp are good apples. For me they are 5% of my apples if that because I can’t count on them. Another words maybe leave 2-5% of the branches honey crisp. Have 2 trees only. My Jonathan, haralson, Prarie spy, my seedlings, 39th parallel , Arkansas black etc all do better for me most of the time.
May leave one limb for another year
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Dennis, I would not anything to the HC tree except keep a stiff upper lip. It will have plenty of perfect apples after about 10 years. Let it do what it wants to do until then. Granted that you will cuss it. No grafting, thinning, pruning. Nothing. Just a stiff upper lip. See how easy that is. 
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I would add heavy thinning to the stiff upper lip bit, it will make the tree grow faster. Putting fruit is extremely taxing, energy the tree can put to better growth.
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It is harder to under-thin than over-thin apples. However, I understand your concern. You can wait until “June Drop” to see how much fruitlets you have left before thinning more out.
When I thin well, I have very little June Drop issue. My apple trees do not have to shed more fruit in June.
Just keep in mind, the longer you wait to thin, the more energy your apple trees have to waste to carry those fruitlets.
I do gave a Fuji and mine also has a biennial tendency. I guess most apples are. That’s why thinning is a standard recommendation. It helps with fruit quality and reduce biennialing possibility.
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Irregular irrigation or sudden irrigation (rain) after drought can cause the fruits to crack/split.
Bitter pit is caused by calcium lack. let it grow and treat any lack of elements.
General advice Leave newly planted apple trees for a few years (or one or two years at least) without letting them bear fruit to save energy on vegetative growth and roots.
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I agree, I think trying to rework a tree to other varieties ( grafting) makes sense if the rootstock is good. I am probably going to be doing that to my older Honeycrisp apple. Ithaca been a dud for apple production. Maybe with new grafted varieties it may be worth keeping.
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In my rather wet climate, HC’s quality fluctuates from year to year. I have had several other apples that I like more for their taste and performance. That’s why I don’t regret converting more than 60-70% of it to other varieties.
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Honeycrisp never reach their best quality here either. It has nothing to do with higher moisture levels at my location. They are an apple I can buy sometimes better from the store.
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Before I went down the rabbit hole here at Growing Fruit I bought a fairly large, established Honeycrisp from a local nursery. In retrospect I really wish I had chosen a different apple…
I have no idea what rootstock it is on, but I’m guessing a semi-dwarf. Initially I had a number of apples on the tree, but it’s second year it got fireblight pretty bad (and looking online to see what exactly it was led me to this website, so that’s a positive I guess!). Anyways, for the past four years I have had next to nothing in terms of blooms or actual apples. It’s not biannual - we’re going on quadannual, if that’s even a word. Last year it put out a few blooms but not a single apple stuck. This year it put out exactly one cluster of flowers.
In addition to not producing fruit, it is an absolute Japanese beetle magnet and looks horrible from about July on, with leaves that are all mottled and look like they have a virus, but it seems that that’s just what Honeycrisp looks like.
I’m sure it has to do a lot with my location (Denver - 90’s and 100’s throughout the summer) but I’m aggressively trying to graft it over with other varieties. I put on two Williams Pride grafts on to the tree two years ago and those branches have already put out about five times as many blooms in one year as the Honeycrisp put out in the last two years.
Anyways, that’s my two cents.
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True. They are a usually lot bigger in the store than what I have been able to grow here. I know the orchards irrigate and that is probably one of the reasons they are a lot bigger.
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@clarkinks,
For the 7-8 years since the tree has set fruit, there was one year that the apples were excellent. All the elements (earth, wind, fire and water) must have aligned perfectly that year. They were as good as the hype. Unfortunately, other years, the fruit quality has not been consistent.
@Scooter - I assume you fought fire blight by hacking off fire blight damaged limbs of the tree. Severe pruning will set fruit production back.
I had two William’s Pride trees because at that time, I loved the apples very much. Now I removed both trees (bad locations, too crowded) and has kept one graft.
Look into russeted apples. Several of them are more interesting than non-russeted ones.
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Denver Colorado should be super good for growing apples. Applewood CO used to be a apple Orchard and is only about 17 miles from Denver. Even now we have plenty of apple trees and crab apple trees here. Nearly every house in Applewood has a apple tree planted. My house has two crab apples in ground and we don’t even have to water it. They just thrive here. Only apple trees that has not thrived here was a apple tree with 5 varieties those being honey crisp (the apple we are discussing), Braeburn, yellow transparent, a unknown fuji cultivar and Granny Smith. The other apple trees (Pink Lady, Zestar! spitzenberg and Mountain Rose apple) are all doing quite well. Heck Spitxenberg is known not to be disease resistant and is doing better than my honey crisp.
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Certainly starting as sonn as I get scions of other varieties i will graft each scaffold with something else: ordered these today as ones I do not yet grow:
Golden Reinette 1 ea
Red Gravenstein (Olga Strain) 1 ea
Royal Gala Apple scionwood. 1 ea
Belle de Boskoop 1 ea
Dennis
Kent wa
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Belle de Boskoop and Gravenstein are both triploid. I hope you have enough other varieties to help pollinate these two.
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I have had decent luck going Honey crisp. Maybe it’s because I live in Iowa where the climate is close to where the Honey crisp were developed. (Minnesota). I do have problems with them being biannual. But they do get rather large here. I have had some get as large as .8 pound and the taste is a lot better than grocery store apples.
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You have the red strain. I have the stripey one.
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