How close is too close? (Tree spacing)

General Fruit Growing
41

@benthegirl a lot

And if I do it wrong, I always get another chance next year.

42

These are all just Pink Lady seedlings from a store bought apple so I might graft them all onto one or just reduce them down to a single tree which I use only for proven varieties. Just a fun little experiment that started because I bit into an apple and almost every seed was already germinated so I said might as well grow these out. Once they get going, it’s impressive how quickly the roots start to hit the bottom of the pot but mine are all so tiny they were nowhere near being rootbound. With how high deer pressure is here, I don’t even need to dig out the ones I don’t keep, I can just let the deer at them and they will absolutely kill any fruit tree given the opportunity if it’s not too tall.

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43

I’m only doing a small backyard orchard in Minneapolis area. Based on a presentation by a guy doing backyard permaculture a few miles away, I decided to go with 12’ spacing in rows and 16’ between rows. The extra foot/feet between rows hopefully will be space to temporarily start landscaping trees, flowers, experimental plants. We have a lot of fungal diseases and Fire Blight here with the humidity.

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44

I started out with M7 and M111 Trees on 15x15’ spacing.

I found that to be crowded but doable. 10’ would take a lot more pruning earlier on.

I later planted G210, G890, G935 and some fully dwarf trees on 10x18’ as I like to drive my equipment down the rows. I have a lot of space to work with, and I really like having one lane to drive or walk down.

I planted dwarf trees on 6x18’ this spring to tall spindle.

I had to get aggressive pruning this summer to just be able to mow down the 15’ rows with a zero turn.

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45

There’s a paper about planting full size own root apples trained in a V shape 12 or 16 inches apart and then getting a serious pruning each winter, keeping them 6 or 7 feet tall, with double trunks.

46

This might be a dumb question but do the deer allow your trees to start growing in tighter at a low enough point to prevent a mower under it? In my case, even with cages, they eat anything the millisecond it grows outside the cage. It’s 5ft tall weld wire and still they eagerly eat above that common graze point. I’m curious to see if they will keep the lower 5ish ft cleared for me to prevent future issues. A ladder and tall trees is seemingly my only option as I don’t like keeping every single tree perpetually in a cage. This is why my smallest trees are semi-dwarf.

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