I have a friend with an ancient and decrepit -but reliably and generously productive- Wealthy apple. Out of concern for its future he’s planning on a new Wealthy. I imagine he’ll buy a three or four year old branched tree. Since we can’t be sure it’s the same Wealthy as the one he has we’ll probably graft part of it over to his current Wealthy if that’s the route he chooses.
But what if we just buy a few EMLA 7 and 26 rootstocks and graft those, and have him plant the best looking one or two this year? How soon until he started to see say, a bushel or two from that tree?
I’ve never gotten two bushels off an apple tree. But I thin hard and have small trees. That said I’d say a good crop by year 5. How much depends on how well the tree grows. M26 will fruit pretty early IME.
About 40 years ago I picked apples for a commercial orchard a couple seasons. Picked 25 bushels from Rome, and another variety one year. about 15 best ever got off a Red Delicious, and 8 or 10 off a Golden Delicious. Standard old trees. 16 foot ladder.
I think I’m beginning to find B-10 rootstock is consistently giving highest chance of a bloom next season after grafting…but only have a small sample so far although I have 100 roots on order.
The old Wealthy we’re replacing is a standard, probably older than any of us, and even in its decline is very generous - although we’ve never weighed the output. It lost a major limb a few seasons ago and is poised to fill in the gap now. I actually think it’ll keep going a fair amount longer, it has recovered so well, but he wants the insurance and it isn’t a bad idea.
Yes, I get requests sometimes to estimate replacement or loss.
And soon as I find out it’s insurance money they are after, I mention my “fee” and I’ll type up an estimate.
(I 99.9% positive they aren’t actually going to call me to DO the estimate! They are after only the money.)
This tree must be about 40 years old? Best for him to cut that broken end off so that the surface clearly drains and does not begin to rot.
I would say that grafting on a standard rootstock you could get a bushel after about 15-20 years. My Cortland probably had in excess of a bushel this year. I should have thinned it more. I planted it about 1995. It’s a heavy producer since I topped it and made it spread about 7 years ago.
Dennis
Kent, wa
No one knows how old the tree is, but certainly more than forty years. As for the break, he did cut that off right away. It has a dead center stump and two side “stumps” of about the same size as the broken one, and it still throws off plenty of new, healthy growth, spurs up, and produces. This year he got about three apple boxes full and we went back in and thinned out quite a bit, removed everything above about 8 or 9 feet, and so on.
Honestly, Dennis, I’d be surprised if it were less than 60 or 70 years old! The house is probably 100, for what it’s worth.
