If you could only keep/re-plant/nurture 3 fruit trees?

If you where informed today you could only keep 3 fruit trees on your property, which would be your ultimate top 3 trees you would keep? I know this could be a very difficult question for many, but give it your best shot. My orchard is young and less than 2 years so I do not have a top 3 at this point :smirk:

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Youā€™re a little warmer than I, but I would aim for an apple, a plum, and an apricot, unless I could grow a peach. And Iā€™d hope to have more than one variety on at least a couple of the trees.

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There is a very similar thread already started. You might look through it.

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Thanks Mark!

Thanks Speed, I read the post youā€™re referring too, however it is much more focused on the CA area. Curious to know more from others around the United States. Saw your polls listedā€¦those are neat to analyze/read!! :sunglasses:

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Geeā€¦ probably Tomcot or Florilege apricot, Weeping Santa Rosa or Reine de Mirabelles plum, Rio Oso Gem or Kit Donnell or any classic yellow peach, and yes I know I am over three but you have to have an apple: probably Reine des Reinettes if I could have only one. Then Iā€™d moan that I didnā€™t have any pears and would want Magness.

Of course this would not actually work since pollinators would be neededā€¦

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I will pick:
Sweet cherry (white gold or black gold)
Pomegranate
Red raspberry (Autumn Bliss or Jaclyn)
if you do not consider raspberry as fruit tree, I will replace raspberry for Persimmon (Fuyu or Jiro)

I am in NYC metro zone 7b.

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You would have to multi graft the trees for pollination and you would get an additional variety to boot.

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Drippinā€™ honey Asian pear and my little yellow unknown pear shown in this thread Here comes the 2016 apple and Pear harvest! and Carmine Jewell cherry Carmine Jewell Cherry Yields increasing with age.

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ā€˜Nancyā€™ mirabelle, ā€˜Tomcotā€™ apricot, and ā€˜Calville Blanc dā€™Hiverā€™ apple.:apple:

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Flavor King Pluot, Blenheim Apricot and my multi graft Asian Pear. Iā€™d then graft Burgundy Plum onto the Flavor King as a pollinator!

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Iā€™ve been thinking about this one since the post first went up last night and my trees would be:
1.) Honey Jar jujube, with a few others (Sugar Cane, So, etc) grafted on.

2.) European Plum- some combo of Valor, President, Empress or Middleburg. Note that Iā€™ve only sampled these from others (or in one case read Scottā€™s description), so Iā€™m not sure which would be the primary tree.

3.) Goldrush apple, with secondary grafts of Golden Russet and Sweet Sixteen and maybe a few others (Kidds and/or Ashmeads). 5 varieties fit nicely on a treeā€¦

Just missing the cut was a Korean Giant Asian pear with a 20th century graft (good keeping, to extend the season). I suppose I could try a Winter Banana interstem on tree #3 to get a Korean Giant onto the apple.

I also thought about an apricot- maybe Tomcot, with an early one grafted on so that I could have fruit in June. But, apricots donā€™t seem to live too long in my yard and Iā€™d hate to do that if I only had 3 trees. The same applies to peaches, though to a lesser extent (mostly due to borers). Iā€™ve also had better apricots than I have peaches.

Clark- If you are limited to just 3, Iā€™d want to make sure that they can get very large, instead of choosing a ā€œbushā€ variety. :slight_smile:

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Bob,
Some of those CJ bushes are over 8ā€™ and I really donā€™t want them to much bigger. Lol you are right a short bush would make me short on fruit. If they produce every year from now on like last year it would be tolerable. My second choice would have been Montmorency but my girlfriend and I have a terrible time picking cherries on that monster tree of hers that is 25ā€™. Iā€™m looking hard at Korean Giant and like you have seen many good things about it. I grow a couple of KG. The harrow series seem to be great pears as well. I bought a close family friend a Drippinā€™ honey , Seckel, and Korean Giant this year whereas another very close friend got a reliance peach from me this year. There are many extremely close seconds and all I picked for quality over quantity.

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In the other thread I said Flavor Supreme, Lapins, and Goldrush. But I think Iā€™d probably try to fit Artic Glo in there at the expense of one of those 3. But I canā€™t decide on which one to scrap. Haha

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Scott,
I am curious on how your weeping Santa Rosa is doing compared to a post you had written on the ā€œotherā€ website 5-6 years ago. You had posted that you had purchased one weeping and one regular Santa Rosa and your concern was the weeping one wasnā€™t ā€œweepingā€. I am speculating that the weeping Santa Rosa is in fact weeping now and doing very well as you have it listed as your NUMBER 2!!! Awesome.

like @BobVance, i will have a multi-grafted jujube for 1st,

and my 2nd would be a nigra mulberry, while 3rd would be a toss between a multi-grafted fig/pomegranate/apricot.

if i were in the tropics, will probably have any three of the following-- lacatan banana, large ataulfo mango cultivar, cherimoya, atemoya, mangosteen, rambutan, longkong, dry-type pommelo, etc.

yeah, the projected lifespans play a huge part on my selections too, especially those i plant in-ground and unsheltered. Here, apricots seem to live much longer than peaches, btw

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Someone ā€œover thereā€ mentioned that WSR doesnā€™t start weeping until it gets really big, and mine I kept pruned back. So I decided I had the original after all. Iā€™m not 100.0% sure but it definitely is more prone to setting fruit for me which is the reason why I replaced mr SR with WSR. It also seems to taste a touch better. After years of a small tree of it I will soon have a big tree ā€“ I grafted it last spring on my 6" SR trunk and its already filling the space with its one-year growth :slight_smile:

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Here in Dallas: Keiffer Pear, Winter Delight Jujube, Fuyu Persimmon. Pest Resistant, disease resistant, squirrel resistant, bad pruner resistant. No spray. Self fertile. Plant, wait, eat.

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Wow. This thread has been enlightening. Thanks for starting it @zazlev. Iā€™m kinda surprised that figs didnā€™t make the cut in all of these listings except as a tie for 3rd in one post. Wow.
I too did not follow the post directed to those in CA as we are perhaps the extreme opposite in climate here - something that this forum has educated me on more that any other resource. So maybe figs came up there.
Seems like I should be looking into jujubes, LOL.

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JustAnne4, Thank you!! Youā€™re exactly right. I love hearing from the amazing amount of intelligent fruit growers on this site. My iPhone notes page is filled with a lot of saved insights thanks to so many wonderful people here. I literally seem to learn multiple things each time I visit :wink:
I too have been intrigued with Jujubes after all the comments and selection in the top 3 for many who responded. I now will be including them in my future plantings. :sunglasses:

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