What gets in my traps…
What the traps look like… any cheap plastic container will work. 4 small holes drilled near the top of the container.. 3/8 inch.
Novamac apples harvested .. no spray at all and perfectly clean. Not every apple will be perfect but around 60-70%.
I can live with that.
TNHunter
Wow! @TNHunter that’s cool! Where did you get your trees from?
@BirdDawg89—- I bought the Novamac on B9 from a Nursery (Maple Valley Orchards).. B9 was the only rootstock they had it on.
I grafted the two out in my orchard to M7 rootstock the first year I learned how to graft… I grafted 2 Early Mc’s and 2 Novamacs… all 4 were successful and thrived.
I gave one Early Mac and one Novamac to a friend.
The Novamac out in my orchard on M7… ripened a half dozen fruit this year.
The Novamac on B9… started ripening fruit in year 2. It has produced some nice fruit the past 3 seasons. They ripen early August.
TNHunter
Get the fungus working for you by introducing mycorrhizal inoculant when you plant. They (more than one fungus in the mix) will help your trees function to the best of their abilities.
May I suggest you try Sundance?
(Otherwise I can say little, since my location and conditions differ greatly from you own.)
I wonder what Novamac’s chill hours are. We do not see any of the Macintosh clan of mutants, seedlings or crosses this far south.
The Novamac Apple Tree requires roughly 800 chill hours, sharing a similar chilling requirement and flavor profile to its parent variety, the McIntosh.
Found that with google search.
TNHunter
My area gets around 1400 I think, let me know if I’m wrong @wdingus(my zip is 37664). At a previous house I had planted two trees from SC (Anna and Dorset Golden- both gifted to me). Not sure if they’ll produce (that house was in Morristown TN).
I might just give Novamac a try. I’m definitely interested in the nursery you shared @TNHunter (Maple Valley).
Yeah. That would be a 1 out of 4 to 5 year cropper here unless it is lower then advertised. 600-750 is what we typically get.
I grew up in 37665 and my parents are still there. I’m not far down the road in 37617.
Does anyone else tend to “veer off into the weeds” or is that just me? Bet it’s not just me 
I suddenly found myself wondering about the qty of chill hours here… I have a WeatherFlow Tempest home weather station which tracks temperature and pushes that info up to WeatherFlow’s servers. I asked Gemini to put together a script which could query my data from their API and calculate chill hours.
$ python3 ch.py
Fetching historical observations day-by-day from 2025-10-01 to 2026-05-31...
Total Raw Records Processed: 348520
Cumulative Chill Hours (Oct 1, 2025 – May 31, 2026): 1333.00
So hopefully that’s plenty for most any apple or peach at least…
Good to great dessert apple cultivars fruiting in my orchard: Stayman, Jonathan, Mutsu, Virginia Beauty, Karmjin De Sonnaville, Horse, Ginger Gold, multipe Limbertwigs, Newtown Pippin, etc…
I saw your post and was shocked. I had the EXACT same question to the group myself. I wanted to order from Century Farm Orchards and they only sell trees on 2 different rootstocks (and I don’t graft for medical reasons). That thread is here
After a lot of research, and as much as I love century farm orchards, if you don’t graft I would recommend getting a custom bench graft from 39th parallel nursery instead. He will custom graft any of his apple rootstock to any of his apple Scion wood for you, and mail you the resulting tree. I’ve gotten 10 pear trees this way on rootstock that aren’t available on at any other nursery in the Scion to rootstock combo I wanted. I’ve even had specialty pear cultivar Scion wood mailed to me from Georgia, and then mailed that Scion wood out to 39th parallel to graft for me and send it back.
I have been very happy with Maple Valley- have ordered scions and rootstocks. Huge variety and competitive prices. Shipping a bit high, so best if you’re ordering a lot.
I found this fascinating article about how to train espalier trees. @TNHunter I might take a page out of your book and try a Novamac on B9.
Maple Valley usually has Geneva rootstock grafts available.
Slopes are worth the extra work for the air drainage. Cold air sinks so anything in a low flat spot gets hit harder by late frosts and stays damp longer, which is exactly what fireblight loves. Anything I planted higher up has consistently done better than the ones in the lower flatter areas.
Think I just did my on thing with my Novamac B9 espellar.
Below is how I started it off.
It is eager to fruit.. and once you strap those limbs down it will develop fruit spurs like crazy.
TNHunter
I think I will try Novamac on B-10 here. See if it will adapt to 100-150 lower chill hours. B-9 is just too stunted here. But Bud-10 is very M-9 like in size here.
