No signs of growth on new bareroot apple

I planted 10 bareroot apple trees about 1 month ago (PA zone 6). All but 1 tree are pushing growth from multiple buds. The one that is not looks the same as the day it was planted- no bud swelling / greening at all. Scratching the bark, there is some green showing underneath, but again there is no growth at all and it is in stark contrast to all the other trees with each having several buds pushing leaves. The trees are all on MM111 rootstock, all different varieties, with the one in question being a York Imperial. Is this common? How much longer should I give it before reaching out to the vendor? If it’s not going to grow I’d like to replace it before losing a growing season. Thanks!

No harm to consult vendor, he should be able to give you comparative growth schedules
Each variety will have unique budding schedules
Dennis
Kent wa

1 Like

Let’s hope the roots are ok. The scratch test only tells you about above ground.

I have varieties that do nothing until May. Weeks after every other variety, I can only find one reference to bloom time for York, DWN just says that it’s bloom is late. Does it have any buds on newer growth, they will be the easiest to see if there is life in them? And have you pruned it yet?

Hopefully it’s just the variety difference. The tree is only a whip, so I haven’t done any pruning. It does have buds all the way up to the tip.

My super cold hardy plants are already putting out leaves while my higher ones are not. Zestar! Apple is leafed out while mountain rose and pink lady do not for example. Heck my Zestar! and cherries is all leafed out while my euro plums are just barely showing green. My Mirabelle plums from Raintree are the same where some of their trees were showing full green buds but the Mirabelle are not green with the buds but are showing green under the wood with a scratch test.

I forgot to add, there is a strange growth at the graft union on this York apple tree. Could that be an indicator of the problem? I have never done any grafting, so I can’t say whether that is typical or not.

Graft on York apple with no growth:

Most of the other trees have grafts like this and are showing growth:

Any thoughts or would this not be an issue?

Thanks

Contact the nursery you bought them from and send them the photos as well. Tell them what is and isn’t going on and see what they say. At least give them a heads up so when and if you contact them they know about this ahead of time. Usually they say to give it to June or July before letting them know it isn’t growing. Usually they send out the replacement tree the following year in the spring or in the fall of this year.

1 Like