Realistic Yield Expectations

[hopefulorchard]

Hey everybody, I recently decided to move from a lurker on this site to a participant. The biggest reason why is that I also recently decided to plant a small backyard “orchard”.

While trying to plan out the details, I’ve seen wide-ranging estimates for tree height, spacing, yield, years to bear, bloom time, etc. I’ve been able to narrow most of these down with a reasonable degree of certainty, except for what yield to expect per tree.

After running all the details through various filters (Zone 5B, inexperienced grower who will make and then correct mistakes, etc) I think I found a good average expectation, but I wanted to run it by you all and see if I’m still way off.

I’d also like to add, before I ask, that I’m well aware of the fact that these yields won’t be reached for 3-5 years at least, and that late/early frosts, pests, etc could greatly diminish the yield below these numbers as well. I’m just trying to ascertain what a “good” year would look like.

For my apple varieties (including Enterprise, GoldRush, and a few others, making sure to time bloom groups crossover for pollination), all of which are on G.890 rootstock, I think my research says a “good” year would be around 2 bushels per tree.

For my peach varieties (including Contender, Intrepid, and a couple others), all of which are on BY520-9 (Guardian) rootstock, I think my research says a “good” year would be around 3 bushels per tree.

I arrived at these numbers by averaging different results found on this site, similar sites where people discuss growing fruit, and running detailed information though 3 different AI models, and then excluding ChatGPT, which was estimating 12+ bushels per tree for the apples. All of the other numbers (5 different sources) were roughly similar, so I just took pretty close to the lower bound for the overall numbers as my estimates.

Am I way off? If so, am I too high, or too low?

I don’t want to plant too many trees (or too few) and I’m trying to nail down these numbers to know how many to order/plant.

Thanks in advance.

[dannytoro1]

Welcome. Yield is very different per variety type and climate suitability. Not sure about bushels. Most trials figure crops in Kilograms for apples.

[hopefulorchard]

Thanks!

A bushel of apples is relatively close to 20 kg.

Is there a good site for seeing trial results to indicate yield potential per tree?

[murky]

When you say yield, are you including what the critters get?

[hopefulorchard]

Probably both before and after critters get at them, I suppose. Although my deepest interest is in after the critters do their thing.

[dannytoro1]

You just have to search. I’d value university type trials over nursery estimates. Things like Enterprise are older; so academic papers are obviously archived.

If you look at modern trials; 30-45kg are fairly common.

[zendog]

They are hard to find, but you might look for the rootstock trials conducted by university ag programs. There was one that was a collaboration among a bunch of universities that was called NC-140 that included G890. Unfortunately a number of the full reports are behind paywalls, etc., but you can still find some annual reports, etc. A lot comes down to how you prune the trees, etc. and I believe the NC-140 was primarily testing for high intensity growing with Honey Crisp.

Here are a couple of years from University of Massachusettes at Amherst:

2021 Massachusetts NC-140 State Report

2022 Massachusetts NC-140 State Report

2023 Massachusetts NC-140 State Report

Looks like 2022 was an off year maybe, but overall they were getting about 1.25-1.5 bushels per tree. If I’m reading it correctly that is.

[hopefulorchard]

Thanks, that’s a fantastic set of links!

It looks like they note that they consider 2021 and 2022 (0.5-1 bushel yield) to be notably low, but make no such comment about the 1.5 bushel yield in 2023, so I’d assume that a relatively common “good” yield for G.890.

Assuming these may not have been 10+ year old trees, I think my number of 2 bushels for the fully mature trees may not be all that terrible. Might adjust slightly to say 1.5-2 bushels when I consider just to be safe.

Thanks again!

[dannytoro1]

Bear in mind G.969 is the preferred commercial production tree as opposed to G.890. G.890 is a more generalist tree. In larger size trees anyway.

[Audi_o_phile]

@hopefulorchard

I don’t want to plant too many trees

I understand getting stuck in analysis paralysis and I hope that you aren’t suffering from that in all of this. The approach I took is that I planted everything that I wanted and purchased and had the space available to plant, and I determined that my eventual excess fruit would be given to neighbors and friends.

[MikeC]

Glad you finally posted something here. I think the estimates you mentioned are pretty close. There will be years of really heavy yields and years or zero or light yields. But the average is probably close to what you mentioned. Too much fruit can be a problem, at times, especially peaches. That is one fruit that you cannot just leave for a while. It will go bad fast of not refrigerated. I do not know anyone with a refrigerator that big that can hold 3 bushels of peaches. Unless they own some sort of walk in cooler.

[LarisaLee]

Welcome!
I would say expect pretty widely different results to start. You should pick off developing fruit off trees at least their first two years, and off any thin branches for a couple years after that, so plan on getting 3-5 fruit off most 3-4 year old trees. You also may need to dig up and replant or graft over one or two trees. Just be patient and enjoy learning as you go.
Once you really get going, you will need a lot of refrigerator, freezer, shelf space, and recipes.

[BobVance]

@hopefulorchard

Although my deepest interest is in after the critters do their thing.

After growing fruit for 10-15 years (depending on which fruit) I can confidently say I don’t know how much I’ll get of most things. Between critters and weather (at the wrong time and everything splits and maybe rots if you don’t have sprays down), I could get somewhere between none and too much.

Thinning could also impact it. For example, too little thinning and you will get a ton of inferior fruit that even the critters may not take, but you feel bad about throwing in the compost. Too much thinning and you get a smaller amount of exquisite fruit that the animals steal all of.

It looks like I under-thinned these trees a bit, but not too badly. The fruit is decent, but only a few got big. I picked these earlier today from 2 Heath Cling seedlings. There is probably 5-6X as much still on the trees.

Fruit from the 1st tree are on the right and 2nd on the left in this box. They are both seedlings from a tree I believe is a Heath Cling (it was there when I bought the property, but the fruit matches HC that I had at Alan’s house).

I’ll probably end up giving away 80+% of the crop from these trees (and a 3rd that I transplanted to another site that is also loaded), unless I lose a lot more to animals.

I also have a Carnival peach at home (the 2 seedlings are at a rental). It isn’t quite ripe, but I’ve already lost 70+% of it to brown rot. Some combination of higher varietal susceptibility and maybe more brown rot at the site.

But, if you only plant a few trees, it’s easy to get no fruit due to various issues. The more comfortable I get that I have enough productive trees, I will gradually prune them more for better sun penetration and thin them more for higher quality. Overproducing is better than not getting any (at least with good fruit), but I’d still rather have a bit less of higher quality.

[ShiverMinneapolisZ4b]

Is your question better phrased as “how many semidwarf plots is realistic for a backyard orchard?” Because it seems like I could find blog posts trying to answer that question.

[hopefulorchard]

@Audi_o_phile

I understand getting stuck in analysis paralysis and I hope that you aren’t suffering from that in all of this. The approach I took is that I planted everything that I wanted and purchased and had the space available to plant, and I determined that my eventual excess fruit would be given to neighbors and friends

That’s a good point, I’m probably overthinking it. Curiosity is getting the better of me, here.

[hopefulorchard]

@MikeC

Glad you finally posted something here. I think the estimates you mentioned are pretty close. There will be years of really heavy yields and years or zero or light yields. But the average is probably close to what you mentioned. Too much fruit can be a problem, at times, especially peaches. That is one fruit that you cannot just leave for a while. It will go bad fast of not refrigerated. I do not know anyone with a refrigerator that big that can hold 3 bushels of peaches. Unless they own some sort of walk in cooler

Yeah the timeline for peaches has me a little worried, but I’m pretty confident I can eat, can, or give away many bushels without issue.

[hopefulorchard]

@LarisaLee

Welcome!
I would say expect pretty widely different results to start. You should pick off developing fruit off trees at least their first two years, and off any thin branches for a couple years after that, so plan on getting 3-5 fruit off most 3-4 year old trees. You also may need to dig up and replant or graft over one or two trees. Just be patient and enjoy learning as you go.
Once you really get going, you will need a lot of refrigerator, freezer, shelf space, and recipes.

My current plan is to plant the 2 year old trees from Cummins, and only prune and pinch off buds for the first 2 years, then allow them to fruit.

Is that a good plan?

[hopefulorchard]

@BobVance

But, if you only plant a few trees, it’s easy to get no fruit due to various issues. The more comfortable I get that I have enough productive trees, I will gradually prune them more for better sun penetration and thin them more for higher quality. Overproducing is better than not getting any (at least with good fruit), but I’d still rather have a bit less of higher quality.

My current plan, based on my initial estimates, is to get 8 total apple trees and 4 total peach trees. Is that pretty reasonable?

My assumption is that it might be, because when a peach tree gets hit with late frost or an apple tree gets hit by deer or squirrels, or any tree gets a disease or bugs, etc - I might end up only harvesting, say, 4 apple trees and 1 peach tree.

[hopefulorchard]

@ShiverMinneapolisZ4b

Is your question better phrased as “how many semidwarf plots is realistic for a backyard orchard?” Because it seems like I could find blog posts trying to answer that question.

Maybe, although I’m not trying to maximize my space, per se - I’m just wanting to know the number of trees I need to strike a balance between “I have no fruit” and “I’m drowning in fruit”

[hopefulorchard]

@dannytoro1

You just have to search. I’d value university type trials over nursery estimates. Things like Enterprise are older; so academic papers are obviously archived.

If you look at modern trials; 30-45kg are fairly common.

Thanks!

So 1.5-2.5 bushels, more or less?