Thanks for you input. Beyond just the financial part of it, I feel bad not letting a baby tree at least try to grow for a few years to see what happens.
Elberta is a good peach. Peaches sometimes stall for a while before starting to size up again. How well do you thin your peaches. If the tree carries many, those peaches may not size up at all.
Also, after 3-4 years, if you live in the East Coast, you will learn more about peach pests and other diseases including brown rot which take a few years to show up.
They are thinned. I would say there are twenty small peaches on the tree, none of which are within 6 inches of each other. I have another peach tree (unsure name of it, bought it for $1 at the Depot years ago) which produced good peaches. Haven’t had the dreaded brown rot yet.
Yes, please show some pictures of your HC apple tree.
. I was trying to post pics but I guess I do not see an easy way to post them here. No link to click to.
Not sure how I can post pics.
I thought you want to see the leaves so I took pics of leaves, not the rree. Now it is too dark. I will take a pic if the whole tree tomorrow.
@scottfsmith posted how to post pic in another thread. I can’t remember which one.
@scottfsmith, could you please post that instruction here for Mike?
It was on this thread…
Yes, mine look like that. All the leaves are variegated like a house plant. I’d like to see more leaves if you could take more pictures. I thought my tree was mineral deficient. It was odd because no other tree in that area has leaves that look that poorly.
I will try this and see if it works. Thank you!
Scott,
Have I told you that I have poor memory? I just proved it!!!
Thank you.
If you google Honeycrisp leaf yellowing, you will see articles from U of Michigan and U of MN discussing this genetic disorder.
If such leaf yellowing show up on other apples or other plants, there is a good chance of a nutrient deficiency issue.
just chopped my 4 yr old lodi apple with a decent crop on it. has blight and i read its very susceptible to most diseases. too bad as it was growing well and had about 2 doz. apples developing. picked it up for cheap at tractor supply. i should have done more research on this cultivar before planting it. don’t want it to infect my other berries and trees that are nearby! going to replace it next spring with a princess that is a similar early apple but a lot more disease resistant. live and learn!
A large mature apple (think its mcintosh)…horrible spot…horrible production. Leaf issues/the works. Only reason i kept it around is its shading part of the house. Moniqui is going and so is my nectacot…bad spot///may bud them over to other trees in case i regret the decision later…
Some black walnuts i let grew for some reason…lazines…they are huge now and i need to take them down before the become too large. Plus having a black walnut around full of walnuts is probably squirrel magnet material.
The whole HC tree, about 9 ft tall( not counting those sticking up branches). On an unknown rootstock. Potted tree planted in 2008. The must be around 10-11 years old. Haphazardedly pruned to a modified central lead if one can call it that.
Biennial. Produced apples in 2013 (only a few apples),
2015 ( loaded)
2017 (loaded but I pruned off more than half of flower clusters)
The pic is a good example of what not to do. Do not plant trees too close to one another !!!
Most of the squirrels I relocate are in the walnut trees.
The HC tree looks great epecially hanging with fruit. I had about given up on the scions I grafted in but seeing this picture make me want to wait longer. I still think my main problem is that I don’t get enough chill hours for it to leaf and flower correctly. Oh well I think I will give it another two years. Bill
Bill,
I think zone 7 is the limit. Zone 5-6 are probably the most suitable zone for HC. Too hot, it will has more issues.
If I were to do it again, I would grow HC on the same rootstock Appleseed/ Jeff does. His tree oroduces heavily every year.
The biennial issue is not a good thing as it is my largest apple tree in the orchard. I now have grafted almost 20 varieties on it. I can’t wait every other year to eat my own apples
I have a hard time giving up on a tree but I think my problem with HC is out of my control. Goldrush appears to be doing well here but I already have 2.5 trees converted to it. There is a nearby orchard that successfully grows HC but he told me that he sprays his with a chemical (unavailable to back yarders) that adds the same thing as extra chill hours to his.
That is usually the case with trying to find sprays like the commercial orchards use. The products available are for their use only OR they are so expensive since you have to buy a 55 gallon drum of something that you only need maybe a quart of.
about to remove one of my Dorsett Goldens…for some reason the tree never thrived. A couple months back I noticed something was going on with the top leaves. They looked like they were drying up…Then as the weather turned hotter it appeared it was dying from the top down…no sign of insect damage and the roots seem to be holding fast for now, but the section of the tree I cut away the sap wood was brown so something obviously killed it…this will be the 4th or 5th tree I’ve lost…while it still hurts, it’s not as bad as the first one.
also have a meyer lemon I’ve been hanging on to for far too long that’s not doing well…very little foliage, nothing like my other citrus, but it has fruit on it and is pushing new growth so I plan to see how it looks by the end of the summer and will decide if I want to invest any more time in it…
Auburn: I read on orangepippin.com a note where someone recommended using MM106 as a root stock when you want to bump up the bloom time of a cultivar. It might work for your Honeycrisp to compensate for chill hours.
I cannot say if it works as the chill hours in WA are already extremely high (about 2100 hours in my zone 5/6 region. There has been no need to bump up bloom among my trees.)
BTW, I’m seeing a bit of yellowing on the Medaille d’Or - if it truly is that cv. I’ll give it plenty of compost and dolomite this fall to soak in over the winter for next season, mulch well and hope. Should take care of the mild yellowing.
What has me wondering about this tree are two factors: fruit is already larger than expected for debut sample crop (about 2 1/2 Inches both directions) and complete lack of russeting. They look like Granny Smith, but bloomed last, as expected. GS is listed as a mid-season bloomer and pretty disease resistant, and this one had the only fire blight strike I’ve found among my young trees. I don’t think it is Edward VII, which would match bloom time and smooth skin. Hmm.