Been eating some Asian pears. I’ve come to the conclusion I don’t need three trees. I’m going to take out two put an apple tree and another fig tree in there place. Wynooche is ok but I don’t need a whole tree going to graft 3/4 of the tree to some else along with Hudson’s golden gem and chestnut crab apples
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Why did you remove it? Were the roots eaten?
It looks like there are still some roots there.
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Yeah, some rodent damage. The tree was leaning and dropped its leaves. I took it home, cut off the damaged parts and put it in a pot. Maybe it survives
Was a nice siversii seedling grown i place for a year and grafted this year
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Glad to hear you haven’t given up on it 
Looks like it still has the cultivar and some roots.
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I removed our 12 pear trees yesterday. The fire blight that we got this season was the last straw. We never really sold that many because the production was limited to 4 Bartletts. The D’Anjou were taking forever to fruit and the other 4 were very young trees. They will will all be replaced with semi-dwarf Honeycrisp. We are now strictly a blueberry-peach-apple orchard.
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Good luck with your Honeycrisp decision. I am taking out my Honeycrisp tree next year. I am getting about zero fruit from it for the past 3-4 years. If a fruit tree isn’t producing fruit then it isn’t doing its job. Time to take it out.
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Taking out my encore raspberry this year. I’ve had a few very good, quite large berries, but for the most part the the second year wood struggles to survive my zone 4a winters. Mostly just vegetative first year growth.
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Mike,
My HC bought from Home Depot is on unknown rootstock (I suspect M111). It took 6-7 years for it to produce 3 apples. Then, it skipped the next year.
By year 8, it was in full production. However, it is prone to biennialing. I have to thin heavily 80+% to break the cycle.
It is not the variety, per se, it is the rootstock. There are people here to get HC to produce in year 3 or 4.
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I planted my Honeycrisp in 2014 on a M111. It has been a love/ hate relationship with Honeycrisp. Since I had only three Honeycrisp apples this year and only one apple last year. I am not sure if it will take off next year.
The most apples I have ever gotten off the HC is maybe, maybe six apples in one year.
Other than that is has been a dud of an apple producer for me.
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Do you see any spurs on the tree this year. I believe your tree is like mine. It will take up to 7-8 years to produce. If you have space, just leave it be. It will produce. But, with your rootstock, it could go biennial if you don’t thin seriously.
Do you like HC enough to wait?
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We are very lucky with Honeycrisp…they are very productive for us. Not sure exactly why but I assume that our climate + soil is exactly what they are looking for.
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There are fruit spurs on the tree. I get blooms in the spring time. Just not very much fruit production at all. Very disappointing.
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Once my HC settled down and produced, it was covered with flowers. It also set heavily. I have so many other varieties to cross pollinated with. I grafted 30+ varieties on a few apple trees around it.
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@ MikeC Honeycrisp is definitely one you have to wait for. Mine is now in its 9th year, rootstock unknown. This is the first year it has apples spread over most of the tree. In prior years there was apples on one to three branches. This year the bottom 2/3rds of the tree are loaded after significant thinning. So far no sign of bitter pit which was present in prior years. With a full load this year the apples are smaller - which is good - in low production years the apples were huge. The apples are currently crisp and juicy, but still a little bland. The weather forecast says I have time for the taste to improve.
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Thank you for this information. Sounds like I should give it a few more years before deciding to change it to something else.
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Thing I’m removing this fall:
Pawpaws: I’ve got 4 trees with a couple different grafts on each. They’ve grown like crazy, at least 15’ tall now and make hundreds of fruit every year with no effort at all from me. Problem is I just don’t care for them. This year I ate 1 and no desire for another. I’ll probably keep 1 around as a specimen just because I love interesting trees, and pawpaws are nothing if not interesting.
Peaches / nectarines: I’ve got a bit of PTSD about peaches, I’ve worked so hard on them the last 5 years and gotten either none or very modest harvests. It’s just too much effort. In the last 5 years I’ve defeated peach borers, plum curculio, leaf curl, deer, and varmits of all types, but I’m still struggling against birds, japanese beetles, and worst of all brown rot. Even with all the controls I have in place, brown rot took half my harvest and birds damaged the rest. There’s a small time orchard about 10 miles away, I’m just going to buy from them from now on.
Natchez blackberry: The berries were huge and incredible production but they never tasted great. I always thought they needed to hang longer, but birds would take them if they hung too long. This year I covered the whole thing in bird netting on a PVC scaffold and they were much improved, but even the best of them wasn’t as good as an average Triple Crown. Letting them hang so long also led to a huge SWD outbreak. I’m going to replace with either Ponco or Prime Ark Freedom in hopes of an earlier, better flavored berry.
Gurney’s Whopper Strawberries: Far and away the biggest and prettiest strawberries I’ve ever grown. However, they taste like water and get the worst rot I’ve ever seen. I think the berries are so heavy it crushes the flesh when it touches the ground, almost every berry in contact with the ground will develop rot. Going to replace with another June bearing type, open to suggestions on that…
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Paging @TrilobaTracker ring ring ring.
It’s a pity they are mature now. It’s probably late too move them with that long taproot. Otherwise I’m sure others nearby would love to put them in the ground. Where about in IL are you? Are you close to @Barkslip?
Mara de bois.
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Deja vu!
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I completely agree. I had about 40 stone fruit trees and I am ripping out all but my favorites. It’s just not worth it. For me everything is minor compared to brown rot.
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After reading many of these problems and diseases, I would be scared to grow fruit east of the Mississippi River.
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