I bought two Honeycrisps and planted them say three years ago, they came from Stark before I knew any better.
The first two Winters & Springs, deer kept defoliating them & chewing on the central leaders, leaving me struggling to get the central leaders going again so I can get some additional scaffold selections.
So now I’m left with two 4-5’ trees that don’t know what they want to do…
In the mean time, I started reading more about them and see a lot of the following summaries:
They are a pain in the a$$ to grow
They grow slow as molasses
Bitter pit is a big problem
A lot of the industry feel that in hindsight, they were overrated & overinvested into…
What do you all say, especially those that have succeeded or failed on this variety.
Part of me wants to pull them and drop in two others like Splendour, Pixie Crunch, or Gold Rush, but I don’t want to be rash, and yet I’d like fruit in my lifetime…
They are already in the ground, go with what you have. If you want a different apple, graft it on. It’s not that hard and if you use whip/tongue it’s pretty bullet proof.
If you graft on something vigorous, say Zestar, you’ll get apples soon(er) and the honeycrisp will catch up.
The bitter pit issue I think is over stated for backyard growers. Have your soil tested. HC need boron or it will get bitter pit but low boron is easily corrected with a sprinkling of borox every 3 years. You aren’t going to have the apples in storage long enough for storage issues to develop. Thin your HC when it reaches that point.
If you haven’t done so, clear out any grass/weeds within 3’ of the trunk and mulch. That’ll help speed up any tree.
I used Zestar as an example but if you are in a warm area obviously don’t pick that…
It only took me one year of bitter pit to realize its a looser! Graft it over with a few good varieties. Deer may have done you a favor!
Hope you find a solution to the deer browse
Dennis
Kent, Wa
I’d say it depends where you are. Bitter pit isn’t a major issue with HC here in central MN. I do spread pelletized lime and gypsum around my orchards most years though.
Edited to add…I couldn’t grow a fruit tree here without a cage to protect from deer damage and a cylinder of hardware cloth or aluminum window screen to protect from voles/bunnies/rodents
Pepper spray is one of the best remedies if you do not have a high fence. One sniff and deer do not come back to bite! Just be careful applying it and wear goggles! Once after each rainfall does the trick
Dennis
I’ve actually had better and longer lasting results with Deer Out. It smells minty and has a latex additive that helps it last through at least some rain.
The whole story of Honeycrisp would make a classic Greek Tragedy. I see Cornell’s improvement attempt with Snapdragon{Honeycrisp cross} has had it’s issues too. But seemed to have improved the situation spec’ing use of G.935 until G.257 replaces it.
If you’ve not eaten a HC grown at a northern latitude and picked right from a tree, then I can understand why you may not like them. I have yet to eat a grocery store HC that is very good.
I doubt I’d bother growing HC much further south than the WI/IL border
They are relatively low vigor but that can be a good thing for anyone who is not knowledgeable about the subtleties of pruning or has other things to do with their time.
Bitter pit may or may not be a problem and is probably less likely to be for non-commercial growers, if only because home orchards usually have some shade. I think the more sun there is the more prone the variety is to bitter pit.
A couple of foliar calcium sprays in August isn’t supposed to offer a lot of protection for bitter pit, but for my two trees it seems to have helped a great deal. At other sites, the problem is highly variable even without the calcium, but on mine it is needed.
Research has shown that HC needs boron for calcium transport and the lack of calcium - in the fruit tissue - is the cause of bitter pit. That is not the end of the deal but is a big part of it.
When I tested my soil (St Paul MN) turns out that I had less than .05 ppm of boron. Want about 3ppm. Applying 1/2 cup of borox/tree completely eliminated our bitter pit problem.
As an aside, my HC apples weren’t very flavorful this year. They tasted like they came from Washington state. I happened to run into the breeder, David Bedford, after harvest and discussed this with him. His assessment was that we hadn’t thinned enough and we really needed to thin even harder as too many apples is #1 killer of flavor and size. 2025 we’re going to be square cornered about 1 apple every 10".
FWIIW - it is a very tasty apple, probably my favorite out of the “common” varieties. I wouldn’t judge it by what you get from the grocery store, they are much tastier off the tree (just go to a farmer’s market when in season or a pick-your-own farm). I heavily considered it and the only reason I didn’t go for it was because I can easily get it from the farmer’s market and I’d rather use my very limited space for something rarer. If I had more space, I would absolutely plant one.
Seems to me that boron can’t even be the major issue in the industry or commercial growers wouldn’t have much to complain about, aside from the glut in the market.
In other words, at many sites, adding boron probably won’t help. I think most commercial growers do a great deal of nutritional testing, including leaf analysis. Generally, they still get too much bitter pit in Honey Crisp. When it’s an issue there is usually no quick fix.
Be careful with boron- treat it like fairy dust. It’s a lot easier to overdose your soil with it than to remove it. Testing the soil to get a precise measurement of what you need to add is not expensive.