Who Wants to sign up for my Hon E Crisp Club?
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Just kidding.
Honeycrisp trees have some issues. It seems to be low vigor. I will not continue to propagate anything that needs a second year in the nursery. HC is just the best example of trademarked varieties. I will be propagating the heck out of some of the āclub applesā when the patent fades in a few years.
My understanding is the patent is indeed expired on honeycrisp and its legal to graft. The apple to your point 39thparallel can be a bit of a pain to grow but still worth it http://www.goodfruit.com/honeycrisp-dont-kill-the-golden-goose/. TM is a different discussion and that gets so tricky most of us donāt want to go there http://www.mprnews.org/story/2007/10/11/honeycrisp
I have a very well behaved and easy to maintain Honeycrisp tree at my previous home. Yes, it is relatively low vigor, but why not just use a more vigor inducing rootstock.
I have one on M26 and one on M27. The M27 is a runt, and so small it is a novelty. the M26 is productive and manageable and about what I was hoping for from the M27. Its about 8 feet tall and 6 feet wide and produces 100+ apples within easy reach.
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Murky,
I have 4 honeycrisp total and they are highly productive though it was seven years for dwarfs getting good care in my soil before they produced the big crops. I canāt say enough good about them but donāt want to misrepresent them as a care free tree you get apples from by the second year. Seems like I started to get apples in the 4 th or 5 th .
I read about this a lot and Iām sure itās true, but mine produced in itās first year in the ground and every year since.
( M106)
It may be that lowerish vigor is an issue for a tree propagator, but it can, of course, be great for the grower. The issue I have always read about concerning growers is bitter pit, and judging by the zillions of bitter pit free HC in stores, itās obviously an issue reasonably easy to control.
As Murky suggested, why not just park it on top of a more vigorous root?