Z-Tom,
If you have success with Underwood and Black Ice let us know. Nice lineup. Good luck.
Yeah, Greyphase!
Baker’s Delicious? You badass!
Reason Green: keep us updated on that one, too.
I had an excellent Jefferis apple this past summer-- suprised me, as previous specimens did not impress. Turns out, this guy CAN churn out apples that aren’t just flawlessly disease resistant, but also delicious. I think its consistent drawback is it does not keep and will go mealy fairly quickly once off the tree.
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Quill, you forgot Tam Kam! Or was that our little secret?
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If you are zone 6 or higher, then put them in the ground now, or anytime really. Fall, winter, and spring is all good. The height of summer is the worst time as that is dicey and would require lots of watering.
If you are zone 5 or lower, then wait until April. That’s your sweet spot.
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I tried to graft hood last spring, had some super nice scion. I put it in a really nice spot on my frankin tree and it failed , I saved a stick and regrafted as soon as I suspected there was a problem with the first graft, it never leafed out either. I would be interested to hear how you hood does this spring, how do you think a low chill pear will handle Kansas?
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I think hood was likely incompatible with your tree. Hood will grow here on old home x farmingdale stock so I would recommend you graft it to one of your new rootstocks or add an interstem to your frankentree.
Its even better at going mealy while still on the tree 
One other plus about it is the harvest window is very long so as long as you are alert you can keep grabbing a few apples for almost a month. I’m not a big fan of summer apples but this guy reliably pumps out nice apples year after year so it keeps getting a stay from my saw.
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I see you are grafting Montmorency. If you ever want to try North Star, just say the word. We got a first crop of North Star last season: more color than Montmorency and brighter, more complex flavors. NS ripens about 10 days before, too.
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I have one Black Ice graft that took last year. It grew some, I think it’s fine, but it didn’t grow as much as most of the other grafts.
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Like some others, I intend for this to be my last major grafting year. While I doubt my own intentions, the fact that I’m running out of grafting space should help - at least until my young trees get some size. All apples here:
Big Horse Creek Farm:
- Claygate Pearmain
- Doctor Matthews
- Fox
- Golden Russet
- Kentucky Limbertwig
- Moyer’s Spice
- Primate
Masonville Orchards:
- Airlie Red Flesh
- Apricot
- Cox Orange Pippin
- Orleans Reinette
Hocking Hills Orchard:
- Alaska
- Ananas Reinette
- Etter’s Gold
- Kerry Pippin
- Mott’s Pink
- Saint Edmund’s Pippin
- Sinta
- Suntan
- Swaar
- Swiss Limbertwig
- Viking
- White Limbertwig
Century Farm Orchards:
- Red Royal Limbertwig
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I am trying some pears that are supposed to be hardy up here, some of them are rated as just OK, but OK for one person may be a pretty good for another.
Krasnobokaya
Kraszulya
Boshaya
Vekovaya
Beedle
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@northof53,
Let us know how those Russian pears do. I will be glad when they are offered in the United States.
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Probably, “Bolshaya” (translates as “Large”).
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Yup, you are right, I copied and pasted the list from my computer, and I have had a time with autocorrect on these names. It corrected this one to Bushy more than once.
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The trees were fruiting age when I bought them. Probably 3-4 years old. I’ve added a few varieties each year. I have 4 of the 9 varieties fruiting (although the blossoms got killed by frost last year, so…)
One was a tall, gangly, unbranched tree in the discount corner of the local nursery. bought it for $10. thought it was a first year whip when I first saw it, but it was just very badly pruned. Someone had cut all the branches back to 6 inch stubs, and left it as a 7 foot tall leader with 4 or 5 of these stubs sticking off at around 30 inches. So I rescued it, cleft grafted those stubs last spring, and this spring I’ll cut off the top just above the grafted stubs to force them. The grafts took, and grew a tiny bit, so hopefully with the leader gone they’ll take off this year. But the leader did try to fruit last summer. I removed the fruit to avoid stressing the tree.
So I’m basically using that tree as rootstock, although I’ll keep one scaffold of Braeburn, which is what it originally was. it now has 4 varieties, including braeburn.
The other was already a 3 way multi-graft when I bought it at a nursery near Oswego, NY. The tag said it had been grafted by the folks at the Geneva field station run by Cornell. It was probably a class project by one of Cornell’s horticulture classes, or something. Very well done too. Much better than any other multi-graft tree I’ve seen. I’ve been grafting onto small branches to add a second tier of scaffold branches for a delayed open center (modified central leader) shape. I added two varieties last year, so now it has 5. only the ones it originally had are fruiting at this point, but the grafts all took.
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I just had my first Suntan apple, from Scott Farm, VT. It had the flesh density and cheese-like texture I expect from its parent, Court Pendu Plat, with rich tart flavor.
You’ve got amazing potential in this list. Hope it does well for you!
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Thanks! I’m excited about the prospects as well.
Hocking Hills sent me Etter’s Gold this season as a bonus. I had to refresh my memory about it - knew, of course, about Albert Etter. There isn’t much info to glean about the cv., but finding many of his cvs. do well way out West, I decided to bump this up to high priority in grafting. Will top work it onto a tree already fruiting, so might see how it does in as few as two years. If it does well with our shorter growing season (but longer summer days than occur 1,000 miles south of here) Etter’s Gold may be quite a find.
I had intended to make a tree of Claygate Pearmain on Geneva 30. It failed. Two grafts onto Bud118 of spare bud wood both took. Learning that Claygate is quite upright in growth habit, and wanting to put some apples out between the street and sidewalk, it seems prudent to take advantage of them in that location.
Further reading about Harrison cider revealed it, too, grows almost vertically. If, by the grace of God, I may graft Harrison onto Gen30, then that will be the third tree by the street in a few years.
St. Edmunds is reputed to spread widely: variously listed as tip-bearer or partial tip-bearer. You might want to make sure it has plenty of space around it for that eventuality. It came as a bonus scion this year and I may have to settle for grafting it into a commercial orchard of a friend.
IF all goes well this year, my yard may be graced with these:
Wynoochee Early
Rambour Franc
Bardsey (this is a winner!)
Claygate Pearmain
Edelborsdorfer (ancient apple)
Cornish Gilliflower (another tip-bearing spreader and reputedly amazing taste)
Court Pendu Rose (4 day later bloom than Court Pendu Plat at Mt. Vernon research station)
Etter’s Gold
Hunt Russet
Keepsake
Harrison
Médaille d’Or (blooms SO late)
One or more of these will not do well with Spokane summers. When all is done, the list will probably be shorter in a few years. If both Harrison and Medaille d’Or cannot fruit well, then Campfield would be the next to try.
I am confident so far of Bardsey, Rambour Franc, Keepsake, Claygate Pearmain and most hopeful about Etter’s Gold and Hunt Russet.
Isn’t this fun?
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I hate Spellcheck and all its relatives! Why was someone with a Facebook mindset put in charge of computer vocabulary lists?
I’m regularly quoting foreign sources. Even British English looks different: colour, honour and such, for instance. Then the apples from elsewhere: Katja, Kronprinz Rudolf, Rambour Franc, Malus niedzwetzkyana. Arrgh!
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