I have a few new trees from bare root this year. One is Cosmic Crisp on M27, others are Redlove Calypso on M7 and Zestar on I think on M9. These are three to four feet tall. Also a Redlove Era also on M7, from last year, had 3 feet of growth and now training as espalier.
I don’t want to make them runt out by letting them bear fruit before they are ready, but it would be very nice to get a first taste. In the long run, I don’t want those Redlove trees to grow big anyway, all will be espalier.
Do you think (or have experience with) letting each make one apple this year to taste, will be too taxing and ruin the trees for future years?
Interestingly, the grafts I did last year, using scion from Northpole and Bud9 rootstock, all bloomed at 12 to 18 inches tall on both side and terminal buds. Maybe it was a mistake to use Bud9 for those. I removed all of those flowers already.
You may have ‘invented’ something! A table top apple tree loaded with fruit!
I let my ODYSSO on an unknown rootstock from Jung’s set more than half a dozen last year…but I didn’t get to see if it stunted the tree, because before they got as big as my thumbnail, the birds took them! (Thought they were ripe cherries I suppose.)
@Bear_with_me,
I had two apples on M27. If I were you, I would not let Cosmic Crisp on M27 fruit this year. It is super dwarf rootstock. I would let it put energy in establishing the tree first.
I agree with mamuang on the M27. My Honeycrisp on M27 is over 10 years old and about 4 feet tall and tiny. M27 is low vigour and extremely precocious. It doesn’t help that that tree is planted on hard pan and Honeycrisp is already low vigor.
@marknmt thanks for the guidance. It’s sort of what I was thinking but wanted a more experienced mind than mine.
@Murky thanks for sharing your experience. Same Honeycrisp situation for me, too. However, I have a Jonagold on M27 that is about 10 feet tall and lots of apples, and my Liberty slowly grew to 8 feet tall in 20 years, also lots of apples. So the scion vigor is important. Of course, Cosmic Crisp is half Honeycrisp so who knows? Maybe same vigor as Honeycrisp.
@mamuang thanks for the comment and advice. I decided it is too tempting to let one of the flowers develop, so I went out and removed all of the flowers from the Cosmic Crisp. Now I can’t be tempted. Interesting, every node on the tree had flowers. I hope it grows stems!
Since the Redlove Era put on 4 feet of growth last year and is on a more vigorous rootstock, I think
i’ll let it make a couple of apples. The Redlove Calypso is smaller, but still more vigorous rootstock than the Cosmic Crisp, so I might let it keep one apple. I’m really anxious to see what they are like!
@BlueBerry I have a feeling those tiny trees wont make even one decent small apple . I can put organza bags on the fruit, maybe that will deter birds. Or reflector tape.
@mamuang, I have a feeling it will have sourness and astringency, but Im waiting to see. The reason I say that is the Lubera website describes Odysso as sweeter, and Jedermans as having no astringency, so is for “everyone”. Still, they describe Calypso as the most aromatic. It’s all an adventure. I will plan on making a report .
I covered one bunch of flowers with organza bag, to control pollination. I pollinated it with Golden Sentinel, and vice versa. Long term plan to make columnar, red flesh / red flower & leaf apple. I let the other two clusters be open pollinated. I will wait and see if the hand pollinated flowers make fruit before removing the others.
Redlove Era is much later blooming. That one isn’t open yet. Redlove Calypso is almost done blooming.
Tippy, I have a third year scaffold graft of Calypso that has 50 fruit buds flowering right now. I should get multiple apples off of it this year. Expect a report.
@HighandDry Great, Neil. Your Calypso has been a lot more productive than mine. There is nothing no mine grafted the same year you did .
I’d like to hear about it from people in different growing climate. You are in an arid area and @Bear_with_me is in WA (probably more humid than NV). Look forward to hearing reports from both of you.
@BlueBerry, There were a few apples on the first leaf Calypso. I know we are not advised to let a first year tree bear fruit, but I did anyway. Even so it seemed to grow pretty well. They were small, like a plum and not a big plum. Maybe because it was first year. They were quite sour, but had an interesting flavor. I compared them to adding grenadine to lemonade, although I haven’t tasted that in 50 years so what do I know? Not astringent.
I saved the seeds from that controlled cross. It was in a mesh bag so not much likelihood of other apple pollen getting in there via insects. The one with seed parent Calypso X pollen parent Golden Sentinel had about 5 red seeds. I put them in the fridge until a couple of weeks ago, when I took them out and planted in a cell pack that had peppers that didn’t germinate. Now there is a seedling (as of today) with red petioles and red tinge cotyledons. There may be others beginning to germinate too. Either that or the peppers. So, we know that one is alive and has red trait (how many genes involved? Do more genes mean more red? I don’t know) but unknown about columnar trait. That is probably 50% chance, given that I think Golden Sentinel had only one columnar parent. Columnar trait is dominant, so it only takes one columnar gene.
The one with the Golden Sentinel seed parent fell off the tree.
The Redlove Era were a bit bigger but still not as big as most apples. They were sweet with a little of the red flesh apple flavor.
I did not let the first year columnars, first year Cosmic Crisp, or first year Zestar bear fruit. Some grew quite vigorously. Some did not. I like the columnars on superdwarfing rootstick, but they do take a long time to grow to any decent size. The Redloves (I have Odysso, Calypso, and Era) and Zestar will all be espalier if I can get out there and make trellises for them before the branch wood hardens. The Cosmic Crisp will be either tall pyramid or bush.
I had let 14 fruits set on two Odysso two years ago…and the cotton-pickin birds ate them about the time cherries were ripe. (Red fruit about size of cherries…but I guess they got a bad surprise…but kept plucking until all were missing.)
I had a Cierce but sold it in 2017 to a customer and have not seen it since. But they are also sour. I hope Odysso is sweet. And if not, I hope to cross it some more and ‘make it sweet’…lol.
By making my Redloves all espalier, everything is at an easy height. I sewed reflective holographic bird scare tape to the bottoms of organza gift bags, attached those to the fruits. Nothing bothered them and it looked quite festive.
Progress Report on those Calypso X Golden Sentinel seedlings. Two have germinated, three not, so far. The color is a little weird due to the LED lighting. One is deep red, other is green. Seeds from the same apple, and the seed coats were themselves bright red.
Looks like you got one red fleshed seedling…and one that may not be.
If promptly stratified after harvest/eating…seeds don’t seem to have any trouble germinating…even at 45 to 50 degrees. Definitely no trouble at 80. (And if you collect seeds from an apple that has been in cold storage for awhile…or even hung onto the tree into chilly weather…the seeds will probably germinate immediately if planted, if temps are right.)
!
.
