What did you do in your orchard today?

CrealCritter

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Yesterday I went to my local Menard's and they had fruit trees on sale. After rebates they were less than $25. I picked up a Honeycrisp, Fuji, and Gala apple. A Bartlett and Kiefer pear trees. They are all standard size, and will pollinate each other. That was my mistake when I planted my last orchard. I didn't have the correct pollinators and I got little or no fruit. The were also dwarf varieties and I must have planted them too deep because I was always digging up suckers from the root stock. So I pulled them up last year and put in raised beds for Strawberries and Blueberries. I am hoping these trees do good for us in a couple years, and they are so much cheaper that buying much younger bare root trees online. I believe I paid about $50 each from Stark Bros for the ones I dug up. Multiply that by 12 and it gets real expensive to throw that in the burn pile.
Just a FYI... if memory serves me correctly... Honey Crips is a group 4 bloomer (late) all my group 2 and 3 bloomers are in full bloom and honey crisp doesn't look like it's even thinking about blooming yet. Honey crisp on standard rootstock will require many seasons of growth before you'll see its first blooms.

Have a look here for honey crisp details

And here for pollinators, you want to select a group 4 pollinator to ensure pollination. There may not be a good overlap with group 3 to ensure good pollination. Resulting in poor fruit set.

Personally I would stick a pristine apple in for cross pollination. it's group 4, early harvest and disease-resistant. So way less spraying required.

Thanks for posting

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InterlochenVictoryGarden

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I used Stark Bros website to look for which pollinators to use. Menard's didn't offer a list. I was lucky to find that they had what Stark Bros said was the pollinators to use. Menard's didn't have the Pristine variety either.

The trees I got are also a few seasons older than the bare root trees I would have gotten from Stark Bros and it appears as they are focusing on the dwarf or semi dwarf varieties these days. Their prices have more than doubled as well.

Thank you for the info.
 

CrealCritter

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I used Stark Bros website to look for which pollinators to use. Menard's didn't offer a list. I was lucky to find that they had what Stark Bros said was the pollinators to use. Menard's didn't have the Pristine variety either.

The trees I got are also a few seasons older than the bare root trees I would have gotten from Stark Bros and it appears as they are focusing on the dwarf or semi dwarf varieties these days. Their prices have more than doubled as well.

Thank you for the info.
The price of fruit trees has skyrocketed, you got a good deal for retail no doubt about it. Here is a pic I took a I think.last week at the farm store. $29.99 plus tax for a one year old bagged whip. Feel good you got a good deal :)
Screenshot_20250401_150517_Gallery.jpg


You can always add another group 4 pollinator for honey crisp or graft another group 4 pollinator onto a honey crisp branch.

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CrealCritter

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Apples there are so many varieties... 😋

Day 10 since grafting peaches, the first one decided to break bud today :) this one is redhaven on lovell root stock. Seems my idea of using zip ties to compress the grafts are working well so far. They are easy enough to cut off after a few weeks.
Screenshot_20250401_153346_Gallery.jpg


Jesus is Lord and Christ ✝️
 
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