No, but I do have good things to say about Rain Tree, Four Winds, and The Arboreum Company. The local Green Thumb is pretty decent too.

Thank you for those recommendations, parker25. I have checked out Rain Tree, but not the others yet. This orchard is in Kansas, and so am I, so that is a draw for me. I am going to call and talk with them - I wonder if they will have good advice on those varities that will thrive in our climate and have decent disease resistance.

You can also buy from Cummins nursery, Adam County Nursery or Trees of Antiquity. These are reputable nurseries that carry many varieties of apples.

I have purchased trees from 39th parallel every year for the last several years. He is a friend of mine now but when I first met him I was like you buying some additional fruit trees.

Clarkinks, If you don't mind me asking - how have the trees you bought from them done so far? Any that you are not happy with as far as vigor or disease? When do you expect your first fruit crop?

Before I stumbled across his post a few months ago, I thought I only wanted to plant 2 more Apple trees. Now I have about 10 varieties on my list. I either have to narrow it down, or find more room and plan on constructing more mounds and digging more holes!

Rphcfb14- thank you for those names! I have used T of A to look up characteristics of different varieties. They seem to have a nice selection!

If you want good write up on apple varieties, use the www.orangepippin.com website. They have plenty of varieties with quite detailed info on each variety.

Thanks eastmeetwest... I have been using orangepippin.com for most information on varieties and T of A for those that orangepippin doesn't list. Trouble is, the varieties all sound so good!

KSPrarie,

Rootstocks make a big difference in our soil here in Kansas. I've had really good luck with m111 rootstock. 111 tolerates the heavy clay loam that we have in Kansas. 111 is also tolerant of droughts and wet weather. Wind is another big deal to us and they seem to have good root structure. The top part of the tree is equally important . Some trees are highly vigorous and disease resistant and some are not . Triploids are the most vigorous typically but are not pollinators. I balance my orchard to meet the pollination requirements and to meet my fruit expectations. My advice is to plant highly disease resistant trees because we have high disease pressure. Some of the trees I've got from him look fantastic because they are Triploids and should produce fruit very soon. The diploids though slower growing in most cases later serve an equally important function not just pollinating my trees but producing apples. Some of my choices for my apple orchard are gold rush, black twig, Arkansas black, honey crisp etc.. My honey crisp are a truly delicious apple but they are so sweet everything wants them. I grow 4 mature trees and some smaller trees. They are incredible apples! B118 is a rootstock I've been using this year which seems fine. It might be early for me to claim victory from the b118 rootstock but some apples they seem to grow much better. Fireblight can be a problem here so moderately resistant types are better. Arkansas black seem very disease tolerant and store a long time so you can see why that type of Apple is appealing to me. Maybe a better approach is me asking what 10 types do you have in mind to grow? Please post those and let's analyze those. 39th parallel offers some varieties such as black limbertwig that have glowing reviews in high pressure areas. We have a rabbit problem as your aware some years so when you plant these apples some corrugated drain pipe around the trunk will be a great way to keep your trees safe. Drain pipe is very inexpensive and very easy to apply.

clarkinks,

Thank you SO much for that information. I don't know nearly enough about fruit growing and I am trying to read and study and ask questions as I go. I appreciate your input on the M111 rootstock and how it is performing for you. It sounds like a great choice for my location. I have been using the flexible spiral tree tubes on trees for rodent protection up to this point. A friend had some extra she gave me and they were quick to put on. I would like to make some protectors out of hardware cloth and replace them so I can see the trunk and look for any problems. When I took a tube off of an apricot this fall, I noticed a badly split trunk that looked like sunscald damage to me, which I thought the tubes were supposed to prevent.

A side note here- I currently have 8 apple trees that will be 3 yr in 2017 that I started from Haralson seed. The seed I started for sentimental reasons- I saved it from my favorite tree up North where I grew up. I realize the limitations and the odds of producing good quality apples, but I did it anyway. If they don't provide decent apples for juice/cider, sauce, or eating, and I decide they do not offer much wildlife value either, then they will make good wood for my smoker. If they end up with more disease issues than I care to deal with, I will take them out.

I want to plant some heirloom varieties now to ensure good apples to harvest. Since I am also growing peach, sour cherry, apricot (i know!), persimmon, mulberry, elderberry, various brambles, hazelnut, & spring 2017 Serviceberry, clove currant, and chokecherry, I thought I should limit my planting to 2 very hardy, disease resistant, all-around decent apple trees. Uses would be varied; fresh eating, baking, dehydrating, canning, freezing and cider-making. I was leaning towards Goldrush and Liberty from Stark Brothers. Then I stumbled upon 39th PN&O and I think I want to plant more than just 2. I don't know if this is smart as I may be making too much work for one person to handle adequately.

I looked up each of the offerings from 39th and I narrowed down my choices based on disease resistance and personal preference for quality (this was limited by my understanding of their characteristics and not finding much info on some). I marked them T-triploid or D-diploid for those that I could find that information on.

Any input you have time and care to give is greatly appreciated! Thank you!! :)

Arkansas Black (T)

Ashmead's Kernel (T)

Black Twig

Calville Blanc (D)

Enterprise (D)

Goldrush (D)

Harrison

Honey Crisp (D)

King David (D)

Mott's Pink

a large Crab apple; Red Cinnamon or a red fleshed variety

You know if you don't like those seedling apples (or don't want to wait for fruit) you can graft onto some of them. Apples are probably the easiest fruit to graft if you have never tried. This will give you a head start since they have 3 yr old root systems. There are nurseries that sell scion wood if you can't find any for trade.

Thank you for the encouragement, melikeeatplants! I have never grafted anything. I have read some and watched a few tutorials and have thought that I would eventually take the plunge and give it a try. If those seedling apple trees look healthy, or maybe I should say if they look like they are not having any disease issues, is that about the only criteria I really need to look for to determine whether or not they will make good root stock?

A seedling is likely to have good vigor. Standard apple trees can get very tall, it won't be dwarfed. A seedling is likely to take longer to fruit as well. Regardless I would graft some scions on, for practice, fun, and of course to have different varieties. You can still get seedling apples from the tree that you graft on to. If you end up not liking the seedling well then you have known varieties already on the tree and you can cut back the seedling and let the scions take over.

KSPrarie,

Those apples look like good choices.

Great! I still want to plant a couple of plums, so I should narrow it down to 6 or so apples trees. I am thinking about planting these new trees in groupings of 3s in different areas around our property rather than planting them in rows. If I do that, I would plant one triploid with 2 diploids. As long as I do that, pollination should be covered? I would like to plant a crabapple too, but can't find specific information as to the ideal distance crabs should be planted to aid in pollination of other apples.

I would like a disease resistant, tart, cider-type of crabapple. Red flesh would be a plus. Clarkinks, are you growing any crabapples, if so which ones? I was also wondering if you are growing any plums and if so where do they fall on the scale for ease in growing (i.e. easy to difficult)?

melikeeatplants, My "plan" was to keep these seedling trees to a moderate size with adequate pruning with central leader training. I don't want them to get much over 12'. I had read that seedling trees can take around 10 yr to fruit, so practicing grafting on them would be a good idea. Since I want to grow out a few limbs to determine seedling apple quality, can you tell me, would I graft scion onto several other lateral branches- does it matter how many other branches I graft? How do you label your grafts so you can identify them later? Is 3 yr old rootstock mature enough to graft to? I apologize for all of the questions. Is there a good source for grafting that you have used as your go-to information?

thanks!!

I'm not a big plum fan. I grow about 30 trees or bushes that are stone fruit and they get canker after a few years from wild trees in our area. I've heard good things about Motts Pink Apple. Currently I only grow one red fleshed apple so I can't help you much with those. Make sure you check disease resistance. I've not had good luck with plums and do advise against them.

KS if you want a nice sized crab for eating out of hand, cooking or canning try Whitney crab. I grew up with them. We never sprayed and never had a problem with either disease or insects. Probably ripe early August in KS. Canned them whole by the quart back on the farm. Hardy as a stone too, since that was zone 4 in extreme NW Iowa.

The one stone fruit that is the exception that I highly recommend are sour pie cherries. They ripen before heavy disease pressure starts most years. Carmine Jewell and Montmorency are the two types of sour cherries I can personally recommend that I grow. Spraying them with copper before they bloom in the spring is fairly easy. Insects are not in extremely high numbers until after they are picked. I hit them with fungicides a couple of times in July after the fruit was harvested so there is no spray on my actual cherries 95% of the time.

KSPrairie you dont mention if you are willing to spray for CAR? Or if you have cedar trees where you plan to plant those apples. A couple of those apple varieties are very susceptible to CAR.

Old Dutch, thanks for the tip on Whitney! I don't know the variety of the crabapple I grew up with. It was a mature tree in the early '70s, never sprayed or tended. The apples were maybe about 1" or so diameter and very sour, I loved it! I will look into Whitney further, it sounds great!

Clarkinks, good to hear your recommendation on sour cherries. I looked for Carmine Jewell last year, but I didn't find any available that were what I thought were reasonably priced with shipping. I have 1 Montmorency and 1 Stark SureCrop Pie Cherry currently. I will keep a note of your spray schedule. Mine were healthy last year, except for the Junebugs almost completely defoliating the SureCrop overnight. It did come back and leaf out again and looked pretty strong going into the fall.

TurkeyCreekTrees, I felt like I could take the risk with GoldRush, Honeycrisp, and Calville Blanc. The nearest cedar is about 1/2 mile away. However I am willing to spray for CAR if need to. I was told by another apple grower that I shouldn't need to worry about CAR at that distance. Maybe that is not correct?

CAR pressure then will likely not be too bad for you and if you are willing to spray if need be then it will a relatively easy disease to control.

That is good to hear. I have some neighbors 11 miles away that have just a couple of apple trees and tons of cedars. On advice from a neighbor of theirs, they use Bonide Fruit Tree Spray and haven't had problems with CAR since they started spraying. I don't know what their spray schedule is, but even surrounded by cedars they are able to control it.

Even though I don't expect to have an issue with CAR, do you think it would be best to spray aggressively as a preventative, or wait to see if it develops? One spray schedule I looked at recommended a winter dormant oil spray, and fungicide sprays in spring when the flower buds turn pink, again when the petals have fallen, and once more about 10 days later. I thought this might be a more than needed since the CAR pressure here would be low. Other diseases my need to be addressed though... I am still trying to figure out what disease pressures & insect problems I will have with my apples, (as well as peaches, sour cherries, apricots, and grapes), and appropriate spray schedules for them all.

An example of inexpensive carmine Jewell or other sour cherry plants would be these large plants http://honeyberryusa.com/honeyberry-plants-2.html or these smaller CJ plants http://m.michiganbulb.com/product/carmine-jewel-cherry-65871/

Cedar Apple Rust can be a problem here but I wouldn't worry about it until I needed to worry about it. It's been a problem here but minimal in comparison to fireblight. Like at TurkeyCreekTrees said consider all possible problems but also keep in mind all trees have some disease susceptibility. The fruit trees will have one or more of the following fungal or bacterial problems FB, CAR, black rot, scab, etc. at some point. They will also have one of these insect problems JB,PC,coddling moth,SWD, etc. . Japanese beetles are as you mentioned are a big problem in this area in the summer. They don't kill the trees at my farm though they do damage them. Typically JB only get already damaged fruit at my farm though on bad years they do a lot of damage to all fruit.

Clarkinks, thanks for the links for the cherries!

Do you use the same spray plan each year to keep ahead of the fungal and/or bacterial problems? Since all my trees are fairly young and I haven't had any disease issues yet, that I have noticed anyway, I am concerned if I wait until I see a problem, it may get away from me. I want to minimize chemical use when possible but will use it went needed.

I haven't had fruit on my trees yet, but when they flower, I should be prepared to spray for plum curculio or the coddling moth? If I use a combination spray like the Bonide Fruit Tree spray, I read it would cover coddling moth (and maybe PC) and most of the diseases. Does that sound like a good choice or should I look for something else? I had June (May) beetles, chafer beetles, and Japanese beetles that did damage to foliage on fruit trees, grapes and brambles as I mentioned. Is there anything you do or use to deal with these pests? I have read others here use an organic (clay based?) spray called Surround for some pests. I need to research that a bit. Do you use that or have you tried it?

My spray schedule is a work in progress. Copper is a very good yearly spray put on either once or twice. You can spray using a fungicide like I do such as immunox or captan but do where proper safety gear since some sprays are not great for your eyes or anything else. You might try using sulphur which is more of a organic fungicide. Copper is a metal so it's not good for you but many organic orchards use it. I think surround is a great plan since you don't have problems now but if you do get problems spectracide once and done or other sprays may work out ok for you for insects. I'd see how it goes.

Thank you so much for sharing that information. That clarifies things for me a great deal. Now I need to take some time and figure out a plan for all my fruits and brambles and make sure I will have all the bases covered.... Er, at least make an attempt to plan it out that way. Weather and life in general tend to mess up my plans! Thank you all for your generous help and advice.

No problem good luck with your orchard!