Fish
Well-Known Member
I wanted to start a fall crabapple thread on my top 5 crabapple trees I have growing on the home 10.
These are my top 5 and not necessarily the best 5 for anyone else to plant. Here is the history:
About ten years ago I purchased the adjoining 5 acres beside my original 5 acres where my house was built. This ground was a crop field, but I wanted an orchard and a woods. Part of my tree purchases then was a 100 tree bundle of crabapple seedlings from the state nursery. I planted these crabapples along the road front and down the north property line of my property. This consumed about 75 of those trees. The others were planted here and there on the property and have since been swallowed up by deer or cut down for fear of spreading fireblight to my orchard trees.
After a number of years, I decided to graft some of the crabs over to eating varieties. My orchard was suffering terribly from fireblight, so any diseased crabapples were cut down along my property edges. When I was finished, I had 5 of those original 100 seedlings that I considered to be very good crabapples for wildlife. A 6th is still under evaluation (produces only a few fruits that will not drop!)
Those 5 crabs that I kept are different from one another in a lot of ways. They all have two key elements. Little to no disease issues and quality fruit. I usually spray these trees one time in the early spring and once again for Japanese Beetles. The early spring spraying is arguably not needed.
These are my top 5 and not necessarily the best 5 for anyone else to plant. Here is the history:
About ten years ago I purchased the adjoining 5 acres beside my original 5 acres where my house was built. This ground was a crop field, but I wanted an orchard and a woods. Part of my tree purchases then was a 100 tree bundle of crabapple seedlings from the state nursery. I planted these crabapples along the road front and down the north property line of my property. This consumed about 75 of those trees. The others were planted here and there on the property and have since been swallowed up by deer or cut down for fear of spreading fireblight to my orchard trees.
After a number of years, I decided to graft some of the crabs over to eating varieties. My orchard was suffering terribly from fireblight, so any diseased crabapples were cut down along my property edges. When I was finished, I had 5 of those original 100 seedlings that I considered to be very good crabapples for wildlife. A 6th is still under evaluation (produces only a few fruits that will not drop!)
Those 5 crabs that I kept are different from one another in a lot of ways. They all have two key elements. Little to no disease issues and quality fruit. I usually spray these trees one time in the early spring and once again for Japanese Beetles. The early spring spraying is arguably not needed.
