Top 10 Apple Tree Defenses

[BoneCrusher20]

In wake of pest season coming up figure I would share and love others to chime in, but listing my top 10 defenses for Apple trees.

When I first planted apple trees years ago I thought this should be easy throw tree in ground fence it and give it some fert every now and then and Bata Bing Bata boom that's all there is. Wow was I wrong I'm not sure what in the forest doesn't want to attack apple trees.

I've been through mice girdling, bears taking down fences, Cubs climbing young trees, disease, fire ants, caterpillars, jap beetles, blight, wind damage, list goes on

1) Disease Resistent Rootstocks/Varieties
2) Electric Fence/ Deer Fencing
3) Tree Wraps (not corrugated) - White
4) Codling Moth Pheromone Traps
5) Neem Oil
6) Seven
7) Cleanliness - referring to if you do have disease tree to avoid spreading it. Includes your tools, space between trees, even area in orchard mowed down and debris removed.
8) Dormant Oil
9) Copper Fungicide
10) Observation. Can't treat something if don't know about it


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[Native Hunter]

I'm using window screen at the base of my trees to protect from gnawing rodents.

 

[Mennoniteman]

I'd add one more to your list, I'm not big on using chemicals, but I like Gramoxone to kill vegetation around the tree so that I don't have to mow as close. Vegetation competes with trees for nutrients and water, ground cover landscaping cloth also turns some water away if not covered with mulch, which gets to be a lot of work, and the mulch can harbor pests. Gramoxone is a fast acting burndown herbicide that kills everything that it touches, but nothing more, it doesn't go down into the roots of plants, which makes it safer than roundup around trees. Two applications a summer keeps the trees clear of brush. The downside is that you need a chemical license to buy it.

 

[coolbrze0]

Good thread! Don't forget about late Winter pruning

 

[Chainsaw]

Cold hardiness to minus 35 degrees here ranks right up there with choosing disease resistant varieties. Going by disease resistant charts for named full sized apples and going for that level of cold hardiness and apples having a long drop period leaves us with a very small handful of varieties And those varieties here have historically taken eight to twelve years to produce good amounts of apples. We are following a strict fertilizing schedule to see if we can speed up growth and fruiting of those named full sized apples.

A second defense is to use/buy standard rootstock for its larger tree size, more apples and It’s reported longer life as compared to smaller rootstocks. Yes it does take longer to fruit but the third defense of using more crab type apples may show us faster fruiting. And along with that is buying trees from those known to sell larger than average one year old trees. Starting off with great root systems and thicker trunks is a huge plus over planting pencil size trees.

A third defense is to pick/find/create better varieties that are not full sized known apples like from the Crab apple stock grown from Sandbur’s property from Minnesota, or any number of fellow habitat enthusiasts who have a special or simply an un-named tree growing on their property that comes from a similar weather zone as us. We are trying all of the non-orchard varieties from Blue Hill Wildlife Nursery and Northern Whitetail Crabs expecting some might serve our needs for our weather zone better and faster than full sized named apple varieties that are generally more appropriately grown in controlled orchard like settings with heavy maintenance schedules versus grown in the woods to feed deer from November thru March.
Here are the links to those two nurseries for those not familiar with them;
https://bluehillwildlifenursery.com/
https://www.northernwhitetailcrabs.com/
Disclaimer;I am a customer of each of these nurseries and I donate to BlueHill Wildlife Nursery scions from a special tree on my property we call Turning Point. And I have only purchased trees from each of them last year so it will be a couple of years before it is known whether or not their trees fruit quickly on my property as expected.

 

[Chainsaw]

Bone Crusher and other fruit tree planters, There is of course a huge hole in our listed number one defense of using tree varieties that are known to grow well as habitat trees on our properties. It is fairly doable with named orchard trees as many studies have been published on many orchard varieties cold hardiness and disease resistance.

For the newly named so- called wildlife type trees however, the ones unheard of only ten years ago or less there is minimal published data on their hardiness and disease resistance at all let alone for various localities. We are often buying, planting and maintaining unfamiliar apple varieties with only the sellers description of those varieties to go by. While it is in the sellers best interest to only grow and sell tree varieties to us that will work on our individual properties how are they to know about all of the idiosyncrasies of properties throughout their selling range and how their trees will grow everywhere.

For example on our property the two deal breaker apple tree weaknesses are susceptibility to cedar Apple rust and cold temperatures. Due to extremely heavy and active cedar rust activity in this area what other people may experience as an acceptable amount of rust on a particular variety can result in triple the rust here with all of the leaves getting severely damaged. The same goes for cold hardiness; if a variety can’t take an occasional night or two or three at minus 35 degrees and stay alive and still produce fruit it won’t work here.

Gathering and compiling feedback (text and pictures) on the experience with each of the newer and crab apple varieties from all of the forum members could help us all in deciding which varieties to plant and grow on our properties. Setting it up like the reviews on Amazon where we could just click on a variety and all of the reviews based on forum members experience for that property could come up. Further combining our reviews with those from other hunting forums would provide us with even more needed data for us and them. I don’t have a clue as how to accomplish such a review scenario.

Does such an ongoing apple tree review compilation thread make sense and is it even doable and legal? Would such review information be allowed on the forum? If acceptable to the forum moderators does anyone on the forum have the skills to pull it off? And is it a large effort or can it be accomplished easily? And further is it doable to include other popular varieties of fruit and nuts in such a process?