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Planting apple trees, any advice?

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deerslyer159

New Member
Just got a new farm and wanted to start 6 new apple trees. what would be best variety for southern iowa? also have cedar trees, that may be an issue. I have been reading all doubletree forums on planting and maintenance. any suggestions on late holding varieties would be appreciated.
 
Stick with some disease resistant.... Liberty, Sundance, Enterprise, etc. I like Arkansas black, Querina, Freedom, Gold Rush, etc. I'd also look at some asian pears and some disease resistant pears. Maybe some pears like Kieffer as well. I could go on and on about apples & pears so just read Dbltree's apple & pear tree postings. Make sure the plant sites are kept weed free. Make sure you protect the trunks perfectly and do not allow deer to rub them or rabbits to girdle, it's huge. If you plant and have a drought, you better be willing to water them in critical times or they will die. If you need more on varieties, lemme know.
 
Oh, 2 more things.... You could add some trees that are great pollinators - crab apple & something like winter banana apple trees. 2nd, make sure you keep up with some spraying. If it's not needed, ok, I don't like to spray but you absolutely could and will have some stuff eating your leaves and some possible other things going on. If you don't keep a close eye on the trees, you very easily could come back after 3-4 weeks mid-summer and find a group of caterpillars or something ate every last leaf on the trees. Watch it close and spray with general fruit spray as needed. Future maintenance like pruning, fertilizer, etc - see dbltree's threads.
 
Sligh1 said:
Stick with some disease resistant.... Liberty, Sundance, Enterprise, etc. I like Arkansas black, Querina, Freedom, Gold Rush, etc. I'd also look at some asian pears and some disease resistant pears. Maybe some pears like Kieffer as well. I could go on and on about apples & pears so just read Dbltree's apple & pear tree postings. Make sure the plant sites are kept weed free. Make sure you protect the trunks perfectly and do not allow deer to rub them or rabbits to girdle, it's huge. If you plant and have a drought, you better be willing to water them in critical times or they will die. If you need more on varieties, lemme know.
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Been there! Good advice. I have planted apple trees a few times over the years now and I think I only have about 5 or 6 still alive. The droughts are tough on them, be ready to water them!
 
All the right advice! Plant disease resistant varieties. Cedar rust is bad,,if there are any cedars nearby. Good fencing for deer. Wire mesh around trunks for rabbits and mice. Spray trunks in spring with some kind of insecticide like Super 8- from Earl May, for boerers. Fruit Trees are a lot of trouble. A lot of pests. One reason you do not see any big Apple orchards down south! Neat to pick your own apples though!!
 
Does anyone know how long grafted apple trees have been commercially available? I have one big old apple tree that produces huge crops every year of large, yellow apples. These apples are NEVER bothered by bugs or disease. They also don't get really good tasting till after a freeze, and then they can hang on the tree till Dec. without getting rotten. I picked and ate one after a below zero night this Nov., and it was still pretty good!! I've thought about trying to grow some from seed, but would I be smarter to get some root stock and graft some in case this is a grafted tree? I'm guessing this tree had to be planted in the 1930's or 40's at the latest.
 
Make sure you cage them! Better to properly plant less trees than waste time and money planting a bunch that are unprotected. I learned the hard way! BUT, I have had great success since then. I now have about 40 apple trees and they are started to fruit last year. Also, go for a variety of types. Good luck! Plenty of disease resistant ones out there.
 
turkeyriver said:
Does anyone know how long grafted apple trees have been commercially available? I have one big old apple tree that produces huge crops every year of large, yellow apples. These apples are NEVER bothered by bugs or disease. They also don't get really good tasting till after a freeze, and then they can hang on the tree till Dec. without getting rotten. I picked and ate one after a below zero night this Nov., and it was still pretty good!! I've thought about trying to grow some from seed, but would I be smarter to get some root stock and graft some in case this is a grafted tree? I'm guessing this tree had to be planted in the 1930's or 40's at the latest.
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Grafted trees have been around long time, though where do you think they get those special selections, sometimes from chance seedlings, so who knows really what yours really is. Grow some apple seed for rootstock and start grafting onto them.
 
deerslyer159 said:
Just got a new farm and wanted to start 6 new apple trees. what would be best variety for southern iowa? also have cedar trees, that may be an issue. I have been reading all doubletree forums on planting and maintenance. any suggestions on late holding varieties would be appreciated.
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You may want to also plant them in different areas of your farm. Seems like when fruit trees are planted together, there are more pest problems, that can actually be said about most trees, always diversify, maybe plant pear too to mix it up.
 
There is a plethora of underutilized information put out by ISU Extension.

Here is a pdf detailing disease resistence, time of ripening (obviously, later the better for your deer hunting), use recommendations, and other info for all of the different varieties they recommend for Iowa's soils and climate:

http://www.extension.iastate.edu/Publications/PM453.pdf



...or you can read through the dbltree thread and learn more than you'll ever need to know
 
Planting Apple trees

Here is my best advice. After careful consideration, don't do it. It is futile.
This is a serious answer btw, not kidding.
 
Great Supplement To Food Plots. I Still Have Alot Of Apples Hanging And Watch The Deer Evernight Plucking Apples.
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bpul2113 said:
Here is my best advice. After careful consideration, don't do it. It is futile.
This is a serious answer btw, not kidding.
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Agree totally waste of time. Planted a bunch 5 years ago they were doing great made it through the drought in 2012 no problem then 80% of them died during the 2013 drought. Spend more time and money on food plots.
 
If you have heavy ground they seem to make it thru the droughts. Once the trees get quite mature, you have more for your money. Just a little fert once in awhile and you have deer magnets for yrs. Food plots require machinery, seed, fert, time, sweat,,adds up to a lot of $! I have both.
 
Seems like pears would have similar startup issues as apples, like needing watered and weeds controlled if not moist, and protection from animals early on, too. The fruit seems not as wormy as apples. Keiffer is a late ripening, heavy producing pear that is commonly planted for wildlife, fireblight resistant.
 
I agree with loneranger on heavy ground and fruit trees. I have heavy clay and I planted 22 pear trees in the '12 spring and then we dried up like a desert until late Sept. I watered them once in July when I checked on them and then left them alone.

I lost one but that was due to rabbits getting in my wire cage and girdling it. I even had 1 of them produce about a dozen pears last fall. In total I have around 50 apple and pear trees aged 2-3 years and I only watered them that one time. I was curious if the heavy clay would be a problem but it seems to have been a positive so far.

I say go for it if you have heavy soils and you cage them in.
 
thanks my soil heavy clay also planning on cageing them as they wont survive if we dont and going to try some keiffer pears if i can find some places i checked were sold out already
 
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