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["Richard MURPHY" <murphman108@msn.com>]

Hello Clan;

 

I hope this doen't clog your PC.

 

Murph

 

Orchard Review 2008
Richard Murphy
Lane Road Orchard
New Sharon, ME
zone 4

 

This orchard was started in 2004 when 90 apple trees were planted. Then in 2005, 1000 Saskatoons were planted. In 2006, 60 pears and 40 cherries. In 2007, 15 more apples and 300 Blueberries. There are also trials going on all the time. Peaches, Hazelnuts, brambles of all types, 4 kinds of Elderberries and plums.

 

The goal of this place is to augment my retirement income with some raodside fruit sales, U-Pick, and wine sales. I am an 'expert amateur' winemaker, using all sorts of fruits except grapes. Presently I am an electronics Engineer by trade. The orchard is 240 miles north of me.

 

Without a lot of anecdotal ya-ya, here's a pile of noteworthy (to me) stuff I observed:

 

Apples:

 

William's Pride was the best surprise I've experienced in fruit growing. In mid August, my 5 trees had beautiful, dark-red purplish large apples. What an attractive bloom they have! The taste was well balanced and well liked by the neighbors and my wife Rebecca, who isn't a huge apple fan. The flesh right under the skin was becoming stained red. Healthy looking fruit, well branched trees, low disease or none at all. Winner, hooray for WP.

 

Pristine turned out to be another blessing. Sweet, aromatic, no disease to speak of, medium size yellow apples with a pink blush. Just beautiful. These 4-year-old trees put out a TON of fruit. Picked ripe in mid August, maybe a week before WP. Crotch angles excellent. These apples look like smaller Winter Banana apples, and I did have a few Apple Maggot Fly worms at harvest, again from spray negligence.

 

Summer Rambo is a decent apple. Hardly any scab, even less if I sprayed more often. Good branch habit, strong growing trees. Apples picked mid August were soft & sweet after a month on the counter. No real beauty, but large unblemsihed fruit.

 

20 Ounce Pippin  is a large apple, looks how apples 'used to look'; a whole palate of reds, yellow, orange. They are peened with tiny bumps all over (normal) and all are uniform size. Still not fully ripe Sept 8. Precocious trees started bearing young. Branch spreaders needed; narrow crotches. Growth rate good.

 

Pound Sweet  trees are doing fantastic. Big trees loaded with apples, not quite ripe yet. Good angles, big time growth, low disease, low bugs.

 

Opalescent is another great surprise. Not ripe yet, but already attractive red, decent sized apples. Tree growth is average, and branch spreaders are needed, but I can tell these are going to be beautiful in a couple more weeks.

 

Hidden Rose went totally nuts with fruit. WAY too many. We thinned 40% of them off, but the branches still drooped to the ground. These require heavy thinning. I ate one a couple years ago. It was baseball size, cotton candy pink inside, and tasted like 'an apple'. Not bad, good fruit, but nothing special. These will sell, but need to be good sized by thinning. Trees from Jung.

 

Sweet 16 trees have yet to fruit. They are tall, fast growing, healthy and have VERY narrow crotch angles.

 

Wolf River started to fruit this year. Low scab in any at all. Big healthy trees, great angles. I actually like how these apples taste. Not all apples have to be 'absolutely delicious'. Sometimes a plain old appley flavored orb is all I want.

 

Golden Russets began to fruit this year, lightly. These trees growth habit is rather spindly, but the length of growth per year is good. Low disease, branch angles OK. Fruit is FAR from ripe yet. I have eaten these before. They are terrific. The texture is more like a potato, but the taste is sweet and sour and nutty. A lot of sugar in these things. My fingers stuck together !!

 

Zestar qualifies as another pleasant surprise. Big healthy trees, low disease, delicious fruit of decent size was picked in mid August. Buy a few branch spreaders along with each tree, as the angles are narrow. Strong grower and precocious.

 

Chestnut Crab apples are of very unique flavor. The trees aren't the healthiest, but I suspect that is my fault and some girdling by voles.

 

Keepsake  showed a good 20" of growth. It has good angles. A few smaller apples, not ripe yet. Trees are from Fedco, and I can't recall the rootstock.

 

Pierce Pasture  is supposed to ba an enormous apple. I have a few 2 year old trees from St. Lawrence. They grew about 18" this year, good angles, no fruit yet. Probbaly on Antonivka.

 

Melba trees grew 24", good angles. From St. Lawrence, planted same day as Pierce Pasture.

 

Macoun trees were also a pleasant surprise. Precocious, as they fruited this year a age 3. Very dark red fruits, not ripe yet. Only about 16" average tree growth, and NARROW crotch angles.

 

Related apple info:  I wasn't really expecting any crop at all. I would have sprayed differently in early spring. Also, I can now honestly see the need for sticky traps in the trees. Got my first close-up look at the Apple Maggot Fly. They walk funny. They just sort of shuffle along on the surface of the apple, laying eggs beneath the skin which will turn into little white worms inside the apple, usually at  the core.
 My trees are all in sod. The grass mixture is 'environmental mix' from the local store in Maine. It turned out to be a better choice than the Tall Fescue (KY 31) I put in the berry rows. The apple rows mow relatively easily with the 54" Cub Cadet. The Fescue grows like mad. It is very tough, drought tolerant and even survives in very wet areas. Great for a football field or public yard; not an orchard row unless you don't mind mowing a lot.
 I don't mulch at all (did once). I may use mulch again when I move there, but the Voles are the biggest threat to success I have. The absolute best defense against Voles is clearing out their habitat. This means you need to get rid of all standing weeds, and bent-over dead grass. They won't come out in the open. I also put up a Hawk Pole, and sometimes there is a Cooper's hawk up there looking around.
 Because I only go up there about once in 2 weeks, I use Bonide Fruit Tree Spray more than I'd like. Sometimes it's Malathion or Permethrin or Lime Sulfur, depending on the pests. I use blue marker dye in all my sprays. It's the only real way I have of seeing what I'm hitting (or not). I tend to overspray a bit, and the blue dye helps reduce that. It does not harm the leaves at all.
 Although I will be squeezing cider (for wine) in a few years, I'm not growing any 'Cider Apples' per se. I'm relying on unsold or blemished fruit to fill that void. With all the 'customer appealing' (pretty looking) varieties to choose from, one should otherwise focus on the 'apple aroma / taste' as his main goal when planning to use apples for making wine. Acid, Sugar, and Tannin can all be easily adjusted; 'appley' cannot.

 

Cherries:
 
Benton trees, that survived last year's Click Beetles are doing OK. The Surefires dropped most of their leaves right after the berries came ripe. The leaves got all nasty looking and fell off the trees; not eaten by bugs. Is this leaf spot? (The Bentons are on G5 or G6 and kept their leaves.) There are a few new leaves at the tips, and next year's leaf buds are there, but I need to find out more about this. Evans trees managed to hold onto about half of their leaves. Evans trees are growing fast enough, but in all directions. These need a little pruning into a tree shape. The Black Gold trees didn't do too well. A lot of graft failures. Replaced 4 trees with BG on Mazzard I got from Cummins this year.
 The cherries (and pears) are grown in sod / clover. New Zealand Clover. Anothe poor choice for a cover crop on my part, for at least 2 reasons; it is HORRIBLE to mow, and it provides Vole Refuge. Next year I will get rid of it if possible. The NZ clover is hardy as hell and a great pasture crop.....

 

Pears:

 

I didn't really survey the pears as much as I should have. The Harrows Delights are crawling around on their hands and knees.... Seckels grew 24" this year. Next year they will get branch spreaders as they are really narrow. Moonglows surviving, Magness continues to set the standard for tree growth and form. Starking Delicious doing fine as well. Most of these trees came from Starks. They tend to be a bit conservative with their hardiness ratings, so I took a shot. All these trees are only 4 years old; no fruit yet. They are all on various OHxF etc. etc I have recorded somewhere.... No Fireblight was seen in all 60 trees. Pears are fairly slow to fruit in general.

 

Plums:

 

I only have 4 plum trees on trial; 2 Stanley and 2 Mount Royal. The 2 Stanleys have fruited for the last 2 years, just a few as they are only 3. The MR haven't fruited yet. Jap Beetles love these trees. I got them from Double A Vineyards; not sure of the rootstock, but they thought it was Marianna. Maybe not the best choice. Might replant a few more in '09 with Myrobolan.

 

Red Raspberries:

 

Only Primocane varieties are on trial so far. All plants were indeed mowed flat to the ground last fall. When I install the Bramble Patch, there will be support wires for these plants, as described in all the books, even for the Primocane varieties. They do bend considerably under a good fruit load. All plants are from Nourse.

 

Caroline plants grow 5 to 6 feet tall, and mine spread like mad! They were covered in immature little fruits in mid August, and fruiting in full swing Sept. 10th. Good yield, firm berries, great taste, large fruit. Some plants will tip over from fruit load.

 

Polana plants only grew about 2 to 3 feet tall, but were fruiting 2 weeks ahead of Caroline. The berries are a little bigger than Caroline. They were loaded with fruit the 2nd week in Sept.

 

Autumn Britten plants habit and fruiting resembled that of Polana. Maybe an expert could differentiate the two, but I can't. Perhaps the AB are a tad more upright and have more leaves.... Full blast fruiting with Sept 10th with Polana.

 

Black Raspberries:    The Pequots I bought from Jim Fruth had an excellent first year up north.

 

Blackberries:

 

The Illini Hardy plants started fruiting the first week in September. The fruits are average size and sour as all hell. Vigorous plants; primocanes are 7 feet tall right now. We'll see how they take the zone 4 winter. Last year they were only 3 feet tall and died back a little. Wow what a ton of thorns !!
            There is one Doyle plant in the nursery. It just spent it's 2nd winter in Maine. No fruit yet. It is trailing along on the ground at about 6 feet long. A young plant, but healthy. Everybody 'craps on' this plant, which means I have to try it myself. I just want to make jelly and wine for sale. Berry physiology means little to me. Lastly I put in 6 Stenulson plants this year, right where the Darrows were before I pulled their dead crowns out of the ground.
           Finally, six Prime Jim blackberries began their trial this year. They are growing fine,  and will be mowed flat with the others this fall.

 

Elderberries:    By themselves, in my opinion, Elderberries are at best boring to eat. What they excel at is adding color, aroma, and flavor to a lightweight fruit. For example, my light apple wine is rather pale and timid and dry. Build that same recipe with some Elderberry and back-sweeten it a little, and it's a full bodied dessert wine with plenty of tannin. My wife and I put up 45 jars of Elder-Jelly this year from roadside pickings I did; 29 lbs. www.SureJell.com has a super Elderberry Jelly recipe so I used it.
              The cultivated variety berry of Sambucus Canadensis is twice the diameter of the wild berries. It was almost alarming to me to see the difference. They're HUGE. We brought a few pounds home from Maine, for what, I don't know yet. They went in the freezer.
             I have 4 varieties on trial; 3 Canadensis (York, Nova, Johns) and 1 Nigra (Samdal). The Johns just went in this year, and the others in 2007. The Samdals grew one foot the first year, and 4 feet this year and still have not flowered. The Yorks and Novas have both flowered and fruited, and I really haven't been able to notice any difference yet. They both have huge flower heads and berry clusters.
             As far as ripening times, I have made an observation maybe someone can concurr. The Nova plants that grew 7 feet tall this year were just roots in April, They shot up all 7 feet in one year, and produced a few huge flower heads at the very top of the plant. Meanwhile, down at the bottom of the plant, flowers and berries had already started, and were way ahead of the umbels on the top of the plant. Then, I noticed that the most advanced cluster development was connected to plants that were already above ground last year, and the huge clusters at the top were 'developmentally delayed'. This scenario was noticed on all fruiting plants, so we should not really expect berries from 1st year roots. Those huge heads at the plant tops had flowered late and also all the green berries fell off.
              I staked the 7 foot plants last week to see if they'll survive out in the relative open, zone 4 winter. There are native Elder plants all around the area. It will be interesting to see how the flavor of the cultivated varieties compares with the indigenous.

 

Saskatoons:         This is my 'pet crop'. Amelanchier Alnifolia vars Smoky and Northline. In 2004 I read up on these fruits. It all sounded too good to be true. I went on the web site www.saakatoonfarm.com and watched how Paul Hamer does it. I bought his video, and Dr. St. Pierre's Orchard Manual, and 1000 Smoky plants from Burntridge. These all were planted in the spring of 2005. Planting conditions were horrible. Cold, rainy, the field was mud and there were underground slabs of ice and frozen soil. I wished it could have been better, but the 240 mile ride dictates a firm schedule, and my volunteers would never repeat what they were about to do........ Furthermore, the plants looked as if they were sweated a bit too much. Too many 'etoilated' shoots. In spite of all this, they lived. Then the Entomosporium epidemic hit, which I combated with Clorothalonil and won that fight.
             These plants, the survivors, are still alive and mostly doing well. Some have even put out a respectable crop for their tender age. I have sprayed them as required (mostly) and bugs do not seem to be a big problem except for the Gypsy Moth Caterpillar wich are easy to clear out. The berries average about a half inch in size and are sweet, with a mild fruit taste. The plants are capable of quite a fruit load, in the pounds, 5 or so. Birds LOVE these fruits, sometimes not waiting until they are fully ripe to clear off your whole bush. The only fruit I got was from plants that were properly covered with 1/2" plastic netting. I say properly because I watched as birds shoved their way into poorly tied / netted plants and inhaled every last berry.
             Most people in Maine (and elswhere in New England) have never heard of these things. The real challenge will not be raising fruit, but selling it. What convinced me to proceed was a jar of Saskatoon Jam I bought from Alberta Canada through the mail. Wow. Oh my God. It IS THAT GOOD !!
           These plants all have a prominent crown, and a long taproot. A lot of my transplants' taproots were damaged or planted wromg during the freezing mudfest of '05. For the first year or two, they just layed there, 'refusing to die'. This is the first year they have really jumped up and grew a lot (some +24"), so if you plan on trying some, be prepared to wait. Also, they tend to sucker a lot, which is a good thing in this case. Buy some that sucker well. Average plant life is more than 50 years. I have 2 plants here in zone 6 Massachusetts as curio pieces, and they flower and fruit as well. Voles will attack the bark on Saskatoons if they get the chance. Plant them on a berm, 12" high by 24" wide, and keep the weeds out.
        
Blueberries:          I can't really add anything here that isn't common knowledge to most. I have Patriot, Duke, Blueray and one other I forgot.....about 300 plants total. Plant them as for Saskatoons. Another thing I would have done differently; buy the 3 to 6" plants to save money, good idea, but put them in a Nursery bed for a couple of years to attain some size. I failed to do this, and haad to enlist my kids to pull weeds that were 12" tall away from blueberry plants that were 4" tall. This is almost impossible to do without disturbing the blueberry roots. Otherwise, these are all doung OK for having been planted in 2007. I got most of the plants from DeGrandchamps in Michigan and Hartmann's plant co. All were potted in basically peat moss / vermiculite, The shipping cost was phenomenal because of all that water. Go bare-root if possible.

 

Nuts            There are a few Big Red Filazels from Wallace Woodstock and some Chestnuts from Oikos that are in their 2nd year now. Just seedlings, nothing to report yet. Plant vigor on both is good. Anybody know of a great / semi-precocious nut for zone 4?

 

Grapes:          Three plants began their trial this year: Eidelweiss, Swenson Red, and King of the North. Mostly for use as table grapes, and some will obviously roll into the press for juice / wine. What is your favorite zone 4 grape?

 

Mason Bee Houses:              We put up another 15 Mason Bee houses around the perimeter of the orchard. They are based on the U-Maine Extension design. The 5/16" hole seems to be the most populated hole of the last batch, so this year I made them all 5/16" holes.

 

 

 

General Observations:

 

Staking small trees was best accomplished using Grade Stakes. These are 1 x 1 x 48" hardwood stakes, typicall sold in bundles of 25 for about $14.00. I spent too much time trying to cut and whittle them from saplings, plus the saplings don't hammer into the ground very well. I have also used a lot of AM Leonard tree strapping with the stakes. It appears to have a 2 or 3 year life span before it falls apart, which I suspect is due to sunlight. A decent alternative is Cotton Sashcord. It is wider and softer than regulad clothesline, and inexpensive. It has not damaged my young trees.

 

Tree Guards were used. The first year, I used that 4" wide porous plastic fabric tree guard. It did OK, but was a bit slow to apply. And the per-tree cost wasn't as low as you might expect. After that, I switched to plastic spirals from AM Leonard. The 24" kind. They work beautiful, but get brittle and fall apart after 2 years. They are easy to apply and remove, and I leave them on until after the first Round-Up blast of the season. Don't pay more than $0.75 for spirals in quantities of 100.

 

Bush Guards were used. I made a few hundred out of Hardware Cloth (rabbit cage screen) and tie wraps and held them vertical with Bamboo sticks. This worked excellent in all cases except for some plants on a hill with bare soil all around. During the winter, the clay-loam eroded a little, anchoring the bottom inch or two of the screen into the earth. Pulling these out in the Spring surely uprooted the plants. Those plants on berms or level ground were not stuck. Again, larger stock would have been anchored well enough to survive this yank without being noticed.

 

A New Sprayer was bought, my first electric tow-behind. Overall, this thing is OK. Now that the trees are all 12+ feet tall, the Solo Bottle can't reach up there, and would take forever if it could. I came to the obvious conclusion that more material would be needed / used, and bit the bullet. The sprayer is made by AgriFab, and I must report that it has failed 3 times in the first year. Defective valve, pressure gauge blew out, the hose kinks so bad I'm going to upgrade it my own self. Aside from those shameful flaws in quality, it got the job done. It was AgriFab or Fimco. Any comments?

 

My First Employee starts next Spring. Round Trip gasoline for one trip costs the same as paying this man for 8 hours of labor. Plus, I'm getting fatigued too often.......... Welcome aboard, Jim.

 

Soil Type is clay-loam. Aside from the initial planting of any tree, I have never watered anything. This soil is semi-moist all the time and full of worms and covered in sod. No plant has ever demonstrated any affects of dehydration. I'm lucky is this regard. Soil Test analysis elements all came back as Nominal for apples, with the exception of a surplus of Calcium. I give everybody a small dose of 10-10-10 each spring. Another soil test is due in 2009.

 

Risk       If you're going to start an orchard like this one, go big or stay home. I keep looking out over the apple rows wondering whi I stopped at 105 trees. Just be convinced in your own mind that it WILL SUCCEED and there is a real market for your products. Fruit trees in quantity are cheap. Six to ten dollars apiece, and Starks has a low minimum qty of 30 trees to get the wholesale rate. Other suppliers will haggle a bit in price if you're buying big. And, finding a grower to provide you with 100 XXX makes a ton of sense. Starting your own propagation factory does not, unless you're planning to be a nursery as well. I'm not. It would cost me far too much to benchgraft a ton of apples on M-111 for example, or pears on OHxF etc.. and the risk of failure is too high.