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I went under a couple of old local apple trees and dug up the whips underneath. They have grown but not maintained. Great Idea about picking the fruit. I would also suggest dormant spray and fertilizing the roots for quicker growth. Lot's of info on the web https://www.groworganic.com/organic-...ruit-trees..as always you tube is your best source of info that is easily ingested and digested lol
BlastedSaber-i have never grown an apple tree.
However i have hunted and i am hunting public land ,where there is abundance of old apple trees.All kinds.
This is what i know ,observing them:
-You plant them as many as You can.The more the merrier-some will die young,some will be eaten by rabbits-some bears will tear up. Strength is in numbers.
-Do not overthink this-You are not planting an orchard,You fend for deer and bear.The more the tree-the less the work-the less the pruning-the more the crop anyway.......if you know what i mean.
The ONLY thing i would advise You from my own thinking is this-Do select apples,which ripen LATE.What is the point (for hunting around them)having a tree dropping ripened apples BEFORE the season.They may feed the deer and the bear,they may even hold them there-but You may not benefit from hunting around them.
Enjoy............
grafting is the quickest way to have fruit
What?Quote:
Originally Posted by js4fn
Grafting on to what? You still have to plant a tree to be able to graft on to it. You cannot graft apples on to spruce, you still need an apple tree of some sort there for root stock. I work with a guy who grafts, he used a crab apple for grafting, the thing did not work worth a damn, goes with known root stock now but you still have to put it in the ground and let it grow.
BlastedSaber, wrap the trunk with protection from rodents, they are cheap and will save your tree from girdling. You may lose the tree due to bears, they are bad, we had a crab apple tree that had apples 1 year and had half of the limbs ripped off it due to a bear.
The problem with planting a tree is that they need attention to make sure they make it through the first year, regular water and pulling the weeds to allow the tree to have the nutrients and not the weeds/grass. People will tell me I am full of crap because they have wild apple trees but think about it, with all the apple seeds and all the apple starts there is 1 or 2 wild trees, there would be thousands if they all came up. If you are just planting 1 or 2 then a loss of 1 or two would be huge, planting 1000 and losing 1 or 2 would be no big deal.