My front garden apple tree project

[FB.]

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I will point out, though, that the dwarf and semi-dwarf varieties tend to develop considerably swollen grafts as they age - the deformed graft being a sap-flow limiting mechanism which causes the dwarfing effect by limiting the exchange of sap from roots to canopy.
Some people don't like the look.
Others plant the graft quite close to the ground to mask it - but beware that some grafted varieties may send out their own roots after a couple of years if the graft becoms covered by soil or mulches.
In most cases "own-rooting" will increase the vigour into the MM106, MM111 or M25 classes.

Picture of a dwarf's grafts below (M26 and M9):

[mikedigitales]

How deep is the topsoil over the clay?
How well do other plants grow in your area?
What does grow well in your area? - this can tell you a lot about your soil.
Are there many other apple trees?

There is only an inch or so of top soil and then it's straight into the clay. I'm just at the end of my first season in this garden and in the back garden I built two raised beds from old paving slabs. All the veg and the raspberries I put in did well, but I grew green manure over winter last year to improve these beds, and then dug in all the old compost I had.
Not so many gardeners around my street, mainly pristine lawns with some box hedges, but there are many big oak trees nearby and a few Acers next door that seem to thrive in the soil. My gut feeling is it's just a case of there is lots of nutrients available if the apples can tolerate the dense, wet clay in the winter months.

You can improve drainage by planting the trees on mounds or ridges in order to keep the base of the trunk out of the standing water to avoid root suffocation. M9 and M26 will resist the diseases found in wet soils, but they may still suffocate if they're in standing water for days.

Growing on mounds sounds like a plan, I think I saw on another of your posts you suggested about 4ft wide by 6 inches tall, would you suggest about the same for me? I used this technique for growing garlic this year and got a great harvest

Thank you very very much for your help FB. Any favourite apple varieties you would recommended I look for, I think a cooker on the M9 (maybe a triploid variety like Bramley?) and two eaters on M26. I was hoping to visit an orchard on one of the open days last month but was busy DIY'ing

[FB.]

There is only an inch or so of top soil and then it's straight into the clay.

That sounds like below average or poor. Any chance of digging a hole and taking pics every few spadefulls so that we can see what's going on underground and what the soil that's coming out looks like.
Does the soil waterlog - with surface water for many hours or days, or is the soil simply quite heavy but not saturated?
Even my free-draining soil (which never floods) gets heavy and slippery at this time of year - it wasn't much fun planting the two apple trees mentioned earlier on this topic.
In any case: you should not use rootstocks M27, MM106 or M25 on very heavy soils. That takes you back to the dwarf M9, the semi-dwarf M26, or the more vigorous M116 or MM111.
So your rootstock choice seems to be forced upon you (and you need to help the young trees with the best start you can give them) - you just need to decide whether it'll be 2m "bushes" on M9/M26, or 4m "half-standards" on M116 or MM111.
You've already indicated that a handful of bushes are preferred, so that settles it for M9 and M26 - preferably on a mound or ridge.

Not so many gardeners around my street, mainly pristine lawns with some box hedges, but there are many big oak trees nearby

Nice lawns and big trees suggest the soil isn't as poor as the "few inches" apparent depth of topsoil implies. Plants dont live long nor get big if the soil is poor.

My gut feeling is it's just a case of there is lots of nutrients available if the apples can tolerate the dense, wet clay in the winter months.

As previous: just how saturated does the soil get? Does it waterlog with puddles on the lawn for days, or is it just heavy, sticky and slippery if you dig a hole?

Growing on mounds sounds like a plan, I think I saw on another of your posts you suggested about 4ft wide by 6 inches tall, would you suggest about the same for me? I used this technique for growing garlic this year and got a great harvest

The width needs to give the roots reasonable room to spread in soil above the flooded ground.
The height needs to be sufficient so that the base of the trunk is not sitting in water - or you will lose trees to crown rot, collar rot or suffocation (or a combination of the above). Crown and collar rots are the worst because they can take a couple of years to show themselves, and are mostly incurable.
Even varieties with resistance to crown, collar and root rots will not withstand prolonged and repeated attacks; resistant does not mean immune.

Any favourite apple varieties you would recommended I look for, I think a cooker on the M9 (maybe a triploid variety like Bramley?) and two eaters on M26. I was hoping to visit an orchard on one of the open days last month but was busy DIY'ing

Ah, that's the next question after deciding on the rootstock.
Bramleys are everywhere - and not especially disease resistant nowadays (scab resistance has been defeated by new strains of disease and fruit therefore often splits due to scab in wet weather).

I always suggest growing fairly uncommon varieties, and preferably old varieties not closely related to modern varieties.
Old varieties had to be grown without the modern technologies of chemicals, irrigation and fertilisers - the oldies tend to be rugged but lower yielding (the lower yield probably being a trade-off so the tree has some energy left after fruiting with which to cope with less-than-ideal conditions).
Less common means less likely to have had its disease resistance defeated by constantly-evolving strains of fungi; the more a variety is grown the more attempts the diseases have at atacking it and the sooner the diseases find a way past its resistance.
Unrelated to modern varieties means that it has a strong, non-inbred gene pool.
Have a look at this link, which shows how sickly many modern/inbred varieties are, and how clean and healthy many old rare varieties can be:

Inbreeding/genetic narrowing in modern apple cultivation, DIVERSITY website

In the meantime, I'll have a rummage through some old books and files to see what might be worth shortlisting for your area.

[FB.]

Some suggestions which I'd shortlist for the conditions you describe:

Summer and early autumn cookers:
Grenadier
Reverend Wilks
Early Victoria (Emneth Early)

Summer and early autumn eaters (these will be prone to insect damage):
Beauty of Bath
Discovery
Gladstone
Irish Peach
Scrumptious

Autumn and early-winter cookers:
Lord Derby
Golden Noble

Autumn and early-winter eaters
St.Edmund's Pippin/Russet
Ard Cairn Russet
Jupiter
Gascoyne's Scarlet
Kidd's Orange Red
Falstaff

Winter and early-spring, long-keeping cookers:
Annie Elizabeth
Belle de Boskoop
Crawley Beauty
Dumelow's Seedling
Edward VII
Howgate Wonder

Winter and early-spring, long-keeping eaters:
Adam's Pearmain
Allen's Everlasting
Barnack Beauty
Brownlees' Russet
Court Pendu Plat
Rosemary Russet
Winter Gem

Keepers nursery database and the Orangepippin websites have a lot of additional information on these and many more varieties.

http://www.keepers-nursery.co.uk/

.

[FB.]

Ah, yes.....I just had a nosey round Keeper nursery and you may want to shortlist varieties noted for their attractive blossom or attractive fruit.

[orangepippin]

Just to put another slant on this, in this most dreadful of seasons, with so much rain and so little sunlight, I've been quite impressed with two *modern* disease-resistant varieties - Rajka and Honeycrisp. They have both produced clean disease-free high quality apples this autumn for us, when many of the old classics have faltered. Of course as well as being disease-resistant they are also quite rare, which as FB points out gives them an important head-start over the latent pests and diseases, but I thought it was worth mentioning that disease-resistance is not confined to 200-year old classic varieties, and modern ones might be more appealing to modern tastes.

[FB.]

I thought it was worth mentioning that disease-resistance is not confined to 200-year old classic varieties, and modern ones might be more appealing to modern tastes.

Oh I don't deny that some modern varieties are very disease resistant, hardy and tolerant of problems - it's just that a randomly chosen "modern" variety, in my experience, is less likely to do well for an amateur than a randomly chosen "old" "rare" variety.

Each grower has to strike a balance of many things, such as:
1. Taste.
2. Yield.
3. Disease resistance.
4. Pest resistance.
5. Tolerance of certain soils/climates.
6. Whether or not to spray.
7. Whether or not to fertiise ior irrigate ("fertigate").
8. The size of the tree required.
9. The amount of time they are prepared to dedicate.
10. The ability of the tree to cope with being neglected once the original excitement has worn off (as per our MM106 failure-to-thrive-in-community-orchard discussion the other day).

I particularly don't like the modern obsession with monogenic resistance against fungal pathogens (e.g. Vf scab resistance gene), since a single gene is less likely to show long-lasting resistance than polygenic resistance based on several minor genes working together.

I like - and grow - the modern varieties Discovery, Jupiter and Winter Gem.
Discovery is well-known for its polygenic, high-level disease resistance.

Unfortunately, Discovery is rather prone to codling moth maggots, apple sawfly maggots and wasps munching through the apples, is also prone to bitter pit and scald, and rather susceptible to woolly aphid.
Pest damage of the fruit is a problem with most early-ripening eaters, and is not at all unique to Discovery.

Most "new" varieties, being a new genetic combination, will show acceptable disease resistance.
However, they soon come under attack from their diseased ancestors, which, having half of their genes from each parent, means that the diseases of (say) Cox are already half-way there to breaking the resistance of any Cox offspring.
I found this with Winston. I trialled it based on claims of very strong disease resistance. Initially it was very disease-resistant, but after a few seasons it "lost" its resistance and the fruits begun to be ruined by scab. I no longer have the Winston.
Being a reputed Cox x Worcester offspring, both of Winston's parents have had their scab resistance defeated and it was just a matter of time before either Cox's or Worcester's scab strains managed to make the jump to the next generation.

Also, I have a similar experience with other "modern" disease-resistant varieties bred from common parents (e.g. bred from Cox); initially very resistant (as expected), but gradually seemed to be less resistant as time went on.


I've often explained it in a simplified way, like this:

Cox has scab resistance genes A and B.

Worcester has scab resistance genes C and D.

Localised strains of scab have, over many years of extensive growing, managed to defeat the AB resistance of Cox, while other strains have managed to defeat the CD resistance of Worcester.
However, Worcester remains resistant to the AB-defeating Cox strains, while Cox remains resistant to the CD-defeating Worcester strains.

When we cross Cox and Worcester to get Winston, we end up with resistance genes A from Cox and C from Worcester. Winston = AC.
Therefore, the "A" blocks the CD-defeating Worcester strains of disease, while the "C" blocks the AB-defeating Cox strains of disease.

However, the AB-defeating strains of disease only have to defeat the "C" to become ABC-defeating strains which will break Winston's resistance; just one mutation required.
Similarly, the CD-defeating strains only have to break the "A" to become ACD-defeating strains and also overcome Winston's resistance.

However, if we introduce an unrelated and uncommon variety in the UK (and triploid as a bonus - say Belle de Boskoop) then Boskoop may well have different disease-resistance genes - say E,F,G (three genes because it's triploid).
Thus while it only takes one mutation for the disease strains of Cox (AB) or Worcester (CD) to break Winston's (AC) resistance, it takes three simultaneous mutations for the AB-defeating or CD-defeating disease strains to defeat all three of Boskoop's E,F and G resistance mechanisms.

So while "modern" varieties may show initially impressive disease resistance, I am not convinced that it will be as strong or long-lasting as a rare old variety - especially if that variety is triploid.

I do appreciate that there is some genetic randomness, so some offspring will be lucky and get more (or better) disease resistance genes than others.

[orangepippin]

I agree that modern disease resistance techniques have not really been proven over the long-term. The parentage of Rajka ultimately runs back to James Grieve and Golden Delicious (more the former I would say) which of course means it is related to most other modern varieties (as pointed out by the Diversity article).

However the parentage of Honeycrisp is very unusual, it is essentially Northern Spy, a 19th century US variety, and an unknown other parent. Apparently the University of Minnesota which developed Honeycrisp in the 1960s lost the records of the parentage, but subsequent genetic testing found it was not related to any other varieties they had been working with. My guess is that Honeycrisp will prove to have long-lasting scab-resistance which will be the equal of any of the older varieties, and for now it also has the bonus of being un-related to almost anything usually grown in UK gardens.

[mikedigitales]

I'll have a good read on all of those suggestions today, picked up some kind of bug so lots of reading time today. I guess the best idea is obviously to try to pick the varieties that appeal to me, but also to try to match up the flowering groups? Without relying on there being any pollinators nearby, I need to make sure my three trees will pollinate each other to get the best yields?

Keeper nursery one that you would reccomend FB? I've also been looking on the Blackmoors website, any problems from them recently?

Many thanks (again )

[FB.]

I'll have a good read on all of those suggestions today, picked up some kind of bug so lots of reading time today. I guess the best idea is obviously to try to pick the varieties that appeal to me, but also to try to match up the flowering groups? Without relying on there being any pollinators nearby, I need to make sure my three trees will pollinate each other to get the best yields?

Keeper nursery one that you would reccomend FB? I've also been looking on the Blackmoors website, any problems from them recently?

Many thanks (again )

If there are no apple trees nearby, it may be a sign that the soil is not right for them - all the more reason to take precautious and perhaps not set your expectations too high.

With a handful of varieties there will be some overlap in flowering; they don't flower for just one day.
Usually the tree opens about one-tenth of its flowers each day, over about a week and a half.
The flowers remain viable for about four days, so somewhere in the middle of the flowering period is when the most flowers are open.

If we take two varieties with pollination groups a long way apart e.g. Beauty of Bath is group C and Edward VII is group F.
The National Fruit Collection gives more detailed flowering information:
Search NFC

Beauty of Bath has 10% open around 02nd May in an average year.
Peak flowering is around 8th May.
The last 10% of BoB's flowers are open around 16th May.

Edward VII has 10% open around 14th May in an average year.
Peak flowering is around 21st May.
The last 10% of Ed's flowers are open around 29th May.

So you can see that in an average year, there would be a few days overlap (a few days either side of 15th May) even between varieties which have flowering times a long way apart.

So while it is best to have varieties with flowering times in adjacent groups, there can still be some pollination from varieties in other groups.
I would recommend having slightly different flowering times (e.g. one group C, one group D and one group E) in the hope that bad weather at peak flowering time doesn't affect all your trees. It would be better to not have the triploid as the first to flower in order to avoid it wasting its first flowers when no suitable pollinator is flowering.

However, variations in local climate can cause the pollination group to change, due to "winter chill" requirements being different for each variety and the way the local micro-climate and the variety interact.
In my case, James Grieve was usually group A rather than Group C.
Tydeman's Orange and D'Arcy Spice are usually group C rather than group D.
Spartan and Fiesta are usually group E rather than group D.
I have noted that Bountiful, Pinova and Jumbo have shown very long flowering periods for me - tending to open about 1/20th of the flowers each day, for about 20 days - i.e. half as many flowers at a time, but for twice as long. However, note that Jumbo is triploid and there have been some recent suspicions that Pinova has a genetic abnormality too - so neither will be reliable pollinators.

Also note that triploids are considered ineffective pollinators. This is not entriely true.
When they try to divide their cells to produce pollen, the odd number (51) of chromosomes doesn't split equally into two or four, so the pollen grains get random numbers of chromosomes.
Most pollen grains are therefore genetic abnormalities and not viable.
But most triploids - by pure "luck of the draw" - produce maybe 10% of pollen grains with normal, or near-normal chromosomes numbers, and these pollen grains are capable of fertilising other trees.
However, as you can imagine, with only about 10% of pollen from a triploid being viable it is much less effective than a variety which has 90% of its pollen viable (pollen viability does vary from one variety to another - even some diploids don't produce much good pollen).

Pollination - and the quality of fruit produced - will also be affected by inbreeding. If you plant two varieties related to each other (e.g. Cox and Bountiful), there's a good chance that pollination between the two will only be half normal. In some cases (e.g. Cox and its offspring Kidd's Orange Red) pollination between related varieties can be almost zero.
There is strong evidence that self-pollinated, or inbred, or other genetically-defective pips encourage bitter pit in the fruit.

As for nurseries to buy from....

M26's and M9's from Keepers or Blackmoor are good. No objections to buying trees on those rootstocks from those nurseries.
You may want to buy two-year-old's to speed up development - and their extra size compared to one-year maidens will help them withstand the "shock" of the move.

Not that all rootstocks from all nurseries are good; some nurseries apper to have especially nasty crown rot strains which are well-adapted to attack a certain rootstock. Young trees often become contaminated at the nursery and come with the tree.
The disease spends the next few years slowly destroying the roots; the tree often showing only subtle symptoms of problems and just as it comes into full cropping at age 5-7, it then collapses and dies from root rot.
I recently posted the following of a several-year-old MM106; crown rot, which has cost me £100's, maybe £1000's in lost trees over the years - especially stock connected to one or two nurseries in particular:

[DuncanM]

FB,

2 questions please, 1st of which I suspect is best answered in a PM rather than this forum unless you feel OK to name them (which I'm guessing you don't).

1) Which are the nurseries you've had problems (disease) wise? I will be buying a lot more apple trees than I first imagined for my newly acquired allotment. I know Blackmoor is a respected one I just want to make sure I stay away from the ones you've had bad experiences with

2) The trees I've received have 12-18 inches of the rootstock before the graft. Which is a lot longer than I expected. Am I OK to bury a lot of this (will it subsequently root)? so that the branching part of the tree is lower for a trellis/espalier training.

thanks

[FB.]

FB,

2 questions please, 1st of which I suspect is best answered in a PM rather than this forum unless you feel OK to name them (which I'm guessing you don't).

1) Which are the nurseries you've had problems (disease) wise? I will be buying a lot more apple trees than I first imagined for my newly acquired allotment. I know Blackmoor is a respected one I just want to make sure I stay away from the ones you've had bad experiences with

2) The trees I've received have 12-18 inches of the rootstock before the graft. Which is a lot longer than I expected. Am I OK to bury a lot of this (will it subsequently root)? so that the branching part of the tree is lower for a trellis/espalier training.

thanks

For legal reasons I'd be best not to go into detail about which nurseries I have been disappointed with or why.
Some nurseries have "issues" with certain variety-specific or rootstock-specific diseases. It's not as simple as "don't buy from xxxx nursery".

I will say, though, that Keepers always seem to provide larger-than-average, strong, healthy, quick-to-establish specimens which I think are worth every penny.

However, no matter how good the nursery you buy from, there will be a few trees fail to establish for one reason or another.
I once bought a lot of trees from mostly two nurseries - almost all have now died from crown rot. Unfortunately, since crown rot takes 2-5 years to show itself and kill the tree, no "guarantee" is really worth much.

As for your high-grafted trees - yes, you can plant them deeper and the rootstock stem will send out more roots from the buried stem. Some people actually recommend this with M26 to ensure deep, well-anchored root systems.
Deacons on the Isle of Wight tend to graft quite high. I have purchased a fair number of apples from Deacons in the past but do not expect to ever buy from them again.
That said; I would not be overly concerned about what I assume are some M26's you've just received from them; M26 is fairly disease-resistant.

If the trees are weak-growing varieties, a high graft can actually boost their vigour and allow them to keep up with their normal-growth-rate companions. Only a few hours ago I was discussing this phenomenon with Mr.Orangepippin via email.

[mikedigitales]

I think three trees is still my plan, maybe with the addition of a stepover in a year or two. After a fair bit of reading and scribbling in my gardening notebook I've definitely narrowed it down a bit FB.

Cooker wise i'm thinking Lord Derby or maybe Annie Elizabeth on M26. Eater maybe Winter Gem, Jupiter or Falstaff on M26/M9. Although not on your suggestions list I spotted Sunset which I read might be good?

[orangepippin]

Sunset is a good reliable Cox alternative, easy to grow, nice flavour.

[FB.]

I think three trees is still my plan, maybe with the addition of a stepover in a year or two. After a fair bit of reading and scribbling in my gardening notebook I've definitely narrowed it down a bit FB.

Cooker wise i'm thinking Lord Derby or maybe Annie Elizabeth on M26. Eater maybe Winter Gem, Jupiter or Falstaff on M26/M9. Although not on your suggestions list I spotted Sunset which I read might be good?

The list I gave was just a starting point - I'm sure there are dozens, maybe hundreds, of varieties out there that would do well for you. I suspect that some on the list I gave will not do well; funny things happen at times. The shortlist simply tips the odds in your favour but does not offer a 100% guarantee of success - all the more reason to have some variety.

Personally I would not grow Sunset in a heavy soil. Heavy soils and notably acidic soils (often heavy and acid go together) tend to encourage canker - and there have been reports of canker problems with Sunset.
Even though some growers have had canker problems with Sunset, that doesn't necessarily mean that every grower will have problems; there will be some element of luck and some variation due to local soils and climates.