Expanding my small orchard

[CrazyEd]

Hi All,
I am new to this board but lately I've been getting more and more into fruit trees and I found this resource so I figured i'd say hi and introduce myself and talk about my orchard project. My family owns a 160 acre farm in Central Wisconsin (USA). My ancestors settled there many years ago. There are 3 old apple trees on the original farm however they are on a parcel we do not own anymore so I have not seen them in many years. However once I learn how to graft I will speak with the land owner and try to get some scion wood from those old trees if they are still alive.

Anyways, I have started my own orchard on land that we do control. I started off kind of slow but as my interest has grown so has the number of trees.

In 2010 I started with 2 trees from Cummin's Nursery in Ithaca New York. Family owned business that grows top quality trees and offers excellent customer service.
(1) Enterprise B.118
(1) Goldrush MM.111

Something happened to the Enterprise during summer and it died. The Goldrush is doing excellent.

In 2011 I added 5 more trees from Cummin's Nursery.
(1) Goldrush B.118
(2) Pristine MM.111
(2) Liberty MM.111

2012 my order is already placed with Cummin's and I can't wait to get these trees in the ground.
(5) Wolf River B.118
(5) Black Oxford B.118
(5) Honeycrisp B.118
(5) Enterprise B.118
(3) Goldrush B.118
(1) Sweet 16 B.118
(1) Roxbury Russett B.118

I also started a mini project in Jan 2011. I gathered some seeds from a local apple tree and grew about 20 apples from seed. A friend of mine also sent me 20 pear seeds from Virginia, also started these from seed. Some of theses trees are 2' tall now. I plan to put them on my farm and see if they produce anything in 10 years otherwise I will hopefully graft to them someday. I've also got 15 Zumi Crabapples and 15 Magenta Crabapples to help with pollination and feed the wildlife.

The main challenges I face is my soil is very sandy so each tree gets 2 bags of manure and 1 bag of top soil. We have very high deer densities so everything must be caged or some trees are using tree tubes. The climate can also be brutally cold in the winter, while we are zone 4 some friends have told me to pretend i'm zone 3, I need very hardy trees. We also have cedar trees on our farm so I've seen some cedar rust on a few trees however it was very light. Since I am a novice I did try to pick disease resistant trees where possible.

So, that's my story. I love to learn about apple trees so if you have any feedback i'd love to hear it.
Cheers
-Ed

[OrangePippin-Scott]

I'm jealous that you've got plenty of land to build up that orchard with with CrazyEd! If you haven't already, please consider adding those trees to our Tree Registry and track their progress. http://www.orangepippin.com/trees.aspx.