I was being a bit flippant (as usual). But, I do have personal experience with two Honeycrisp/Bud9 plantings. The one you refer to, planted in 2006, yes, the Honeycrisp/Bud9 are not where they should be in terms of size and bushels/acre although I stopped collecting data some years ago. I am sure I over-cropped them in years 2-3. Let's say these trees were from Nursery A (see below), and initially they were some of the most beautiful red coloring Honeycrisp I have seen. More recently, the color seems to have diminished, even though the trees are certainly not over-fertilized or vigorous. They have also become rather biennial, probably a result of inconsistent crop load management on my part. (Crop load and apple scab management seem to be the two biggest apple production problems we face year-in/year-out in the East.) I should also mention McIntosh/Bud9 were also planted to compare to Honeycrisp; these have had no problem filling their space and out-yield Honeycrisp because of the larger canopy volume. (Bud 9 is a great rootstock for McIntosh!) Results of this mini-apple orchard systems trial were published in Fruit Notes: http://umassfruitnotes.com/v76n1/a4.pdf
Another Honeycrisp/Bud9 planting was in 2002, planted to super-spindle, trees 2 ft. apart, Nursery B. These grew very well, no problem getting them up to 10 ft., good consistent cropping (probably more carefully hand-thinned), but, the fruit was consistently very green. It was hard to get good red color on it even when the trees were young. Unfortunately I lost this planting to the freak October 2011 snowstorm. I guess my point is I think there is a lot of difference in Honeycrisp budwood, both in terms of fruit color and tree vigor. And 2 ft. is a good spacing for Honeycrisp/Bud9 because it forces you to grow a leader and not branches. Keys to success with Honeycrisp/Bud9? Plant larger trees from the start from a good nursery; plant 2-3 feet apart, 10-12 feet between rows; plant on a better site; plant with the graft union closer to the ground (2-3 inches) than what you might do with EMLA9; install trickle irrigation and fertilize adequately in 1st and 2d leaf; don't crop in 1st and 2nd leaf; focus on growing the leader up ASAP (no big side branches); use Bud9 where winter hardiness and fireblight resistance are a concern, otherwise, consider using EMLA 9. I don't think Bud9 suckers as bad as some EMLA9 clones, and like Tim says, the leaves are pretty... :-) On Fri, Oct 25, 2013 at 7:04 PM, Steven Bibula <sbib...@maine.rr.com> wrote: > Especially for Jon Clements, but others as well:**** > > ** ** > > Are your initial Honeycrisp/Bud 9 Tall Spindle trials, where you cropped > starting in 2nd leaf, agreeing with Mike’s experience? Looking at these > trials subsequently, what happened to production? I have a 1,000 tree > Honeycrisp/Bud 9 Tall Spindle planting planned for 2015 and this discussion > has taken a very interesting turn.**** > > ** ** > > I noticed this year that with my 2nd leaf Snowsweet Tall Spindle on Bud > 9, the trees that were fully cropped hardly grew (but produced huge fruit); > however, the trees that had no fruit (spotty pollination in southern Maine > with nearly continuous rain during bloom) also grew very little. Not one > Snowsweet is even close to the top wire, located ~8.5’. We did have four > periods of drought-induced stress this year, and the Bud 9 varieties were > clearly the most checked. I will have Uniram drip with fertigation for all > trees starting in 2014, and I anticipate that this will help ameliorate.** > ** > > ** ** > > Steven Bibula**** > > Plowshares Community Farm**** > > 236 Sebago Lake Road**** > > Gorham ME 04038**** > > 207.239.0442**** > > www.plowsharesmaine.com**** > > ** ** > > *From:* apple-crop-boun...@virtualorchard.net [mailto: > apple-crop-boun...@virtualorchard.net] *On Behalf Of *Mike Fargione > *Sent:* Friday, October 25, 2013 9:42 AM > *To:* jon.cleme...@umass.edu; Apple-crop discussion list > > *Subject:* Re: [apple-crop] M9-Nic29 winter hardiness**** > > ** ** > > Some growers in NY’s Hudson Valley prefer to plant Honeycrisp on B9 > because they feel these trees are less prone to biennial bearing and can be > cropped more heavily each year compared with Honeycrisp on M9. Our > experience is that planting Honeycrisp/B9 at higher density and not > cropping in years 1 & 2 can produce a very productive orchard.**** > > Mike**** > > **** > > *From:* apple-crop-boun...@virtualorchard.net [ > mailto:apple-crop-boun...@virtualorchard.net<apple-crop-boun...@virtualorchard.net>] > *On Behalf Of *Jon Clements > *Sent:* Thursday, October 24, 2013 6:26 PM > *To:* Apple-crop discussion list > *Subject:* Re: [apple-crop] M9-Nic29 winter hardiness**** > > **** > > Simple solution -- pre-order and plant them 2 ft. X 10 ft. Will make you, > and the nursery, happy...:-)**** > > **** > > Jon**** > > _______________________________________________ > apple-crop mailing list > apple-crop@virtualorchard.net > http://virtualorchard.net/mailman/listinfo/apple-crop > > -- Jon Clements aka 'Mr Honeycrisp' UMass Cold Spring Orchard 393 Sabin St. Belchertown, MA 01007 413-478-7219 umassfruit.com
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