Iowa,
My Honey Crisp on an unknown rootstock planted around 2008. It was a potted tree that was at least two years old at the time.
In 2013, it had two flower clusters and I had 3-4 apples for the first time.
In 2014, it had not a single flower.
In 2015, it had fruit buds everywhere. I tried to thin so many flowers off to prevent biennialing. I had over hundred apples. ( I have kept my tree small)
In 2016 going biennial, not one single flower.
This year, set lot of fruit buds. I took off many fruitbuds even before they bloomed to try prevent biennialing again.
I love the taste and texture of my HC. Growing in my cold zone, it is a wonderful apple. On some rootstocks, it takes a long time to produce. Worse, its biennial tendency drives me crazy.
Well, based on your and @IowaJerās experiences, I guess you can say Honeycrisp are consistently inconsistent! I imagine other folks have had similar experiences.
Heck, even an orchard owner who manages hundreds of trees who I talked to last year, said he was considering removing his HC because theyāre such a pain to grow well.
I suppose that may be a few reasons why they cost more than other apples. Huge demand, and finicky performance.
I must have a root-stock that falls into the āonce a decadeā category. As nice as the apple was, Iād for sure take the every other year thing - beats the heck out of every 10 years [quote=āsubdood_ky_z6b, post:102, topic:11507ā]
I suppose that may be a few reasons why they cost more than other apples. Huge demand, and finicky performance.
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And honestly there are probably many, many other choices that a backyard grower could select and be VERY happy with and not have the struggles that some of us do trying to get HC to crop.
Stillā¦, Iām optimistic that one year itāll just explode and never look back - giving me loads of nice apples for years and yearsā¦ (but then I also keep thinking the Cornhuskers will be relevant again someday soā¦ )
Well Tony, based on this post I went ahead and bought some powder today when I was in Omaha since Menardās, Home Depot, & Loweās shelves were all bare wherever the Sevin concentrate was supposed to be stocked.
Talked to an employee at Loweās and she said they have a shipment due in Thursday, and I think she said it was like 5,900 pounds worth or something like that.
Hated to see them and Mizzou leave the Big XII, there were some great old rivalries- KU-Mizzou, NU-OU, etc. Just doesnāt seem right that NU is a Big 10 team now.
Maybe they oughta give olā Tom Osborne a callā¦
Ah the good olā days. I canāt tell you how many games I went to down in Lincoln. All my kids were in on a lot of games too. When my daughter graduated and wanted to go to college, of course she wanted to go to Nebraska. Well, Iām like nope - we canāt pay out of state tuition. So she went to Iowa State. Day one she put up a Husker poster in her dorm room, and on parents day she called before we headed over and said āDonāt forget to bring my Husker Pom Poms & Coolerā Here weāre are sitting up in the student section surrounded by ISU students and their parents - - feeling like a fish out of water
Yep, there are so many JBs this year. They are after my Asian pears and apple fruits right now. The ones that were cracked by the hail. They smashed into my windshield on the way to work also.
I was talking to a guy today and he was saying the same thing about them hitting his windshield driving down the interstate.
I got most of my apples but ran out of Sevin before I was able to get my McIntosh tree, so Iāll try mixing up some powder tomorrow and see if I can make a dent.
I think weāll finish up with the JBās and then have to do battle with the grasshoppers, theyāre starting to show up here in small numbers already.
The McIntosh was a container tree planted in '91 and the Haralson was also a container tree planted in '94. So like 27 years on the Mac and 24 on the Haralson.
The Mac is a giant tree, the Haralson is maybe a 12ā tree.
[quote=āsubdood_ky_z6b, post:102, topic:11507ā]
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