I'm conteplating the purchase of an apple tree, but from the research that I'm doing, it appears that I need two trees (preferablely different varieties) to cross polinate. With the success I've had using GA3 to pollinate my tangelo tree, I was wondering if I could do the same for apple trees. Does anyone happen to know?

Thanks,
Phillip

It is possible, and you meant to have fruit set, rather than pollination.

So what cultivar do you have? In a jiffy, I can send you dormant scionwood of apple cultivar that you can graft to provide the pollens for pollination for next year. I can get you low chill types but depends on what you have. I may have something that could be a good pollenizer.

It depends where you grow them. I know that the Scarlet sentinel is only marginally better than the taste of soft cardboard in our area. But the Macintosh types are usually good enough. The Macintosh types are usually pollen sterile.

Most of the columnar apples are high chill though, and I wouldn't know if they will be suited for your area.

If I were you, I'd get the ultradwarf golden dorsett from Home Depot. It is excellent bearer, low chill type and taste great. That and Anna apple should be good in your area. The Ultradwarf is small compact tree that you can train or prune to shape. That's one advantage of the ultradwarf apples over citruses is that practically, you can bend them or shape them into tighter areas to suit your needs.

Citrus is not the only plants I grow. I have quite a diversified fruit portfolio.

Phillip, that's good for you!

The Golden Dorsett is self fertile, at least in my yard. It is the very first one to bloom and the next one will be about 2-3 weeks after that, and it sets plenty of fruits, so it is self-fertile. Being self-fruitful, it is a good pollenizers to others, only if the bloom time overlaps.

And a big bonus about ultradwarf apples is that they tend to tolerate fireblight much better than the standard or semi-dwarf types. I have a productive golden dorsett in a 5-gallon pot, and so planting it in wine barrel should give you even more fruits.

Joe

I have some ultradwarfing rootstock, the Russian types, bought from RainTree last year. I would have assembled one for you, but the rootstocks are not performing well inground, but I know they will do well in wine barrels.

Apples on M-111 will only let you dwarf it to 85% of standard, that is still a big one for a wine barrel type, but then again, these are apples, and certainly you can train them your way even in wine barrels. But in my opinion, forget these apples on M-111, they are a lot of pruning work and could take a lot of time to be productive.

If you are not in a hurry, you can order the EMLA 27 dwarfing rootstock from Raintree, these are well suited for container growing: http://www.raintreenursery.com/catalog/productdetails.cfm?productid=R020

Then next year, send me PM and I will send you apple scionwood just for the price of postage. You need to establish the rootstock in wine barrel first before you graft unto them. You will be rewarded with fantastic looking apples with a maximum height of 6 ft.

I still rate Fuji as one of the best apples there is and it is a low chill variety.

My current favorite apple is Honey Crisp. I have no idea if Honey Crisp is low chill or not. They cost more in the store than all other varieties. I cannot stand an apple that is not firm and crisp when you bite into it. - Millet.

I'm expecting a decent crop of my honey crisp this year. It was grafted last year and it is so vigorous. I topworked the honey crisp on top of Fuji. Fuji are also very good. My only complain about Fuji is that it is almost pure sweetness with no acid and wanted my fresh apple to have at least some tartness into them. I still have half of my apple canopy consists of Fuji. Fuji is susceptible to fireblight, but with a mature tree, it is quite easy to control via pruning, and application of Kocide 3000 on the open blooms.

Honey Crisp is being grown by people at the Bay Area and bears reliably, so it must be low chill. It has also some fireblight tolerance, so much the better.

Here's from my database:
Honeycrisp
Best flavored, really hardy apple. Crispy with a honey after taste. Large red fruits are crisp, juicy and sweet. Great keeper. Moderate disease resistance. Mid season bloom; Pollen-sterile; pollinated by most varieties EXCEPT Gravesntein, Bramley's seedling. From Minnesota. An improved Jonathan dessert type apple, with less acid, scab immunity, and resistance to fire blight, mildew and cedar rust. Very productive. Estimated 450-600 chilling hours. Zone 3-9.

Well based on everyone's recommendations, I went to place an order with Raintree for their Beni Shogun Fuji apple on EMLA 27 rootstock which is shown in their 2008 catalog. I was also going to order a couple of EMLA 27 for a future Golden Dorsett. However, with my luck being the way it is, they don't appear to have any more of their Fuji's on EMLA 27 and only have them on EMLA 26. Joe do you know how EMLA 26 will fare in a half wine barrel?

Also looked into the Honeycrisp, but it appears to need more chill hours than what we have to offer locally. I'm officially in Zone 10 according to Gardenweb's zipcode tool, but I suspect that I'm more like a Zone 9 based on the amount of ice I have on my windshield every morning. I'm up against a mountain that shelters my area from the heat that the rest of the city gets.

Thanks for everyone's recommendations!! Now on to my tomato hunt. I bought Parks Whopper and Lemonboy tomatoes yesterday. I'm thinking about a super beefsteak and sugary tomatoes now.

Phillip