skipmarcy
Veteran Member
My biggest problem here in TN for growing fruit trees is the RUST. There are WAY too many cedar trees and I haven't been able to spray enough to keep it off my fruit trees for 16 years now. For years early on I was diligent about spraying but it's almost impossible to keep rust from hitting your trees. I started spraying fungicides in early Feb. (Immunox) before the first buds even showed and kept up with it all season with fruit tree spray (Bonide) and would still get rust. My pears and apples get it the worst but the peaches and plums get it too. Some years are worse than others.
Our Jonathon apple has been the most dependable and productive, ours is a semi-dwarf, but it is strictly a cooking apple - we make applesauce every year from it. We have Gala, Honeycrisp, Fuji, and Yellow Delicious - each has only produced randomly and not much for eating - the few years we got fruit from these we just added it to the Jonathons to make applesauce.
Our peaches make it to fruit about 1 in 5 years around here, it's a matter of late frosts getting the blooms. We have Red Haven, Elberta, Georgia Belle, and Contender. Rust also hits these trees but not as severe as the apples.
Be very careful when planting - we supposedly bought all dwarf and semi-dwarf trees over the years but a few ended-up being full-sized trees - plan accordingly. I have a Honeycrisp and a Keifer pear that are HUGE and have to be pruned heavily every year.
Our Jonathon apple has been the most dependable and productive, ours is a semi-dwarf, but it is strictly a cooking apple - we make applesauce every year from it. We have Gala, Honeycrisp, Fuji, and Yellow Delicious - each has only produced randomly and not much for eating - the few years we got fruit from these we just added it to the Jonathons to make applesauce.
Our peaches make it to fruit about 1 in 5 years around here, it's a matter of late frosts getting the blooms. We have Red Haven, Elberta, Georgia Belle, and Contender. Rust also hits these trees but not as severe as the apples.
Be very careful when planting - we supposedly bought all dwarf and semi-dwarf trees over the years but a few ended-up being full-sized trees - plan accordingly. I have a Honeycrisp and a Keifer pear that are HUGE and have to be pruned heavily every year.