Planting fruit trees

[victor3ranger]

I am thinking about planting fruit trees on our farm, mainly pears, appercots, and plumbs.

The only problem is the farm is a long ways away so watering them isn't going to be easy to make sure they get established.

Have any of you had any luck with getting them to grow in areas that go thru drought almost every year?

[wtnhunt]

Where are you at? Pears may be ok depending on your climate. Deer do love pears, we had pretty good luck with Kieffer and Bartlett pears through some pretty dry weather, unfortunately they did not do real well when we had excessively wet weather in the spring and had fireblight hit several trees one year. Those trees were supposed to be blight resistant, unfortunately for us that was not the case and I had to dig them up and burn them.

No experience with apricots or plumbs.

[victor3ranger]

I am in Oklahoma.

We have a native pear tree in my grand dads back yard that we would pick all the pears off the ground to feed the deer this year, they went nuts over them.

The main thing I see me having to overcome is getting the trees established the first year, no way to water them on a regular basis since I am so far awsy from the property.

Thought about making some sort of slow drip setup with a soaker hose and some 55 gallon drums but not sure yet. Maybe even use some of theose water polymer stuff to mix into the soil when I plant them to help hold the moisture.

[wtnhunt]

I am in Oklahoma.

We have a native pear tree in my grand dads back yard that we would pick all the pears off the ground to feed the deer this year, they went nuts over them.

Yep, they sure will. One of the biggest bucks I have ever seen around here used to come up and eat pears in our yard. They seem to especially like them when they just start to get a little past ripe. Miss having the pear trees. Plan to get some planted here again when we finish our house and landscape our yard.

I did have a few planted in our back field that I watered at time of planting and they did fine without taking water to them after planting, that is until the deer killed them. Be sure to cage all the trees you plant, deer will rub them.

Maybe Todd(dogdoc) will chime in here on how those trees will do in Oklahoma. He has planted trees on his property. Your summertimes are probably a lot like ours, but we do have access to water our trees though.

[victor3ranger]

I found a place to buy native pear seedlings on line 10/$29.00 that are self germinating.

My plan at least in my head is to see if I can get apricot, pear, and plum trees to grow, if so, that make it so I have fruit hitting the ground from June-late Nov.

My whole thinking on this is IF I can get them established and grown it will really cut down on the feed bill I have trying to keep all these feeders going. Plus, good to eat for me too:D. I will for sure cage them so keep the deer from rubbing them to death or eating the tree itself.

My main food plot will be right next to my mini orchard if I can get this going.

[LETMGROW]

Watering trees?

I'd check with a nursery near where you intend to plant your trees to see if they know anyone who has planted and is watering trees nearby. Perhaps you could hire that person to oversee your trees and keep them watered if necessary.

Just an idea.

Lynn

[John]

You can get a big(240gal) water tank used on craigslist for under 100$ and get a gravity fed drip irrigation system for under 50$ if you only have a few trees to water. for 150$ you can have a pretty good system. It will take some work but if you mulch and can get out to the trees every so often they will have a much better chance than plant and pray. I am not associated with these websites I just want to show you what is out there.

http://greenville.craigslist.org/grd/2118651772.html

http://www.irrigationdirect.com/irrigation-products-and-supplies/drip-irrigation/drip-irrigation-kits/gravity-feed-kits/gravity-feed-drip-irrigation-kit-for-vegetable-garden

[victor3ranger]

I have a cousin who might help me out from time to time watering the trees. What sucks is the fact that our water well went down so we have to drill a new one.

We have a huge water storage tank that is probably around 10,000 gallons but it will take a bull dozer to move it close enough to use it, but again, we still need to get a well drilled to put water in it.

Hmmmm, this is going to really take some planning.:cowboy:

[dbHunterNY]

thinking about doing some pear and apple tree here come spring too.