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[yummersetter]

Now, this is from memory ( of reading, I wasn't there at the time), but the Victorians blamed a lot of canker and disease on deep roots, and recommended keeping the roots as close to the surface as possible. They cut off any tap root and put a stone under the centre of the tree to prevent it regrowing. The roots were then spread out close to the surface and earth mounded over them. Frequent advice was given in the Victorian equivalent to this forum, to lift and replant the fruit trees every couple of years to keep the roots close to the surface.
Now I'd imagine your trees, FB, in your dry situation, have to put their roots down deeply to survive and I wonder if that's connected with the canker difference? If I dig anywhere in my old orchard, there'll be apple roots within 6 inches of the surface and I put stones under many of the trees when I planted them in 1990. Canker is quite unusual here these days, none at all in the new orchard of 140 trees, 70 varieties.
By the way, the downside of growing Blenheim is the long, long wait for fruit - I planted a two-year-old tree and tasted my first apple ten years later. Twenty years from planting it's a large standard tree with enough apples to feed a village, but it would frustrate someone who's waiting for a crop from a cordon.

[Mikey]

Ok so if we lose laxtons how about hogs snout, and ashmead kernal

[Mikey]

How many fruit can you expect of a 2, 5, 10 year old cordon?

[yummersetter]

Hog's snout - I'll be interested to see if anyone has tried eating it. Its not on the variety list on orangepippin.com though Keepers will bud graft it for you. If you want obscure, Oaken Pin is unusually shaped and tastes great.

[FB.]

By the way, the downside of growing Blenheim is the long, long wait for fruit - I planted a two-year-old tree and tasted my first apple ten years later.

Blenheim or the other vigorous triploids are no problem for me to bring into early heavy cropping. The dry soil causes most varieties to produce lots of blossom. Blossom buds tend to form when sugar accumulates in the leaves and twigs - and a lack of water prevents the plant from moving the sugar from the shoots to the roots, so the tree forms fruit buds instead.
I suppose that's why dwarf rootstocks are considered more precocious: because the semi-incompatible graft means that sugars accumulate in the above-ground parts and induce the production of flower buds.

As a crazy example: I could graft a tip-bearer (say Irish Peach or Barnack Beauty) onto M25 rootstock in February 2014, grow it into a maiden whip during summer of 2014, and in spring 2015 - just a year after grafting - it would blossom along the sides of the upper half of the stem; a maiden whip on M25 fruiting in its second leaf!

[yummersetter]

How many fruit can you expect of a 2, 5, 10 year old cordon?

Just off to find a tape measure and a piece of string . .

[FB.]

How many fruit can you expect of a 2, 5, 10 year old cordon?

Depends how big it is at that age and whether it is a narrow cordon or a wide cordon.

Also depends on the variety.

You might get a bucket/carrier bag of apples from a 6ft (1.75m) length of stem which had plenty of well-developed side-spurring spreading 6-8 inches (15-20cm) either side of the trunk.

[FB.]

Lots of pictures of fully-loaded commercial apples ripening on the "tree" here:

The English Apple Man, informing consumers about how the apples they buy are grown, harvested and marketed

.

[FB.]

Now, this is from memory ( of reading, I wasn't there at the time), but the Victorians blamed a lot of canker and disease on deep roots, and recommended keeping the roots as close to the surface as possible. They cut off any tap root and put a stone under the centre of the tree to prevent it regrowing. The roots were then spread out close to the surface and earth mounded over them. Frequent advice was given in the Victorian equivalent to this forum, to lift and replant the fruit trees every couple of years to keep the roots close to the surface.
Now I'd imagine your trees, FB, in your dry situation, have to put their roots down deeply to survive and I wonder if that's connected with the canker difference? If I dig anywhere in my old orchard, there'll be apple roots within 6 inches of the surface and I put stones under many of the trees when I planted them in 1990. Canker is quite unusual here these days, none at all in the new orchard of 140 trees, 70 varieties.
By the way, the downside of growing Blenheim is the long, long wait for fruit - I planted a two-year-old tree and tasted my first apple ten years later. Twenty years from planting it's a large standard tree with enough apples to feed a village, but it would frustrate someone who's waiting for a crop from a cordon.

If I dug out one of my trees, the root system would be larger than the tree on top. There would be many large roots going both outwards and downwards.


I would guess several other possibilities as to why canker is different for me than for you:

1. The dry, infertile soil not being well-tolerated by some varieties.*
2. The pH (7.25) of the soil being too high for some varieties.
3. Someone is growing a commercial orchard/nursery trees of that variety within wind-drift and spores of highly-adapted, variety-specific canker are blowing on the wind - also our prevailing wind blows from the West - perhaps blowing your canker spores over this area!
4. The mild autumns leading trees to grow very late in the season and allowing canker more time to infect them (canker spores are most active in autumn but often go latent and don't show signs of infection until the following year).
5. The ever-present plague of woolly aphids carrying/spreading canker.

*
Triploids do well for me - their vigorous growth and lack of pip production may give them the edge in a nutrient-deficient soil, since pips are very nutrient-demanding.
The only triploid I didn't like was the modern-ish "Suntan" (a Cox offspring) which was annoyingly prone to mildew.

[orangepippin]

Some other triploids with Cox as one of the parents (like Suntan):
Holstein
Jupiter
Karmijn de Sonnaville

[Mikey]

Depends how big it is at that age and whether it is a narrow cordon or a wide cordon.

Also depends on the variety.

You might get a bucket/carrier bag of apples from a 6ft (1.75m) length of stem which had plenty of well-developed side-spurring spreading 6-8 inches (15-20cm) either side of the trunk.

I have a lot to learn. Those pictures where great, in my mind I was working on 15 to 20 per tree so a carrier bags has got to be double that at a guess. I should know better than to ask a how long is a piece of string question, its always tough to judge these things. I want a regular crop of 40 plus apples a month so I've been trying to work out the season run of the fruit varieties. What I don't know yet is whether my mix of fruit are compatible as many aren't self fertile.

I'll have a look at some varieties added but this is where I am date wise at the moment.

Gladstone
Tydemans early
Scrumptious
Bakers delicious
Prenglas
Sunset
Bardsley
Tower of clamis
Granges pearmain
Wyken pippin
Annie elizabeth
Hogs snout

I'm not sure yet if they are compatible in a line, but I'm really enjoying researching them. I'll have to go on a course before the end of the year to make sure I get them off to a good start.

[yummersetter]

You can usually find a secondhand book by Roy Genders called ' Planting Fruit Trees' very cheaply online. It was written in the 1950s and updated until the 1970s, its a good idea to search out a late edition. Its a good beginner's read - I find that the stated ripening dates are later than my experience and there's a lot of new research that has changed our understanding of apples - new triploids being identified through genetic exploration etc. but there's a lot of information there.

[Mikey]

Hog's snout - I'll be interested to see if anyone has tried eating it. Its not on the variety list on orangepippin.com though Keepers will bud graft it for you. If you want obscure, Oaken Pin is unusually shaped and tastes great.

I'm not after obscure perse more robust with welsh heritage. Hogs is a cooker which mellows to an eater. Good disease resistance, happy enough in the damp, and my only russet variety left. It keeps reasonably well, and I like the name!!

Anyone know anything about an early variety called margaret?

[veggiechicken]

What about Orleans Reinette as suggested by Yummersetter? OK its French, but I think I have one and its semi-russet and easier eating than Brownlees Russet.

[Mikey]

I haven't discounted anything yet vc, yummersetter has made a number of suggestions which are on my bit of paper next to me. I've started with about 3 suppliers and have been cross referencing mostly welsh varieties with a number of catalogues.

I keep updating my current list as I find something else I'd prefer. I've tried to stay away from a lot of the more popular varieties. However finding apples that work well with my local conditions will be the deciding factor, and the assistance and thoughts of you lot are very much appreciated.