GC-CD-Variety Selection
Tips for choosing varieties and rootstocks for retail sales for garden centers and conservation districts.
If you are selling fruit trees direct to the public, then choosing what to sell can be a challenge.
Garden centers and retail nurseries, as well as conservation districts, want to “sell out” every year if possible. Proper variety selection is the key. Having conceived and operated Grandpa’s Orchard® online nursery for years, I have learned many lessons. I no longer run it but my daughter does, and she still asks for advice!
There are hundreds of varieties of fruit trees available to choose from, but unless you have a specific request from a customer, then you have to predict their preferences. So, knowing your customer is the first step. They fall into a few categories.
Newbie! The newbie is the potential backyard orchardist or gardener that really doesn’t have a clue what they want or how to grow a fruit tree once they buy one. They are the ones that need a lot of hand-holding.
Experienced Gardener! They used to be newbies years ago, but they have been gardening for many years and have the most experience with plants and generally will be able to grow fruit trees successfully.
Backyard Orchardist! These are more than just experienced gardeners, they have a passion for fruit growing and most have good experience. They don’t need much hand-holding and they usually know pretty much what they want. These are good people to have as customers and if you ask them they can often educate you and give you good ideas of what you should be buying and offering. Often they keep up with the fruit growing industry for techniques and developments.
The Fanatic! Fanatics may only want to grow heirlooms or produce apples or pears or other fruits for hard cider or other reasons. They usually are looking for specific varieties on specific rootstocks which you often cannot sell to more “normal” customers. You most likely will be better off sending the fanatics to the online nurseries that cater to their market category.
Variety Selection: Until you have a few years of experience and records, then stick with proven varieties of apples and pears and stone fruits. These are older strains with recognizable variety names in the community or produce aisle. If you have old-timers you know, ask them for recommendations that seem to have been popular in your community.
Some recommendations for starters:
Apples--- Gala, Honeycrisp, Golden Delicious, Red Delicious, Fuji, Granny Smith, local favorites.
Apples (disease resistant strains)--- Liberty, Enterprise, Pristine, Goldrush, CrimsonCrisp
Pears--- Bartlett, Bosc, Flemish Beauty (not fire-blight resistant though) or newer fire-blight resistant varieties like Sunrise, Harrow Crisp™, Harrow Sweet™
Cherry--- Montmorency tart cherry, BlackGold® sweet cherry, Rainer Blush cherry, Bing
Peach--- Reliance, Redhaven, Contender, Elberta, Flamin’Fury PF24C-Cold Hardy
Nectarine--- Fantasia
Apricot--- Goldcot, Chinese, Moorpark, any “Harrow” variety
Plum-Japanese type--- Shiro, Elephant Heart, Santa Rosa
Plum-Prune-European type--- Stanley, Italian, President
Rootstock selection:
Apples--- unless you have a community that has predominantly small yards, stick with semi-dwarf rootstocks like EMLA 7 and EMLA 111. For more dwarf apple trees, EMLA 26, BUD 9, M9 or any other fully dwarf root will work well.
Pear--- OHxF 87 or 97 are both equally good for the backyard.
Cherry--- For most cherry mazzard is the safe and easy choice. For a more expensive dwarf root then Gisela or Krymsk.
Peach, Nectarine--- you won’t usually get much choice. Most will usually either be lovell or bailey. Not much available in any dwarfing root.
Plum, Prune, Apricot--- Myrobalan if possible, but otherwise what is available. No dwarf roots are usually available.