Dear all, I have sucessfully grow some fuji apple in Malaysia (hot tropical climate) from seeds and now they are about 1.5 to 2 feet in height. They seems to be healthy with a lot of leaves, dark green in color. Should I plant another type of apple (which is locally available in supermarket) for a successfull fruiting?. Advise is badly needed. Djbon Sabah, malaysia
Are you in the mountains at a high elevation? Apples need a certain amount of chill hours (temperature below 45 degrees F. and above 32 Degrees F.) which you would not get at low elevation tropics to flower and fruit properly. I have read that stripping leaves from the trees can help induce flowering but this would be at higher elevations most likely in the sub-tropics. Your apple trees may not be true to type if you grew them from seed. This would mean that they may produce a differnt type of fruit. I'm not sure how long it takes from an apple from seed to begin flowering and producing fruit and this would be a difficult question to answer in your unusual situation.
Howdy Djbon, I take it that KK is Kota Kinabalu. That being the case, then you should take Dylan's advice. Treat your tree as an ornamental. KK will not have sufficient cold to satisfy the cold requirements of Fuji. There are some varieties that require very little winter chill. Your federal Jabatan Pertanian did some work on apples on Cameron Highlands way back in the 60's or 70's. Perhaps you can get hold of that research reports and perhaps some information from staff of that department. I believe your neighbour to the south is growing apples. I'm sorry I don't know which part of Indonesia. Peace Thean
Thanks for the reply, guys. Maybe I can start spraying the trees with icy water late in the evening to simulate the cold weather.. ;) Anyway, do I have to plant another species of apple for pollination?. I have read somewhere that they won't pollinate themself (same species) and requires other type of apples pollen for a sucessfull fruiting, am I right?. Thean, we do have apples orchard back in Sarawak (Bekalalan to be exact) which have shown some fruits for the last few season. But they are located high up along the Crocker Range of Borneo. It quite cold though due to the heights. By the way, I also managed to plant some "red globe" grapes which are quite promising (about 4 to 6 inch in height now). Crossing my fingers and hoping for the best that these vines will somehow bear some clusters of fruits in years to come :) Any advise on fertilizer (for both crops)?
The two critical points already made that these seedlings are not 'Fuji' and that you must have a variety that has low chilling requirements to get continued growth and fruiting in a warm winter climate will determine how this goes. Apple trees vary widely from seed so your seedlings might have quite different fruit characteristics than 'Fuji'. If no other apple trees are being grown under your conditions there, with the nearest orchards being located in a much higher and colder area than you probably won't be able to keep your seedlings going very well past the first year or so.
Here are the pictures of my apple and grape. Hopefully it will grow and bear some fruit. Is it growing nicely based on these pictures?
With temperate fruits such as these you need a climate that meets their chilling requirements. Cold climate plants have an annual dormancy that must occur before continued growth over a period of years is possible. New young plants less than a year old or less than a year on the warm climate site haven't gotten to the point yet where this becomes an issue. If your climate does not provide the required number of hours below 40F each year then you will have to put your plants in cold storage each year to keep them happy. Hardly seems worth the expense and bother, surely there is a large range of locally suitable fruits you can grow instead.
djbon: Your apple tree will most likely bear sour duds; but that doesn't mean you shouldn't keep experimenting. The prognosis for it's early demise are premature, as it may grow just fine. However, as a seedling it may take as long as 10 years in even the best of cold climates to start bearing. Strategies for getting it to fruit include stripping all the leaves off and discontinuing irrigation for a period of several weeks. This coupled with training the branches to horizontal may be all the help it needs. You could order scionwood and graft another variety onto it, but if you're going to all that trouble, you might as well order a whole tree already on a dwarfing rootstock that will bear excellent fruit the next year instead of 10 years. For varieties, I would recommend Wealthy, Rome Beauty, Williams' Pride, White Winter Pearmain, Terry Winter, or the two standards Anna and Dorsett Golden. All these have shown good results in tropic climates. Ignore the people that tell you that you can't grow apples there. If I had listened to them I would have never enjoyed all that I do now. Applenut
Dear Applenut, Thanks man. I can't seems to outsource the apples that you mentioned. Can't really trust those being sold at nurseries. Its very difficult to buy different varieties of apples in supermarket, let alone buying rootstock here in my hometown. djbon
Well see, here's an opportunity for you to corner the market! Import those varieties, start your own nursery, and bring apple culture to your corner of the world! Or, you can give one from your local nursery a try. It will most likely be Anna or Dorsett Golden. Applenut
Southern California is not a tropical climate. Either the chilling requirement of each variety is met by a location or it isn't. Nights below 40F are not rare in California whereas in many tropical locations 50F can be a severe cold snap.
Ron: Thanks for the comment, but I realize Southern California is not a Tropical Climate; I am basing it on my father's experience in central Mexico where it never drops below 55 degrees. I am also working with apple growers in coastal Nigeria, Rwanda, and Uganda. Granted the climate is not New England or the PNW, but apples can be grown in a much wider area than previously thought, and the quality is almost always better than they can get from the store. Applenut
Are they using the stripping of the leaves etc. there (Mexico etc.) and getting orchard level production, or some other method to get around chilling requirements? Temperature based limitations of plants tend to be pretty inflexible.
Ron: No, dad doesn't do anything there in Mexico. I've seen all kinds of treatments from spraying Dormex (southern Texas) to stripping leaves (Indonesia) to shutting the water off during dry season (Thailand). But dad's favorites are Spitzenburg, Virginia Winesap, Newtown Pippin, and Delicious (Hawkeye), all of which fruit fine there and here. The chilling hour theory has all kinds of holes in it and still is not fully understood. There are different models but all of them are not consistant and are still unpredictable. I take in case winter of 1995-96 where an El Nino year gave us an almost tropical winter with heavy rains. The San Juaquin valley stonefruit orchards were predicting disaster from lack of chill, but instead had record crops. I only get 350 chilling hours and yet grow any apple I try (100 varieties at present). The quality on some is terrible; Northern Spy is just awful but fruits heavily (isn't that a fact of life that the worst fruits are the most productive?). The behavior is different than in a cold climate, with delayed and extended bloom periods, but they do set fruit buds and eventually bloom and fruit. There are only a few varieties I'd try growing commercially here, but for the home gardener, if the apple can take our searing heat, you can ignore the chilling hour rating. By the way, unfortunately this does not apply to stonefruits; check the chilling hour rating carefully or you'll just get a shade tree. Applenut
Hi Applenut, I see you work with apple farmers in Uganda. I work with grapegrowers who are desperately looking for Dormex in Uganda. Is there someone that may be able to help us finding Dormex in Uganda?
Philip: Sorry, I don't; Dormex is nasty stuff and isn't cheap also, and so we try to utilize varieties and techniques that make the trees fruit without it. applenut