Phoenix Tropicals Gardening

[Troys123]

These are in full sun no shade 106 degrees so far and no sign of damage dug these up in jan from a farm in tolleson. How soon can I graft these or when will seedling apples produce? What should I graft onto these that are low chill. The parent seems to be a golden dorsett/ enscheimer around 15ft tall. I planted these in february

[ajbcirc]

You can consider bud grafting after your seedling has a trunk girth of about 6mm or so. The key thing is finding scion wood 6mm or smaller, so I would suggest waiting until your rootstock is over 6mm.

By itself, your seedling will taken 5 years to start producing fruit. The apple is unlikely to produce fruit similar to its parent (usually it's worse) -- which isn't all that bad since Dorsetts and Ein Scheimers produce such mediocre fruit in Arizona (due to the fact that they ripen in the heat of June). Since June has kinda started out with a whimper, I'm looking for a tasty crop this year.

Apples are kinda funny. Recent papers (and anecdotal experience) shows that chill hours aren't as important to them as it is for stonefruit like peaches and apricots. One guy in Zone 9 in Riverside, who goes by the name Applenut on the gardening forums (Kevin Hauser), has something like 60 different varieties producing on his farm, including many varieties that supposedly have high chill requirements. That being said, the dessert varieties that seem to do the best here and hold in storage (and not go bad within days like Dorsett) are Pink Lady, Gala, and Fuji.