New Orchard in Missouri

Hello, new to this forum and to fruit trees. Does in one live and grow trees in Missouri? Would really appreciate some advice and perhaps contacts. I bought ten acres south of Hamilton and would like to plant some fruit trees.

Thanks

Go to the Missouri Department of Conservation Tree program on September 1st and order the native root stock for what you want to plant.  Practice grafting.  Let the root stock get established the next year and then go to Englands Nursery in Kentucky (nuttrees.net) and order scions for the cultivars you want for fresh fruit.  Recommend Persimmons, Asian Pears, Pawpaw since these are disease resistant and have few insect problems.  Deer will be a problem.

Hello, fellow Missourian here. Up north of St. Joseph. I planted two apples, one peach, one apricot, and two cherry trees in 2019. What I learned from being new to fruit trees was that they take a lot of research!

Apples: You need two different varieties to pollinate eachother. On top of that, they are divided into 3 bloom periods (the approximate window of time when they flower)so those trees need to be in the same bloom period too! This is usually indicated in their description as "early, mid, or late blooming." You can get away with an early and mid partnership, or mid and late, but not an early and late because the early flowers would be gone by the time the late tree blooms and the pollen would never meet.
     Also with apples, note what resistance they have. There is a lot of cedar apple rust disease in NW Missouri so resistance to that is important. I went with Redfree and Enterprise apples to meet these criteria.

Peaches, apricots, and cherries may vary in whether or not they self pollinate, so that determines if you need more than one. But they will always do better with a partner to pollinate with.

MU Extension has a lot of great bulletins regarding varieties that work well in Missouri.  Apples, pears and peaches tend to do well in the state, there's mixed results regarding cherries, plums, apricots, and nectarines.