Orchard Planning & Cedar Rust

Hey all!

First off, I am excited to post to this wonderful community!  I have been a long-time lurker but read my daily permies threads with joy each morning.  Just wanted to say that you all are awesome and all your creativity really keeps my spirits high!  

Okay - I am working on building my dream home, which I really need to post about someday.  Part of that dream is planting a permaculture orchard on the back-side of my 23 acres.  I have found a great spot and I am work through observation and planning.  That being said, I do have one major problem (and a couple of minor ones) that I hoped that you all could help guide me on.

Cedar Rust -  My property is an old dairy farm in East TN and, as you can imagine we have A LOT of cedars.  In this case, it is impossible to thin the cedars and/or manage the cedar rust spores that I see every year on the cedar trees.  My dream is to plant trios with apples, plums, peaches, service berries, and pears - all of which have the interaction with cedar rust.  With that in mind, I have started to try to figure out a plan.  I really, really want to avoid having to use any sprays to manage potential issues.  My goal for this year is to plant the first 2-3 rows of the orchard with a variety of "testing" trees to start the journey of seeing how to perform with cedar rust presence.  I realize that that is a multi-year journey, but I do not want to end up planting a ton that I will end up ripping up later (or stump grafting?).  

For my apple trees, I am looking for semi-dwarf apples that are known to be cedar rust tolerant.  Right now, I am researching a few different nurseries (such as Stark Brothers) and first looking for cedar rust tolerance and then selectin based upon other attributes.  Do you all have varieties that you have used that have proven to be extremely resistant?  Should I be looking elsewhere?  

For my other trees, I am really having a hard time finding any information on cedar rust resistance of pears, plums, service berries, or peaches.  I am not sure if that is because there is NOT a resistant variety or if they are not as susceptible as apples.  Any recommendations on what to select or where to research on this one?

Am I am being ridiculous in wanting to "fight" my property cedar rust proclivity?  Should I be considering things outside of the Rose families altogether?

Trios / Nitrogen Fixer - So, in my trios, I am leaning to select honey locust as my N.  My property already has a lot of black & honey locust and they grow well in the area.  I have read of a variety of hawthorne that is a Nitrogen fixer and has a great fruit... but it is the cedar rust problem all over again.  When it comes to the honey locust, I read very conflicting information on whether or not it is a true nitrogen fixer.  Even on this forum, I have read past posts with some confusion.

Does anyone have a definitive answer on if the honey locust is a nitrogen fixer?

Should I just got with the black locust just in case?  Since the black locust is so coppicing friendly, it may have multiple purposes.  However, I fear that coppicing it would result in reducing the nitrogen fixation.    

Thanks in advance for the help!!

Nathan

I wish I had an answer for you regarding cedar rust-resistant fruit trees.

I live with many juniper trees and before we heard of cedar rust, we tried planting fruit trees only to give up and remove them.

Maybe by reviving your topic someone will see this and have an answer.

Best wishes for your dream home.

if it was me, i’d be looking more outside of the rosaceae family. your natives like persimmons and pawpaws and mulberries (and their applicable foreign cousins), and others like goumi, jujube, cornelian cherry or other edible dogwoods, che, etc.

learning to appreciate less-familiar fruits feels like a smaller ask than trying to skirt around endemic disease.

There are apple varieties that are resistant to cedar rust and there is a supplier in North Carolina that sells at least one of them - the variety is "Liberty". I have also had luck with Arkansas black rome. Growing fruits on the east coast is not simple - stone fruits such as peaches, apricots etc. are susceptible to all sorts of fungal diseases and bacterial cankers etc. I have had much more luck with plums - they seem much hardier at least in my little corner of SW/central Virginia.

there are a bunch or fruit and nut tree nurseries in McMinnville and they could probably advise you what varieties are most successful in east Tennessee also there is Knoxville Seed and they have trees and are very helpful with local knowledge and sources.

I can speak to Arkansas Black being almost immune to cedar apple rust. It gets very few spots and doesn't give a hoot. Liberty, Enterprise, Grimes Golden. There are many varieties available which are immune, resistant, or just grow through the damage regardless. The info page of the variety on your nursery of choice website should give all the disease resistant properties for you to know.

Thanks for all the replies!  

@greg mosser - For getting out of the rosea family, that is a good suggestion.  We have other areas of the property to focus on pawpaws, persimmsions, and mulberries.  Maybe I need to expand those investments and I have not researched their "cousins" at all!  :)

@Ezra Beaton - Thanks for the info on varieties that work for you.  I was not sure how much "resistant" really meant.  Those varieties you listed are on my list of options!  :)  

@bruce Fine - I am very familiar with Knox Seed!  I was there this weekend buying my cover crop! : )  I'll check with them and the local nurseries.  

Nathan Blevins wrote:Should I just got with the black locust just in case?  Since the black locust is so coppicing friendly, it may have multiple purposes.  However, I fear that coppicing it would result in reducing the nitrogen fixation.

My understanding is that coppicing, pollarding, pruning, or cutting back a nitrogen fixer will stimulate an equivalent die-back in the root system. The root system (and the associated relationship with the nitrogen-fixing bacteria) is costly to the plant and it will abandon what it doesn't actively need to survive + regrow.

This sounds like a negative, however, when the roots with the nitrogen-fixing relationship are allowed to die-back, the nitrogen stored in those nodules is released and made available to the surrounding soil. It will likely be taken up by the fruit trees if the pruning of the nitrogen fixer is timed to coincide with their active growth (such as in spring).

I would imagine that a vigorous tree like black locust wouldn't mind being pruned at the start of its growing season (although it might be sub-optimal for using the timber for things like fence posts, when ideally you want as little sap as possible in the wood for longevity - sap = starches = insect food!).

I have also heard that nitrogen nodules are not usually made available to plants other than the host (unless actively transported, by the host, to other organisms via mycelia). The nitrogen is made available in other ways, such as the dropping of leaves, but more slowly. Due to this, coppicing a nitrogen-fixer might be the best way to utilise its nitrogen for nearby plants in your system.

I have nothing to back this up - it's just my understanding from conversation, reading and other media - so I would be proven wrong or to open up more discussion about this.