Marketability of big fruit trees

I will be slowly growing a tiny-scale permaculture nursery beginning next spring. I don't like the idea of growing fruit trees on weak wimpy roots that can't even support the weight of the tree and require external support. For this reason, I've ordered some seed to grow vigorous rootstock, for example Antonovka apple and Ussurian pear. I live in the woods in the middle of nowhere, but I'm a couple hours from Ottawa, Ontario or Kingston, Ontario and would likely begin my sales attempts there.

Any thoughts on the marketability of these big monster fruit trees to city-folk? Should I bite the bullet and begin developing a weaker semi-dwarf or dwarf clonal rootstock to not alienate a bunch of potential urban customers?

Look forward to your thoughts!

Jay,

I don't know about the city-folk, but I only buy trees on standard rootstock. I don't like wimpy, disposable things. Standard rootstock makes the tree live longer, be potentially more drought resistant and last but not least - fruits from standard rootstock taste better.

That's my reasoning too - I guess the main limitation though is that it excludes those who have small yards, but I suppose I can promote various berry bushes or other types of trees to them.

I think part of the reason I'm posting this in here is also that I want to doublecheck in case I'm missing some amazing virtue of these dwarfing rootstocks - maybe I've judged them prematurely. If anybody wants to convince me, I'm open to it!

To be honest, I bet the vast majority of city dwellers have no clue on the difference so they'll judge you on the typical things: price, healthy-looking tree, etc

I suspect you may be right. The desire for a healthy looking plant also may require me to alter my mode of sales. Ideally I would sell everything bareroot during the dormant season but I'm starting to get the impression most folks would have a harder time parting with $30 for a cold "stick" in winter, than spending $50 dollars on a potted leafy tree in spring. I guess I need to meet the customer where they are instead of trying to convince them to by my frigid sleeping fruit sticks!

It's also hard to picture your life 20-40 years in the future so I wonder how much people really consider the mature size of the tree when they plant it in the yard.

Thanks for the food for thought!

You can prune a standard fruit tree to a semi or even dwarf size.  Many call this backyard orchard culture.  On youtube watch the videos of skillcult or on Davewilson.com.

Jay said, "Any thoughts on the marketability of these big monster fruit trees to city-folk?

I feel the big question here is what will be the method of getting the trees to your customers?

If shipping costs are involved then shipping big monster fruit trees might involve big monster shipping fees.

I have bought nice size large fruit trees directly in person from nurseries and took them home in my vehicle.

I have bought 6-foot fruit trees in containers.

Will your trees be bare root, bagged, or in containers?

Dennis Bangham wrote:You can prune a standard fruit tree to a semi or even dwarf size.  Many call this backyard orchard culture.  On youtube watch the videos of skillcult or on Davewilson.com.

I'm curious about this I hear conflicting reports on how much you can contain the vigour of a standard tree through pruning. I'll have to dig deeper into Dave Wilson's method.

Anne Miller wrote:

Jay said, "Any thoughts on the marketability of these big monster fruit trees to city-folk?

Will your trees be bare root, bagged, or in containers?

Eventually the goal would be all bare root online sales but I'm starting from nothing, so I'll likely start with potted local sales. I should clarify that my trees will be monsters, but not at the point I sell them. I'll be growing rootstock from seed for 1 season, then grafting before spring of year 2 and letting them grow 1 more season before selling.

From a customer perspective,

I order bareroot varieties of trees online that I cannot get easily locally. These are limited in size via shipping. Many of the 'established' nursery's have a certain size they ship out and may have to prune the trees to stay within those specs.

I will shop locally for an 'established' potted/bagged tree where I have the chance. I would assume these would be your 'monster' tree sizes. I also prefer this local shopping because ideally the trees are already acclimated to the local. Shipping is generally prohibitive on these items. You however can charge a sort of premium for these due to supply ONCE you have a customer base. Sticker shock can be real.

I'm not in your catchment area, being based in the UK, and I struggled to find fruit trees with vigorous enough rootstocks here. In borderline growing conditions I want a tree that doesn't have poor rootstocks as well as poor soil and poor weather to cope with. If I were you I'd market the trees based on the fact they have vigorous rootstocks with all the advantages this gives. Be upfront with the downsides too of course - that they are likely to take longer to reach fruiting age, final size is bigger or they will require more pruning to maintain a compact size.

Jay Clark wrote:I don't like the idea of growing fruit trees on weak wimpy roots that can't even support the weight of the tree and require external support. For this reason, I've ordered some seed to grow vigorous rootstock, for example Antonovka apple and Ussurian pear.

Why is this an all or nothing proposition? There's a huge range of rootstock between super dwarfing ones like BUD-9 and standards. I've had good success with EMLA 7 which produces a tree about 60% the size of standard, and I never provide them external support.

As an Ontarian, who has bought and will buy fruit trees, I have gone with semi dwarf for many. The main reason was space. I was working with under a 1/4 acre of useable land and wanted several different things so the semis seemed the best tradeoff between "not huge" and "vigorous enough". I also want/ed to prune and pick from the ground and festooned my pears so a full sized root stock didn't seem necessary.  I'd rather have more different trees than fewer huge ones.
For my new property, I still want some to be smaller, since I still want a bigger range of smaller crops rather than a few, huge crops, but am also planning on lots of full sized trees.

Over the last decade I've seen Whiffletree nursery grow into a very busy place and their prices have climbed and they still often sell out so the market is there. They have issues, but their marketing catalog is very good and has some very clear ways they show and explain what rootstocks they use and how the trees will grow. You might find it useful to look at since marketing is often a bad weak point for lots of plant growers. Food prices are so high here that more people are thinking about trees but are starting from zero knowledge and they need very basic info on what to choose and how to deal with them.