Hello! I am new here and have 2 acres where I want to plant an orchard. I have read several books but am having trouble getting straightforward explanations/answers to a few specific questions. I am trying to plan out how many of each tree I need based on microclimate, space, pollination, and water needs. I plan on running the space as a u-pick food forest type set up and plan on the trees, regardless of rootstock, to be about 7 ft tall. My question is do I base the spacing off of the rootstock or the standard spacing of the tree or the new hieght? I don't want my trees to be cramped or too far apart wasting space. If I am open to pruning is there any reason to get a dwarf rootstock? How would I estimate yield- is there a rule of thumb? I know if I take a 40' tree and keep it 7' tall it will produce substantially less but would it produce better or worse than a dwarf variety left unpruned or pruned at the same hieght all other things being equal?
