Silver Creek Nursery Ltd.

Wolf River Apple Bareroot

History: Wolf River was raised from seed by Quebec lumberman William Springer in the latter half of the 19th century. When Springer and his family were moving by wagon to Wisconsin, they bought a bushel of Alexander apples along the way. Upon arriving at their new home, he planted the seeds from said apples along the bank of the Wolf River and the Wolf River apple grew from there. This variety has since garnered a reputation as a good cooking apple and for the incredible size of its fruit.

Why We Grow It: First and foremost, Wolf River is legendary for the huge size of its fruit. The apples can weigh a pound or more and there are stories of pies being made from a single apple. The fruit, green with red blush and stripes, has a sweet and tart flavour that is good for cooking and it holds its shape well when cooked. The tree itself is hardy and relatively disease resistant as well.

    $56.50

    Rootstock
    Size

    15 in stock

    Fruit Traits:

    Recommended Use: Cooking

    Fruit Size: Large

    Storage: Keeps about a month when stored in cool, humid conditions

    Harvest: October - Early

    Cider Class (if applicable):

    Tree Traits:

    Canadian Hardiness Zone: 3

    Soil Preferance: Sandy loam, loam, clay loam. Prefers average to moist conditions, avoid planting anywhere that floods for more than two weeks in the spring. Generally quite adaptable to different soil conditions.

    Flowering Time: Middle

    Bloom Colour: White

    Pollination Requirements: Requires a pollinator of a different apple variety that blooms around the same time

    Sun/Shade Requirements: Full sun (approx. 8-10 hours of sun daily)

    General Growth Habit: Vigorous and very hardy with a spreading growth pattern, slow to start bearing fruit (low precocity), spur bearing. Susceptible to fireblight but resistant to scab, canker, mildew and cedar rust.

    Overall Disease Resistance Rating*: High

    *this rating is combined with our experience growing in our test orchards combined with already available information on the cultivar.

    Shipping: Every year we ship thousands of plants across Canada. We carefully bag roots in damp sawdust, then box them and send them out via courier. CLICK HERE to see our shipping policy.

    Pick-up: We also have thousands of trees picked up from our nursery each year. The pick-up options is free, though you must wait until you have been emailed a confirmation that your order is ready to pick up, which will have further information such as hours, locations, etc.

    Our grafted fruit trees are graded into two categories, and the size includes the rootstock:

    • 50-80cm grade: Smaller trees that may have some minor branching, this grade is like a "b-grade" size tree according to industry standards. This size may include trees that are over 1m but have some scarring or mild crookedness.
    • 1m+ grade: Trees that are over 1m tall, some may have no branches and others may have light feathering or a few established branches 

    Please keep in mind, bareroot trees appear small if you are unfamiliar with them. Size can vary year to year due to weather conditions and every single variety has a unique amount of vigour (some varieties naturally are smaller and some bigger, much like humans -and when you propagate hundreds of varieties, there certainly is variation). While we remain competitive in our plant size, it's also worth noting we don't use synthetic chemicals to push vegetative growth. Therefore you may find some conventional nursery stock larger in comparison. 


    Why plant small? It's best to transplant a tree when it's young so it can establish its roots before it has a lot of vegetative growth. This is much less stressful on it and after a few years bareroot trees tend to catch up and even surpass larger potted trees planted at the same time.

    Orders that are cancelled last minute due to size (being "too small"), will still incur the applicable cancellation fees if the trees are true to our grading standards as per the agreement of sale when the order was placed.

    Purchasing Bareroot

    New to bareroot? We've got you covered on what to expect when ordering bareroot plants

    Visit the Blog

    Full of orchard education, fun recipes, and other fruit related content!

    We are here for you!

    Over the last 16 years we have helped thousands of orchardists begin their journey. Questions? Just ask!

    Our Standards

    We are committed to growing the healthiest, finest plants. Read about our growing standards. It all matters.

    Recently viewed products