Hinsdale

updated 06/13/2021

Site description and contact

Hinsdale - MSU Extension Fruit Research Site location

This site is located in Hinsdale in Valley County at an elevation of 2,162 ft. To see locations of all MSU Extension Fruit Research Sites and Montana Heritage Orchards, visit this interactive web map.

To coordinate a site visit, contact Shelley Mills, MSU-Extension, (406) 228-6241

Climate

These data originated from the nearest weather station in Saco, MT and were downloaded from NOAA's website. Note that elevation and environmental conditions may vary somewhat from the orchard site.

Weather Station Elevation (ft)	Average Total Annual Precip (in)	Annual Average High (F)	Average Annual Low (F)	Extreme High Temp (F)	Extreme Low Temp (F)
2,182	16.8	83	2	97	-27

Note: elevation and climate data are from the nearest weather station in Saco, MT.

See also: detailed climate data for all sites (opens in Figshare)

Management Practices

Irrigation	Fertility management	Weed management	Pruning	Deer issues?	Fireblight presence	Pest notes
flood irrigation as needed	none	field is mowed; sod goes right up to trees	none	yes	yes	no info

Cultivars Planted

Apple: 'Arkansas Black', 'Cox's Orange Pippin', 'Frostbite', 'Ginger Gold', 'Goodland', 'Goodmac', 'Gravenstein', 'Honeycrisp', 'Northern Lights', 'Prairie Magic', 'Sweet 16', 'Zestar!'

Pear: 'Golden Spice', 'Luscious', 'Parker', 'Patten', 'Ure'

Plum: 'Mount Royal', 'Pipestone', 'Toka'

Orchard notes and map

Site visit notes, 5/10/2019:

Trees were initially planted in May of 2013 and more in May 2014. No rootstock information is available.
Landowner said that the trees have struggled since the first planting date. The trees were planted late in the season and most of the originals died and were replaced.
Herbicide drift killed most trees on east facing rows.
Wind, deer, and hailstorms keep trees from producing.
Of the original plantings, the remaining trees are two ‘Prairie Magic’ apples, two ‘Arkansas Black’ apples, three ‘Zestar!’ apples, one ‘Goodland’ apple, three ‘Toka’ plums, and two ‘Honeycrisp’ apples.
No trees have yielded fruit as of 2018.

See the printable orchard maps and data for all sites (opens in Figshare).

Photo gallery

Click on an image to view as a slideshow.

Tree survival data, fall 2019

	Cultivar & total surviving trees/total planted trees						Total planted	Total alive	% survival
Apple	Arkansas Black	Cox's Orange Pippin	Frostbite	Ginger Gold	Goodland	Goodmac
	2/7	0/10	3/3	4/4	1/3	0/2
	Gravenstein	Honeycrisp	Northern Lights	Prairie Magic	Sweet 16	Zestar!
	0/3	0/3	0/3	0/4	0/3	3/3	48	13	27%
Pear	Golden Spice	Luscious	Parker	Patten	Ure
	0/3	0/3	0/3	0/3	0/3		15	0	0%
Plum	Mount Royal	Pipestone	Toka
	0/3	1/3	1/3				9	2	22%