Lodge Pole
The Wasay Wakpa orchard is situated in a unique geographical and microclimate site northeast of the Little Rockies mountain range in North Central Montana. Photo taken in fall 2020.
updated 06/13/2021
Site description and contact
The Wasay Wakpa orchard is located in Lodge Pole in Blaine County at an elevation of 3,432 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 Hillary Maxwell, MSU-Extension, (406) 353-2656.
Climate
These data originated from the nearest weather station in Zortman, 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) |
| 4,032 | 23 | 80 | 6 | 92 | -13 |
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 |
|
drip system on solar-powered pump; 4 gallons to each tree every evening |
unknown |
sod goes right up to the trunk of the trees |
pruning is up-to-date, but trees are smaller than at other sites |
unknown |
no |
no info |
Cultivars Planted
Apple: 'Frostbite', 'Ginger Gold', 'Goodland', 'Honeycrisp', 'Mutsu', 'Spartan', 'Sweet 16', 'Zestar!'
Pear: 'Golden Spice', 'Parker', 'Patten', 'Ure'
Plum: 'Mount Royal', 'Toka'
See also: full list and descriptions of the fruit tree cultivars used in this research
Orchard notes and map
Trees were initially planted in May 2015. Rootstock information is available and is indicated after cultivar name on the map. Site visit notes, 5/8/2019:
- Well-maintained site that is continuing to grow (new fence and more trees will be added this year).
- Orchard produced some fruit in 2018.
- Most trees look healthy. Two of the ‘Spartan’ apples, a ‘Ginger Gold’ apple, and a ‘Mutsu’ apple are dead.
See the printable orchard maps and data for all sites (opens in Figshare).
Photo gallery
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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 | Frostbite | Ginger Gold | Goodland | Honeycrisp | Mutsu | Spartan | Sweet 16 | Zestar! | |||
| 4/4 | 4/4 | 4/4 | 4/4 | 4/4 | 4/4 | 4/4 | 4/4 | 32 | 32 | 100% | |
| Pear | Golden Spice | Parker | Patten | Ure | |||||||
| 4/4 | 4/4 | 3/4 | 4/4 | 16 | 15 | 94% | |||||
| Plum | Mount Royal | Toka | |||||||||
| 1/3 | 3/3 | 6 | 4 | 67% | |||||||
See also: survival data for all sites in spreadsheet format (opens in Figshare)
