I've ordered pear rootstocks from Raintree, and was very pleased with the quality. Never have ordered from Burnt Ridge, but have friends I trust implicitly who have, and they've always given rave reviews about the quality of the plants they received, though it's been a fairly common comment that size was a bit smaller than they'd received from other nurseries.
Comments on customer service and overall helpfulness of staff at Burnt Ridge have been that they are impeccable.
I would not hesitate to order from BRN.

Lychee:

The ease with which a plant becomes established and the precocity of its fruiting are far more dependent on planting and site conditions (soil, sun, drainage etc.) and the skill of the planter than they are with the source of nursery stock. This of course assumes the same cultivars on the same rootstocks, the same early training and care, such as pruning, branch selection, spreading etc., and also assumes they arrive in a healthy, living condition.

Other things being equal, I prefer smaller, younger trees because I believe they adapt better and quickly catch and surpass larger nursery trees. My favorite trees are unfeathered one-year whips. I have some Burnt Ridge trees here and they are fine.

Raintree's prices are higher because their prices are higher.

Don Yellman, Great Falls, VA

Don, I love you, we always seem to dissagree and your experience always seems to contrast mine. I don't know what the extent of your experience is but I assume it is substantial as is mine. One difference may be that I'm a little more exposed to the wisdom of commercial producers who plant thousands of trees and can't afford to waste a year or a dime.

The conventional wisdom which my experience has played out in a fairly large scale by the standards of people who visit this site is that if a tree has up to an inch in diameter and a complementary substantial root system it will consistantly establish much more quickly than a less than half inch whip with a similar ratio of root.

Cornell has researched this issue and advises commercial apple growers that they can accelerate the time it takes to profitable yeilds if they can use branched bare roots with some usable structure as opposed to straight whips.

I plant on average about 250 to 300 one year trees a year and the advantage to larger trees is so obvious in my business that there is simply no doubt in my mind that a larger tree given the same care will continue to outperform the smaller tree for several years. They are also more drought resistant and more tolerant of other adversity.

My nursery is a substantial part of my business and it includes installing hundreds of mature trees that I have sized up. Most of the sites I return to year after year so I have ample opportunity to study the development of fruit trees from whip to maturity.

The only time size can be a drawback in my opinion is if the rootsystem has been badly damaged when trees are dug up and in this situation I suppose a smaller tree might suffer less.

For a hobbyist nursery Raintree has impressed me with the size of its stock although I've only ordered about 50 trees from them over the years. I use the smaller nurseries for unusual cultivars only. I also like Trees of Antiquity which has very nice ownership. I've occassionally ordered nut trees from Burnt Ridge and was quite satisfied with the quality.

I've ordered from BRN for each of the past 4 years. I only had one item which I was dissatisfied with (an Autumn Olive). It died, I emailed and received a response within a couple days asking if I prefered to wait til next season for a replacement or if I wanted a refund. Their email ended up getting moved by my wife and I didn't see it until I had received a refund in the mail. My next order included an Autumn Olive free to make up for the one that had been refunded the previous year. I've always received well developed trees with good roots from BRN.

I've gone through the Raintree catalog (as well as One Green World) and though I have twice prepared orders I have both times found the wanted plants for less elsewhere. Also last year I had decided that I would place a small order with them and was dissuaded in the end by two things 1) I had missed the deadline for zone skipping on shipping and 2) their Gardenwatchdog ratings had really been so-so at that point.

I've ordered from other places I would also recommend: St. Lawrence Nursery, Edible Landscaping, Petals from the Past (though I've only ordered figs from them) and Adams County all sent great plants (though AC was quite $$).

~Chills

Based on these comments, i will def give BRN a try- they are about 40% cheaper then Raintree. Will post periodically how the plants turn out

It could be that you just got a bad batch of trees or something having to do with your growing conditions.

I would tend to agree with Don. The diameter of whips don't matter much to me. I have grown Cherries and Apricots commercially for years. I have planted several thousand trees for my own orchard and helped friends plant several thousand trees.

In my own cherry orchard, when I planted my last cherry orhcard my nursery provided me with whips of numerous diameters anywhere from 1/2 inch to a full inch and I did not notice an appreciable difference in growth habits or vigor between the trees.

Ca cherry grower you are speaking about one species at one site. I don't care if it's ten thousand trees- I'm talking about the experience of an entire industry with researched data. Why oh why are people so in love with their anecdotal observations, it makes me crazy (my problem I guess).

Of course you must be suspicious of all conclusions drawn from data but you should be even more suspicsious of conclusions drawn from a few seasons at one site by one person.

I deal with all common species at hundreds of sites, but I don't consider my observations adequate, I blend them with research that has been confirmed by other research and than confirmed by hundreds of commercial growers. With all these checks and balances we still sometimes run with some misinfomation. Scientific fact is never etched in stone but anecdotal observation is just the sand that may one day become stone.

Harvestman,

I am just stating my experience. And I am not just not talking about cherries, I am also talking about Apricots, Almonds, Peaches, Walnuts. You name it. I am in the middle of it here in Central California. Not only have I witnessed how the trees have grown on my own site (I actually have two orchards about 16 miles apart), but also how my friends orchards have performed, and also the thousands of acres of orchards that surround me. I don't follow scientific data, nor am I trying to say it is wrong. I am simply stating what my experience has been over the 30 years I have been involved in commercial farming. I certainly would not pay more for larger diameter trees.

Grower, thanks for the follow up. From your statement I trust your observations and I wonder if it isn't your lengthy growing season that explains your experience.

I buy apples from many different nurseries and when I'm ordering something unusual I have to use the smaller nurseries which usually have pretty small trees. In my business this generally costs me 2 years over real pumped up trees from Hilltop, Adams or C and O. Same thing with peaches, pears etc.

A couple years ago I didn't check a CandO order that included 20 Elberta peaches that were tiny. Even for the peaches I lost a year getting them to the 2.5 inch diameter I sell them at.

What I can't understand is why a larger tree wouldn't grow faster given the same ratio of root and state of maturity. It just doesn't make any sense to me when I do all my work with hand tools,very close to my trees and have clearly seen these differences for a couple decades here.

In spite of what you say, I know that in the industry the larger trees are desired and growers buying thouasands of trees pay thousands more for larger trees, even out west.

If there are any other commercial growers out west that read this please post your experiences on this because it's all driving me a little nuts!

Burnt Ridge grows what it sells. Raintree's a retailer that outsources most if not all production. Retailers add a markup. Product is not as fresh and quality varies considerably with Raintree compared to BR. I believe BR supplies RT with some product. Why not get it direct?

Harvestman,

Everything going in the ground around here is either 1/2 inch or 3/4 diameter whips. It is mostly almonds these days. I don't know about apples as apples is a not a good market to be in around here.
In fact, they are planting alot of the almonds in the potted rootstocks now and those trees are twigs. It is amazing how fast and well they grow when good growing conditions exist.

I have ordered many rimes from Burnt Ridge ,and was never disappointed .Ciao
Giuseppe

Cherry Grower, 1/2 inch to 3/4 is actually very good sized by specialized nursery standards. Trees are usually under 3/8" and that's where I run into the slow to establish problem. Most of my trees also rely on rainfall so you can begin to see the difference.

Here, of course, just as important as size is getting the trees in the ground at the earliest possible time.

I have posted the same thoughts as harvestman previously. I have never had a smaller tree (or blueberry) catch up to one that I planted which was larger.

I've had good luck with Raintree as they send out large stock as compared to some thers. I also had good luck with Adams County until a year or so ago when they changed their shipping policy and started sending out some whips. Most important to me for trees is identification of the rootstock which not all nurseries provide. Size and cost are #2.

For blueberries, my best experience is with picking up 3-5 gallon plants locally (3'-5' tall). My Finch plants were very small and I'd have been better with ones from Home Depot or Lowes.

Smaller stock may be less vigorous specimens that came out of the same row as bigger ones that were bigger by harvest time because they were doing better. In other words, cheaper, smaller grades may sometimes consist of "runts". The condition of a plant prior to planting is critical to how good of a result is gotten afterward.

Traditionally the issue with larger specimens has been a higher proportion of roots being lost, compared to smaller ones. Otherwise it would make sense that when coming away with as much intact root the larger plants would produce more growth as (in addition to above consideration) there is more total plant body to start with. With a non-woody plant (bamboo) this is definitely a factor, larger divisions producing larger culms after transplanting than small ones because these have more stored energy to draw from.

I planted about thirty bench graft apples last winter, all less than 3/8 diam and about three inches tall with a mix of M111 and seedling root stock. After one growing season they are between three and four feet tall and vary between 1/2 and 3/4 in. with little branching.

For me there wasn't much choice as it is difficult finding the type of apple I want on the root stock I want. The bench grafts are custom made and significantly cheaper than larger trees.

I also planted about a dozen various sized apples from Burnt Ridge.

Most trees are doing well, one bench graft didn't make it. Overall the bench grafts seam to be growing at a faster rate....just my non scientific observation.

Of the forty or so apple trees no two are the same variety and there are the two mentioned root stocks +.

Zeuspaul

I've haven't purchased much from Raintree (some serviceberries and rootstocks), but I've gotten over 60 plants from Burnt Ridge and highly recommend them (BR's serviceberries were both larger--a few were nearly full size bushes vs. Raintree's barely rooted seedlings-- and cheaper than Raintree's). Burnt Ridge offers the best size/quality to price ratio of all the nurseries I've tried. Pretty much everything I've gotten from them has had well developed root systems and been vigorous. Plus, their shipping rates to the East Coast are very reasonable. As for tree size, my strategy has been to buy a handful of larger Dave Wilson trees from Peaceful Valley to get things established and then supplement with a bunch of Burnt Ridge trees. I established my orchard about 2 years ago, so I can't comment much on the results.