Apple tree suggestions

For Cox children best suited for the humid East-- see Rubinette, and Freyburg, and Kidds Orange Red. @scottfsmith has had success with all 3 of those.

I was going to say ask the deer what they prefer, as it seems in your location they will be both nibbling on the young trees and the apples themselves?

The deer have little say in the matter. We are in a town that the deer rarely penetrate all the way to our property. Maybe if I find the right apples they will make a special visit occasionally. Rabbits and squirrels on the other handā€¦

Squirrels prefer early season apples, which can be harder to defend. Only on years where there are no acorns are they likely to go after Goldrush and probably King David (where are you purchasing that one- I want to try it). They also prefer low acid types.

Because you are placing them on the east side of a house you probably have a doable plan although more sun is always more bettah. The reflected light will compensate somewhat and eastern exposure helps reduce disease pressure by evaporating dew quickly. However.losing PM sun increase biennial bearing.

Liberty and Crimson Crisp are more like early Oct in your zone, I think. It is the case here in S. NY where Grimes Golden is just now ripe- but in a shady part of my nursery.

I would only plant one Fuji and probably the late one at that so you get most benefit form its excellent storage qualities. I donā€™t think it is real good for culinary use. It is stubbornly biennial, however- at least late ripening strains (less time to gather energy without the burden of crop).

Unless you are going all disease resistant I donā€™t ;think Enterprise is high enough quality and I wouldnā€™t grow in in my orchard. In my nursery I always sell it with at least one other variety grafted on the tree. Crimson Crisp is a high quality apple by any standard, IMO. Most people arenā€™t all that crazy about Liberty either, as it grows here- but you have to consider only yours and your families palate. I used to offer Liberty a lot in my nursery, but the apples trees produced in orchards I manage go unpicked too often for me to recommend it. Cornell has pushed hard to get their creations popular and they oversold Liberty, at least to commercial growers, who couldnā€™t find much market for it.

Suncrisp is good off the tree, but its flavor doesnā€™t seem to hold up well in storage like Fuji and Goldrush. It holds texture well enough, but becomes bland after a couple of months.

Goldrush is my staple apple, but it is highly susceptible to cedar apple rust and therefore can be less disease resistant that apples without a DR rep. Most years CAR can be controlled with just two sprays of myclobutanil that can be applied in the mix at the same time as the minimal 2-insecticide spray program I have posted in guides. This year, for the first time, it wasnā€™t quite adequate, although CAR didnā€™t damage apples but some trees in my orchard are more defoliated that would be best. The sites where I mixed myclo with oil in the delayed dormant were fine. .

I have been battling squirrels in the garden for years. They tend to terrorize me earlier in the season then I ether trap and remove them, or they find something else that they like more. I will be on guard when the trees start to fruit for the first time.

My feelings about Liberty and Enterprise correspond with what you indicated, Alan. I am not enthusiastic about those apples, but I was hoping that their saving grace was that he apples might be more apt to have a crop than others at the end of the season. I think those two apples were serving as my security blanket, although there are sporadic reports of people enjoying the apples.

Thanks for correcting my timetable on Liberty and Crimson Crisp. I suspect there may be some other apples that I may have to correct for my specific location.

The definitive late apple seems to be Gold Rush. While I am a novice at identifying tree types, I have not located any Junipers in the immediate neighborhood. Thanks for the tip on your spray schedule (just in case CAR is in the neighborhood).

Between Grimes, Sun Crisp, and Gold Rush, which would be the first of the first to get kicked out of your orchard? I am (on paper) enthusiastic about each of these varieties. They are all related and I am afraid that the characteristics of the apple will all be somewhat similar. There seems to be much love for Cox Orange Pippin and her children, and I think I might be chasing that too much with Sun Crisp.

Lastly, with Fuji I would like to avoid biennial bearing. Does anyone have experience with some of the earlier sports like BC#2 as to the likelihood of annual or biennial bearing? I would accept the trade-off of loss of storage time for annual bearing.

Thanks again!

King David is at Cummins with G.11, G.41, B.118, and G.935 rootstock.

Of those 3, I would drop Grimes. Grimes is good, but I consider the other two as tasting even better.

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Grimes is probably more grower friendly than Suncrisp, and Suncrisp looks so much like GR that they confuse me in storage- until I taste. I have a Suncrisp in my orchard and it is a bigger wow, maybe, than Grimes, but both are delicious. I will probably change the SC over to 50-50 Grimes- so itā€™s kindof a toss up- but GRush is necessary, in my book. .It is the first apple Iā€™d recommend in any orchard- not that everyone feels that way.

I was starting to wonder why nobody commented on the Newtown Pippin I was considering with an October maturity. I guess it would have been helpful if I actually listed in in my initial post! Newtown and Sun Crisp are leading the pack for that season with Smokehouse as a late gainer thanks to Hamboneā€™s recommendation.

I agree with Alan on most of his points. I do not mind the thick skin of Enterprise, and when ripened here it has a nice spicy flavor to it. Liberty is OK, but he is right there are probably better apples out there.

As far as ripening goes. Here in Iowa, Sweet Sixteen and Honeycrisp ripen together in early-mid September. Liberty and Crimson Crisp are later. I started picking Liberty last week (probably a little early) and now have about about 1 lb out of 8 lbs total approx. left on the tree. The one nice thing about Liberty is it is supposedly consistent in setting fruit. But Alan isnā€™t the first to have said its growth characteristics are wonky. The orchardists I buy a CSA share from say not to be afraid to cut what looks like a whole tree out of Liberty.

Sweet Sixteen is a great apple. Nice apple flavor with some other complex fruit flavors to it (sometimes anise and often cherry). It does not store long though, that is true.

I have yet to have a truly good Crimson Crisp. They also seem to require a knife to eat because the crisp should more be described as HARD. Maybe they need to store some time for optimum flavor. I lost my CC graft this spring. The only apple graft I had failā€¦ so I only buy a few at a time with other apples, and have not kept any around for extended periods.

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Thatā€™s so funny, because I was thinking of you 10 minutes ago when I was enjoying a delicious Newton apple- one of only a few on a disastrous season in my orchard. It is the second Iā€™ve eaten today- it is the kind of apple that will create an appetite for another- just ask my yellow jackets.

It was my favorite apple as a boy in CA where it was grown a lot in the Santa Cruz area- it was marketed as ā€œthe ugly apple that tastes goodā€ at one grocery chain. The chain apparently was ahead of its time in realizing that Red Delicious was the beautiful apple that didnā€™t. It is still the apple that gives Martinella apple juice its exceptional flavor last I checked. They may still be keeping some commercial Santa Cruz growers in the business of growing them.

It is a strong growing tree that takes a while to settle down to bearing fruit.

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I am sorry to hear about the difficult growing season. Hopefully it results in a bumper crop next year.

In my estimation, I saw Newtown as a mid-October variety. If you ate two of them today, it looks like my estimates are off again. When do you generally harvest your Newtowns?

Probably mid-Oct is about right. This is a weird season- Spring started very early and lots of warm clear days have accelerated some varieties of some species but it has been very variable. My paw paws are a bit late- maybe early flowers were frozen off the trees- the crop is light. Pears have mostly been normal timing.

I am located a couple hours west of you on I-80 and for two years straight have gotten a good crop of Liberty. To my palate they are a really good apple. If you like McIntosh, thatā€™s what they remind me of. I get no fungus or insect pressure on it, other than Jap beetles, but I try to keep a good coat of Surround on. Since that was your first criteria, you may want to really consider it. A Honeycrisp planted at the same time in 2013 has given me about 13 apples, while Liberty has generously supplied over a hundred. Be prepared to thin it well in the spring though. It did well with storage too, I think into January in the fridge (thatā€™s when my supply ran out, so it may have stored longer)

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Newtown usually comes in around mid-Oct here. It has a unique ā€œpineyā€ flavor that is hard to describe. This is the original green Newtown Pippin strain, carried by Cummins.

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My King David ripened in late Aug - early Sept, a tad before Liberty down here in AL. Goldrush and Arkansas black are still hanging on the tree. Goldrush still looks green but the lenticels seem a bit reddish, hmmm. Ark Black getting some red tint to it over green background. Iā€™m anticipating mid-late October on these two. We finally have some overnight low 50s temps forecast for this week. Maybe that will help them ripen? Brrrrr - Iā€™ll have to get out my parka hahaha.

I started my home orchard with six disease resistant varieties that ranged from early (williamā€™s pride) to late ripening (goldrush, ark black). Iā€™m wondering if I should have just stuck with the later ones that ripen as it is cooling off and store well. Thereā€™s something odd about picking apples when it is 98F with 78F dewpoint, and coming back into the house drenched in sweat, and the apples are really warm to the touch.

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Tunamelt: Thanks for the vote for Liberty. I agree that getting any apple is better than no apples at all (well, it is for me anyway). I was considering Honeycrisp as it is offered by some of the nurseries that I am considering, but it never made my cutoff since there were a fair number of people who complained of how long it took to bear. Maybe I am very naive, but I would like to find an apple that can approximate the output of Liberty, but would have the wow factor of a Honeycrisp. I still have Liberty on my ā€œmaybeā€ list, but the inconsistency of the reviews tempers my expectations of it.

Matt: Thanks for the picture of the Newtown. For an apple that has a reputation as ugly, you sure have a good looking example.

Right now my leaders for their respective time periods are: Sweet Sixteen (Sept.), Grimes Golden (Early Oct.), Newtown Pippin (Mid-Oct.), and Gold Rush (Nov.). I could get all of these varieties through Schlabachā€™s Nursery (assuming they have the same offerings as 2016). Does anyone know if the ā€œHeirloom, Antique, Specialty [Apple] Varietiesā€ from Schlabachā€™s comes in anything other than Bud 9 rootstock? If not, I would have to order Sweet Sixteen and Newtown Pippin from Cummins to get semi-dwarfs. Before my order is placed I am sure to reshuffle my leaders at least 10 more times.

Thanks for the feedback Barry. King David has certainly piqued my curiosity, but it is going head-to-head with goldrush for one of my trees and is unlikely to overtake it. I cannot believe that KD matures two full months earlier in AL than PA!

What is your personal assessment of KD and Arkansas Black?

I am planning on planting some sweet cherry and peach trees; I do not want to have summer apples competing with my stone fruit. Picking apples in high temps would be a little weird, although the weather up here just figured out that summer has ended.

Roll Tide?! War Eagle?! Choose wisely!

I have not tasted an ark black yet. This is the first year for apples on my trees. KD was not very good to me, but being only a second leaf tree, maybe the tree is not yet producing good quality apples. It was tart with very little sweet with good texture, but it was my worst tasting apple. If I had a bunch of apples in the fridge, I would probably not be compelled to eat many of the KD, especially if there were other options. But I repeat the caveat that this is a young tree. Others on here have raved about KD so Iā€™ll definitely stick with mine for several more years.

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I like Zestar better than Sweet 16, and it is very early bearing and reliable without any of the issues that Honey Crisp has, although I donā€™t consider taking too long to bear one of them. Another season here with Honeycrisp not achieving adequate brix to be a very good apple. Needs to get up to about 13.5 but something seems to be missing at my site and another where I grow it with completely different soil (my extremely well drained sandy loam to the otherā€™s clay loam with not good drainage). This was a dry season and HC still pretty much sucked here.

I only manage one Sweet 16 and I like the apples fine, but it took a long time to bear on 111- longer than anything besides N. Spy at the site it is planted that has quite a few other varieties. It does have the slight anise flavor that until this year I hated because I was harvesting them too late at which point it becomes overbearing. However, to my palate, Zestar is the more appealing apple- really outstanding.

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