It reads like the Southern MacGyver of apples. Seemingly turned into anything an apple can be made into. And allegedly disease resistant and easy to grow. Does the hype live up to experience? Keep thinking about adding it.
1 Like
If you do grow it you can tell people you eat horse apples.
6 Likes
I have a tree which has fruited for the past 3 years. Fairly small and spindly tree, only had 10 or so apples this year. First dropped late June, last one late July. We didnāt make anything out of them, just enjoyed them for fresh eating. For this point in the season, theyāre very good IMO.
3 Likes
This may be a regional thing, but where Iām from āhorse applesā arenāt a specific cultivar. It basically just refers to large apple trees growing in horse pastures that are mostly left for the animals to enjoy. Some may have been named cultivars with names forgotten over time and other may be seedlings.
I see on pomiferous there is an actual cultivar called āHorse,ā which is probably what youāre referring to, but with the same name being applied with abandon to non-specific varieties (at least in my region) I would wonder how one could know which apple they actually had if it was called āHorse.ā
3 Likes
I have a Horse apple tree which I grafted last spring on a newly planted B118 rootstock. So far, it has had little or no foliage disease. It was browsed by deer but not enough to set it back. It has two main stems so Iām going to cut one off for scionwood to start a second tree and maybe have a stick left over.
In the southeast, you could not go 10 miles without seeing a horse apple tree in someoneās yard. I have not seen one in the last 50 years. The last one I knew of grew about 4 miles north of Rainsville Alabama at an old homeplace. My mother used to go pick up the apples to make apple butter and apple pies. It is a very good general purpose apple. Iām anxiously looking forward to having some to bake!
6 Likes
Are they as tart as they are said to be? I grow Cullasaga here (no fruit yet) which is supposedly a sweeter seedling of Horse. Grows very well.
3 Likes
It is definitely a specific Southern Heritage Apple. Much like āGreeningā apples common up north. To confuse things more their is also a totally unrelated āHaasā apple from North Carolina.
There is a raft of early tart apple varieties slanted for cooking in the South. Horse seems to dominate from Alabama to Tennessee and the Carolinas.
Southern Cultured Orchards says if you like sweet apple pie with tang; Horse is impossible to beat.
2 Likes
Yes, Horse is a very tart apple. My favorite way to bake was cored and filled with brown sugar then baked. Was like eating apple tart with no crust.
4 Likes
I see on the Botner Collection an apple they list as āSweet Horseā . I wonder if that is Cullasaga?
the same here. usually, the wild crappy apples that people donāt want that are growing on old farmland are called horse apples. deer and moose apples would be a good name also.
sounds alot like yellow transparents up here. was the most widely planted apple because it was one of the few cold hardy apples that could survive here. its still the most prominent apple found on old farmland here. excellent in pies and applesauce but you have to like tart. i think of the taste biting into one and my mouth starts to salivate like when you eat sour apple candyā¦
2 Likes
Steve, themās just sour apples. 
/me sips lemonade
2 Likes
Interesting that weāre on opposite sides of the country, so it must be a pretty wide spread practice to call them that.
1 Like
Not who I got the scion from but Iām guessing itās correct based on photos and descriptions at: Horse
2 Likes
Yeap. Yellow Transparents no stranger here. And is definitely not the same. In fact there were a handful of attempts to make Yellow Transparent a better tree for the south. YT like many Russian origin apples do not like the heat.
1 Like
Around here, horse apples is what people call Osage orange.
3 Likes
Actually you could probably write a book on Apple tree varieties created just to feed livestock without full reliance on grains and hay. Typically sweet apples that readily fell from the trees when ripe.
4 Likes
Speaking of trees for livestock. I seriously think people should be planting Sorbus domestica as food producing shade trees in their livestock pastures. They form tall, beautiful trees and rain copious amounts of bite size fruits in the fall.
4 Likes
Never heard of it before, very intriguing.
1 Like
i planted 2 i.e mulberry on the edge of my 2 chic runs. not producing yet but when they do thereās going to be some happy chickens.
3 Likes