Yes, there is no point in spending money to plant an apple tree in the eastern half of the U.S. if you aren’t going to take care of it, unless you just want food for wildlife, because that is all it will be good for. You will just end up with a mess of rotting apples on the ground. In many areas you will just end up with a stub sticking out of the ground, as the critters will chew off the entire tree.
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To each gallon of water I add 4 tablespoons of Spinosad (either Monterey of Captain Jack’s) and 3 tablespoons of Triazicide, plus 1/2 teaspoon of a sticker spreader.
I should set traps, spray more with dormant oil, consider baited bug zappers, but I just seem to have enough on my plate that I don’t.
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Liberty in Zone 3-4 here in Wisconsin produces heavily and as said above needs a hard hose spray to knock off i e. thin the apples in early june or they may not all make it to harvest before frost. i tell my liberties every year that they can take a break since they are 2+ decades old but they seem to like producing. Thanks for the warning on CM, I have only used lime sulfur and oil dormant spray plus Surround during the season. Being miles from other apple trees helps me too. Tastes and as crispy as a Haroldson. And the tree can come in all sizes!
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Liberty is the #1 selling variety on our farm. I can see all the reasons why the apple never made it as a big commercial variety in eastern Wa but as a variety for farm stands and u picks it is outstanding!
I have 49 trees of them on B9, M26 and M7. They are all in an orchard that gets no sprays for disease or insect control.
They are high maintenance for fruit load though. Thinning is a must! As a matter of fact I was just blossom thinning with oil and lime sulfur today.
I get dozens of people asking me, each year, what apple should I plant? I always suggest Liberty as one of the choices But… its not NO maintenance.
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"I have 49 trees of them on B9, M26 and M7. "
You don’t like round numbers? 
Seriously, that is a nice orchard you have!
MF
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The most of anything I have planted is Kimrome at 6 trees. We like the Rome Beauty family of apples…lol
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i have some of its descendants, but the Rome Beauty itself exhibited fireblight damage last year (4-years old). Just hoping it stays with cosmetic damage and doesn’t kill the tree.
MF
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I wonder if regional variants display localized resistance. Here Kimrome gets strikes but if you trim them out it rarely seems to get the tree.
… or a disease resistant rootstock that helps the scion.
In addition, there are scientific studies that show that there is a possibility of genetic transfer of scion and rootstock.
There might be a difference between a Rome Beauty scion cutting where some disease-resistance gene was transferred from the disease-resistant rootstock to the Rome Beauty scion and one where it wasn’t, but also coming off a disease-resistant rootstock.
MF
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Entirely plausible. The only sources of Kimrome scions are on G.202 and G.210.
Is Rome Beauty still a big apple out east? Here in my u pick (west coast) I used to have several RB trees but no one was interested in picking them. I still have one out of stubbornness. I would take the apples to farmers markets and couldnt get any interest either. I think it all goes back to that era of Red Delicious and other apples that were available at that time. The customer turn off to that era is extreme, here anyway.
I have a couple trees of a 1930’s vintage Red Delicious that I grow just out of stubbornness too. Every oncnce in a while some one will try one and then buy but its a hard sell.
I sell a lot of Melrose apples at the farmers markets but I learned to not tell people what the parents are. Once I mention Red Delicious they say “oh, I know what that tastes like” and walk away.
Same with Rome Beauty, just give them a sample without an explanation…happy buyer.
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Hard to kill Rome Beauty here- it soldiers on despite various diseases; great for pie.
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There are a fair amount of RB fans. Kimrome remains popular because it tends to the very large size of the RB range. Over a pound is quite common. 2 pounders are not unusual.
Problem for Kimrome is it is in a deep stable of cooker greats here. With Savannah, Brunswick and Jacksonville nearby; we have a lot of culinary markets. So it makes sense to have a lot of top favorites.
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Mine is planted in a tough spot with a very high water table so it isn’t able to put down deep roots. The result is that it probably doesn’t get enough water late in the season while the apples are ripening. Therefore my tree is probably less productive than it should be and the apples aren’t as big as they should be. However, what it does produce tends to be blemish free, AND I quite enjoy eating them as they have a rather nice if simple flavor.
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