Okay folks, I’ve read enough about Goldrush apple on this forum to justify taking out every tree I have and replacing them all with GR! My question is - is anybody growing Goldrush without sprays, with CAR present, and still able to get an edible crop?
I have one GR on G11 that is 2 yrs old and it has one apple on it. The CAR is super bad in my area, but less so than last year. The leafs are covered in it, but the apple is growing despite this. I’m too new at this to know if I will lose this battle eventually. Biggest reason I want to know is I’m considering planting more of them on bigger rootstocks, but not if they need spray to make it. Thanks for any advice and experience.
I was really excited about my first few years of growing Goldrush (and Suncrisp too). For the past two years, however, I have been dealing with leaf blotch in late summer. The apples cannot mature appropriately if there are no leaves left on the tree. I am progressively top working the GR over to other varieties. For reference, I am in Pennsylvania.
We have grown Goldrush in central NC now zone 8A for over 15 years. Roughly 100 Goldrush on B9. Edit: I failed to say that only Goldrush and OFW remain from our original planting of 800 trees in about 20 different varieties.
Our strategy is low spray, not no spray, but we tried no spray for a few years after my son purchased the farm. The only apple that produced a satisfactory crop during the no spray years was Old Fashion Winesap. Goldrush had CAR and rot problems with no spray but no worse than many others.
Most of our trees were 3 or 4 feet apart on B9. We have no doubt that the closer spacing with the dwarf trees accelerates insect and disease pressure.
Probably wise to move to larger trees spaced at greater distances like you suggest. We love the fruit from GR but I expect other varieties may offer a better chance to produce fruit with no spray. I’m not an expert on no spray Apples so I can’t suggest any better varieties other than OFW which is not well known and is not a superior tasting Apple. I have also noticed that late Apples (like GR) seem to suffer from insects and disease more than early Apples since they hang on the tree for such a long time. OFW is an exception to that thought.
I feel your pain! Rot can be terrible here, especially Bitter Rot in wet years. We had major problems with Bitter Rot even with regular fungicide applications when we had two record breaking wet years back to back a few years ago.
I saw some research from NCSU that suggested varieties with a Golden Delicious parent were more susceptible to certain rots. That includes many modern Apples like Goldrush.
May be related to conditions in my state with grows about 10,000 acres of commercial Apples… Big problem in my state
Here is a clip from the research I looked at in 2018. Not sure if any more current research has been conducted.
“So far in NC, we’ve seen cultivars primarily with ‘Golden Delicious’ parentage showing Glomerella leaf spot/fruit rot symptoms including ‘Gala’, ‘Pink Lady’, ‘Jonagold’ and of course, ‘Golden Delicious’. Symptoms have also been observed on ‘Granny Smith”
I don’t spray my GR early enough to stop CAR and I’ve never had more than a few specks of it on 11 years. But it has a huge problem with rot. 95%+ of fruit will rot if I don’t spray a very specific fungicide monthly in summer. There are several of us in the lower piedmont/upper coastal plain in the SE with the same problem. It seems growers farther north don’t have the issue. Maybe you are far enough north?
I’ve been no spray for apples since I started 5 years ago. I’ve got 2 goldrush on M111. They get some CAR in my yard, but not enough to defoliate. Goldrush has been one of the slowest growing apples for me, maybe it’d grow a little faster with CAR control.
This is the first year getting a decent crop from goldrush. About a quarter of them had codling moth maggots from the first generation. Not as bad as liberty or redfield, but still enough to be a problem here without intervention going forward.
My Goldrush has been impeccable no spray here in western Oregon for four years now. It has no disease yet but that may be due to our dry summer’s and low humidity. The only thing I do is organza bags in the spring after they set and I think the fruit clusters to keep coddling moth at bay.
New members should know that scab resistance was intentionally bred into Goldrush. Up here it is possible to grow without spray because it is a hard apple that crushes plum curc larva. CAR here usually doesn’t defoliate apples.
Given how much trouble it is even to thin fruit let alone training and pruning free standing trees, the two sprays needed in the northeast to produce sound though often ugly fruit isn’t that big of a deal. The essential sprays are even over before the heat of summer usually arrives… at least that was the case before Marsonnina- but once that disease enters your orchard you will never get fruit without spray- at least, not fruit with adequate sugar.
I realize that the further south you go in the humid regions the higher the pest pressure. That line is moving north at a pace seemingly quicker than any but most pessimistic predictions of climatologists.
That availability of small container captan is becoming an issue. Last fall I bought what I hope is a couple of years worth of bonuses captan 50, I think from Jung’s.
