Help me pick a new early-mid apple

I made notes of the relative ripening dates of my existing apples and I have a hole between pristine and liberty that I want to fill next year. I’ll be grafting over my “red rome” +74 because it’s a powdery mildew magnet:

pristine 0
hole I want to fill, around +20-+35
liberty +60
spartan +60
scarlet sentinel ogw says “mid-late September” +70?
red rome +74 ← will be grafted over
cosmic crisp +80
redlove calypso +80
Belmac +85

Here’s that purdue disease resistance chart, I’m looking for at least “R” for scab ideally “VR” and at least “MR” for powdery mildew. Something that’s known to do well in the Willamette valley is a bonus although I think most any apple will:

here’s the ACN harvest date chart, I’m looking for something in the range from redfree to initial:

another harvest order reference for just scab-resistant varieties:

here are the candidates I’ve found (relative dates vary +/- 20 days between charts):

+15 william’s pride

– above here is probably outside my window unless it stores or hangs better than pristine –

+20? redfree
+30-+40: chehalis, prima, dayton - in the WSU fruit handbook for western WA
+38? initial

– below here is probably outside my window but I could look if they’re especially good –

+40-50? crimsoncrisp - this might be worth waiting for, I have too many mac-types and not enough crispy-types. it’s barely ahead of liberty though
+40? novamac “a week or two before true mcintosh”
+45-5? crimson gold “just before golden delicious”
+50 akane - also in the WSU pub

http://www.whatcom.wsu.edu/gardenshare/documents/fruit_handbook_western_wa.pdf

any suggestions?

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Ginger Gold is an Early-Mid, but I’m not sure it has the disease resistance you’re interested in. On the plus side, it’s a decent keeper for an Early-Mid.

WILLIAM’S FAVORITE AND WILLIAMS PRIDE come to mind.

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I’m in the far north so I would gravitate towards Chestnut and Dolgo crab apples. They are super tasty and when hell freezes over you can still count on harvesting apples.

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How about Summer Rambo? Fits your window, great old french apple planted on many of the huge estates around here in late 1800’s. Three different people have brought their “mystery” apples to me desperate for an ID as it’s their favorite apple. All three were Summer Rambo- has stood the test of time, all purpose.

History/description of Summer Rambo: SR:Summer Rambo Apple – Trees of Antiquity

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Would Gala work in your area?

for hardiness and disease resistance id go williams pride. about as tough a apple as you can get and a good early bearer. i have several scions of it growing on my sargents crab. also have liberty grafted on my yellow transparent.

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I have redfree and find it rather blah, plus a poor keeper. It is early, though, so nice in that regard. I made much of it into a frankenapple tree. My red Rome is excellent after stored in the fridge a few weeks, one of my favorites.

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thanks for the suggestions. some responses -

ginger gold: “VS” to scab
william’s favorite: I can’t find any rating for scab or powdery mildew resistance
william’s pride: outside my window (too close to pristine)
chestnut and dolgo crab: interesting
summer rambo: I can’t find any rating for powdery mildew resistance. it might be worth a try though
gala: yes it should grow great here. “VS” to scab
redfree: thanks for the report. yeah I made the thread because my main candidates chehalis, prima, dayton all had similar “bleh” reports here or there

My favorite early apples are Ginger Gold and Sansa. However I do not grow them so unknown on disease resistance. These are the only 2 varieties I actually drive to a u-pick site for. I suppose I could grow them but I have so many later apple varieties planted that adding 2 more is not worth it. Besides, early apple don’t keep well so I don’t need a bushel of them. I just pick 10 pounds of each and they last me long enough until some of my own apple varieties start ripening.

Sansa is fantastic! Just love the color and the flavor. Not sure how easy it is to grow.

I think one thing that William’s Pride has in it’s favor is the apples don’t ripen all at once and usually require multiple pickings. They also hang on the tree well so you can pick them later than is the case with many apples. So I think in practice you effectively have a wider spacing between it and pristine than you would expect from just reading maturity dates. It also is one of the most disease resistance apples you can buy.

Also take a look at this chart from PRI.
Co-op Summary Table

It has the ripening dates for a bunch of their apples including apples that were never named. The never named apples are referred to by the Co-op release number. You can buy trees or scionwood for these releases. Here is guide to the different Co-op releases.

About PRI

Older early apples are in most cases not going to have the level of disease resistance you want or the disease resistance is going to be poorly documented. You might also look at Nova Easygro it’s early and scab resistant but I don’t know if it fits in your maturity window.

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I’m telling you, chestnut is one tasty crabapple. Like most crabs it puts out a ridiculous amount of flowers followed by a ridiculous amount of fruit. The huge cloud of flowers also last longer than most apple blooms, ensuring that everything that is early/mid bloom gets pollinated. They are extremely sweet, amazing for non fermented cider and jellies.

Plus you get to have the same conversation with everybody that thinks crab apples are inedible and are amazed about how great your tiny apples are. Heck this alone makes them worthy of planting :wink:

Also look for centennial and trailman, amazing crabs. Redfield is a red fleshed crab with very good eating qualities.

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I can’t imagine growing Dolgo for fresh eating, or really for anything other than processing as juice. jelly or the like. They are very small, and the high pectin content makes them a real puckery experience if you eat them. A beautiful, productive and highly disease resistant tree, though.

I should have been more clear on the role of Dolgo. If you have an orchard full of table apples (sweet, not much acid, not much tannins to speak of) and you want to make cider, Dolgo will put a backbone on it. If you remember smelling a Dolgo it even smells like cider. The spicy tartness just brings everything together.

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My kids love dolgos but everyone’s tastes are different I guess. Centennials are fantastic for sure.

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I checked Nova Easygro it’s too late for you. It’s on this maturity chart for apples.

https://www.grandpasorchard.com/page/_ccLib/attachments/about/GOWeb-MaturityChart-Apple+(2013).pdf

You might also search Pomiferous and Orange Pippin for russets. There are some early Russets there. I remember when I did searches there I would find Russets that were early and some might fit in your maturity window. With a heavily russeted apple you get resistance to scab on the fruit and to a lesser extent on the leaves so a russet might work for you.

Pitmaston Pineapple and St. Edmund’s Russet are good Fall russets but they fall out of your maturity window although both are close.

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I have a Chestnut Crab that fills that gap between my Pristine and Liberty. It is not only my best producer but also one of my top few favorite apples out of 50 or 60 varieties I eat every year.

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A couple apples I like in that ripening period are:

Williams Pride - these can hang for a very long time and get more interesting as they hang, so it could well be in your prime window. An excellent apple but my weather is too hot for it unfortunately.

Zestar! - This is not a “disease resistant” apple but never had any leaf disease problems for me. They are prone to rots in my climate but should be fine in yours.

Golden Nugget - this is a great early russet for me, with no disease issues. It might be a bit later than your ideal window.

BTW my personal view of disease resistance, at least in my climate, is there is almost nothing in that data to help me. My biggest problem by far is summer fruit rots and they never rate apples on that. None of the standard diseases are problems in my orchard.

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Ditto on Williams Pride getting summer rot in Maryland heat. I grafted it over this year after giving it many years to prove itself. Monark, my only other summer apple, does not get summer rot so far.

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its definitly not a warm weather apple. my neighbor has a 10yr old standard W.P tree and it tastes its best in cooler drier summers. he has so much fruit over such a long period its more apples his family can eat. i go pick them for him, 2xs a week until theyre all picked and he sends me home with a laundry basket full of apples. not my favorite apple but very high on my liked ones. hes never had to spray that tree ever and i cant see any issues
year to year. suprising as the mtn. ash growing next to it has leaf issues constantly but the apple never does. my kind of fruit tree. :wink:

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