I bought my house 6 years ago and when we moved in there were two apples trees that were severally neglected. I don’t know what kind they are but I think one is a yellow delicious and the other looks kind of like a Jonathan. If it helps the yellow one is really sweet with hardly any acid and the red one is sweet and sour. The trees were huge and the neighbor said they were at least 30 years old. He also said he never once saw the previous owners prune them. So over the next couple of summers I aggressively pruned them trying to get to a more manageable size.
The yellow delicious has done ok and we really enjoy the apples in the fall time. They are miles above in quality over what you get form a store or farmers market. It is still pretty big and tends to be bushy due to being pruned but it is manageable.
The red one on the other hand has been nothing but problems and I think it is time to pull the plug on it. It was the bigger of the two and hasn’t adapted to it’s smaller size. It has had a nonstop powdery mildew infestation and the apples always get end rot I think is botryosphaeria dothidea (My Chester blackberry is showing signs that it might have it too). On top of that is has a crazy growth habit were the limbs grow back on themselves and it is extremely bushy no matter how much wood I prune out of it. The stems are small and this make it hard to thin the apples, I don’t know if this is the result of being diseased? The past few years it has been loosing vigor as it doesn’t set as much fruit and the disease issues are getting worse. It is sad to see it go it is such a big tree but I think it is time, any more it is just an invitation for more pathogens to get established in my yard.
So what do you guys recommend?
-I am looking for an apple that will pollinate with what I think is yellow delicious.
-disease resistant to powdery mildew, fire blight and botryosphaeria dothidea
-My family likes sweet apples with not much acid.
-Oh I almost forgot a dwarf would be nice
Thanks Greg
Fuji is sweet. It should pollinate your yellow apple, but google it to be sure. Also, fuji is delicious!
As John said, hard to go wrong with Fuji if you are looking for sweet with no acid. Only drawback is its a late season apple so depending on your location but might mature too late. You might look at some of the early fuji sports like Beni Shogun. It ripens a month ahead of standard fuji
I’d lean toward a McIntosh or a sport of McIntosh, or an Empire. Empire has McIntosh and Delicious parentage.
I have an huge Mac that’s been very productive for many years. We like it so much I worried that if something ever happened to it I’d be a few years away from an apple bearing tree, so I planted a Starkspur UltraMac as well as a MacFree both semi-dwarf.
I also have an Empire that I like the tree and the shape and all that. There’s not much to dislike about Empire, but I tend to lean toward the Mac taste-wise.
Either Mac or Empire would pollinate the Yellow as well.
I’ve never had any major issues with the McIntosh, I even think it’s fairly CAR resistant. The Empire has some resistance to Mildew, Fireblight & CAR. (I’d be more concerned about your YD in terms of fireblight and the other things. I think it’s susceptible to a lot of things, and I had to remove one a few years ago)
I like fuji as I like sweet apple. It is not disease resistant. I planted an early variet called Rising Sun on bud 9 this year. I will see if it is worth it.
Fuji is one of the few store bought apples around here that’s actually a pretty decent store bought apple. I can’t say that about most varieties around here, but I don’t hesitate to buy a few Fuji apples from the store. I like 'em a lot too, but I don’t have one growing.
I ordered a Northern Fuji from Starks a couple days ago. It is supposed to ripen earlier than the regular Fujis and is rated hardy for zone 4. Plus it is on clearance just now.
Thanks for the ideas I will look into both Fuji and McIntosh for possible replacements. I have read somewhere that certain rootstock can help make a tree more fireblight resistant. Also it is funny because those 2 apples are the 2 I usually buy at the store.
I have spent the afternoon looking at apple disease and pollination charts as well as taste reviews for apples. I found this site to be helpful.
I was leaning toward Liberty but the pollination time is too early.
However Nova Mac and Mac Free should both work for pollination and are resistant to most diseases but I don’t know if they taste as good as the name implies. Does anyone have experience with either of those two?
Please use a Search function on this forum and search for a thread called Disease Resistant : Liberty vs Freedom. You will find lot of useful info. There are Liberty fans and there are not.
If you like Macs consider Liberties, but do read the thread Mamuang suggested.
I love Liberties. When they’re at their best they’re wonderful, but when they’re not at their best they’re still good.
I prefer the sweet/tart Empire over McIntosh.
Macintosh is not very high up my lists of apple favorites. I’ve eaten too many as a kid in my lunch box that were mealy and bland. Sort of like red delicious. The only way I really care for a Mac is at the carnival when it’s dipped in the hard red candy coating. I’ve not had liberty or any of its sports as far as I can tell. Maybe they are better.
McIntosh is very popular locally, but its peak seems very short. My wife’s favorite apple, but she hates them if they are at all mushy/soft. I love Honeycrisp but the stupid things are difficult to grow.
Maybe Greg should check out Honey Crisp, too. I love this sweet and crunchy apple.
Except for biennial tendency, I would say it is rather problem free. Appleseed has his HC on M106 and has no issue with biennial.
Greg, no need to worry about a dwarf rootstock. You can prune a tree to any height you want. My 8 yrs old HC is only about 7-8 ft tall.
You might consider Kidds Orange Red. It meets all of your requirements.
You should get it on a quality dwarfing rootstock like B.9, G.16, or G.41.
What about golden russet"
As far as sweet goes, Blondee comes to mind. It is a sport of Gala, so it is not at all disease resistant. Gala is a scab and fire blight magnet. FB isn’t terrible here in E. IA. I really have never observed callery pears or crab apples get it, but the one tree I have noticed have FB was a Gala tree in my parents in-law’s neighborhood.
There is a disease-resistant Gala-like apple called Galarina (Rezista series) from Europe, that you can get. I have not tried it.
They don’t even sell McIntosh apples in the stores around here that I’m aware of, and I don’t recall eating one before I had one off my tree. My sister used to live in upstate NY, and when she learned several years ago that I had planted a Mac, she remarked that it was her favorite apple, that she bought them at farmers markets and said that they were real popular out there.
But I agree they don’t tend to keep on the counter as long as some, but we never really let them set around too long, mostly we’re busy freezing the ones we don’t give away. And they’ll do pretty well in a refrigerator for awhile.
Here’s the 2013 harvest off my one and only McIntosh, after having given 3 boxes away, and leaving a bunch in the upper reaches of the much too big tree…
This tree also suffers from the standard Mac drop, where you’ll drive around the field to the apple trees and they’ll be 50 apples on the ground. Then you’ll be picking them or maybe another nearby tree, and every now and again one will fall from high in the tree and if there’s been rain as they were ripening up, they will be so juicy and aromatic it’s unreal - but when they hit the ground they just explode! And the bees are all over them in short order.
Most things I grow are not totally consistent year in and year out, and some years they flavor up better than others. And if they get a bit less than crunchy before we get them all processed, it doesn’t matter to the taste in a pie or cobbler, because Mac’s don’t hold their shape in cooking anyway, but the flavor is always there. I’ve not made apple sauce, but friends who I’ve given them to say they are great for that too.
I’m not stumping for Mac’s, I just have a soft spot for this tree. It’s been my most productive and maintenance free tree of all time. I like Empire a lot too, and the Honeycrisp for a desert apple is lights out! Heck I liked the State Fair a lot that I just lost. A lot of people like my Haralson apples but I find them bland. But talk about a hard apple! You could injure someone with one of them… And they are pretty hard to pick off the tree, they don’t want to let go. Sometimes the deer have a hard time getting them off the tree too, as I’ll find teeth marks in some of them.
So yeah, there’s several ways a guy can go as far as a pollinating partner for the YD, and that’s the beauty of it all!!!
Greg, I take it you’re in the DC area based on your moniker, so disease resistance would be a consideration, but I have 3 different Fuji’s and love them all. They are by far the best tasting apple I grow, for me, on a scale of 1 to 10, they rank an 11. Fuji are probably one of the best grocery store apples, but off your own tree they are in a class by themselves. If you like sweet, rich apples, Fuji is really outstanding for me, but I think some of that may have to do with the environment and climate. I am not a fan of McIntosh, too tart for my palette. One of our big issues here is Powdery Mildew (on a bunch of things besides apples), and I have never had an issue with my Fujis. They are all in full to nearly full sun, which helps.
Patty S.