Has anyone began growing Monty’s Surprise apple? Short explanation - it is a new variety from New Zealand that was discovered as a chance seedling and is apparently extremely disease resistant and possible the most nutritious apple on the earth. It is only available in the US via Burnt Ridge Nursery. I am hoping it will grow in VA. I thought this group might enjoy the information about it below.
From emails with the owner of Burnt Ridge, Michael Dolan (who is a genius btw): "Monty’s Surprise is a new addition in North America, no scab as been observed on it yet but we don’t know if it’s fireblight resistant or not.
Monty’s Surprise is one of the latest ripening varieties and one of our best keepers. When harvested about a month ago (email was Dec. 15th) they were quite hard and made a good cooking apple. Now they’ve softened somewhat with a nice balance of sweet and tart and a citrus aftertaste. While we were able to keep some into the summer, they were pretty soft and getting mealy.
Seems likely they’re at their best around late November/early December as an eating apple. We’ll bring a crate to the Olympia Farmers Market this coming weekend.
The New Zealanders claim that it’s relatively resistant to diseases and pests. So far we’ve observed no apple scab.
Has a tendency to bear its fruit on the young, new wood. It’s a vigorous variety, so upright growth should be pruned out to encourage more horizontal 45 degree or lower branch angles. Properly thinned, the remaining apples can get quite large."
If anyone is growing this apple and has more experience to share please do!
I too started a Monty’s Surprise last spring. I’m in Zone 8b. Grafted to a Bud9 rootstock and grew really well last year. Probably no fruit this year but maybe next.
I forgot to mention in my post that i have a young Monty’s on G222, I think it’s 3 yrs old now. Maybe it’s too early, but so far it hasn’t had any FB or other disease issues at all.
I’ve had my tree since 2023 but it was a large tree I picked up directly at Burntridge. It had several fruit last year that were all stolen by critters.
This year it didn’t make any fruit.
i don’t know if this will help anyone, but i have a process to get my fruit trees doing what i want them to do, i learned this method i am about to tell you about from a Japanese gardener for Ginkgo biloba trees to get them to grow fast in the first three years, but i apply his method to pears and apples. I planted my Monty’s surprise last year, it was maybe 20 inches tall when i got it, here is what i did, by the numbers:
stake the tree with 6 foot long bamboo rods in three places, i’ll tell you why later in the comment
do not allow branching the first year, let it grow as tall as it can, mine made 6 feet that first year. but it was a whip and thin trunk, It’ll be OK, because you staked it and tied it off. any branches that do grow out get cut off.
second year cut the top off, and force branching, remove branches you do not want. keep the ones you do, my tree is now 7 feet tall and trunk is filling out. but must be staked for 3 years.
I have a Giant Asian pear that just started it’s 4th year that is 8 feet tall and the trunk is 1.625 in diameter and produced pears that i removed for growth focus. I removed the stakes and is growing very well, i do not like staking rigidly as this weakens the tree , the trunk must flex with the winds, so it’s important to get the stakes off the tree in three years, but if you must 4 years max if the trunk is still too thin. With the pear i used three stakes and twine with slop in the string to allow the wind to bent the trunk but not too much that it brakes, this wind movement is important as it strengthens the tree. I’ll try to include photo of the apple and pear tree tomorrow maybe.
i do this because fruit trees do not cooperate with my vision on how it should look, they have ideas all their own, this method allows me to get the shape i want, exactly the way i want it to be, and fast growth I’m looking for.
Here’s the tree I planted in a 5 gallon pot on G222 in the spring. It was too wet to plant in ground so I potted it up until the fall. It has new growth from 22 to 27 inches long and the biggest leaves of any apples I have in pots or in the ground. It’s about 5 feet tall now excluding the pot height.
