Thanks Mike…
Morels are my fav fungus…
Not so sure about this sooty blotch and fly speck. I will clean them up good before trying them out. If It does not wash off… peeling might be considered.
I read the other day that one of those… the different parts of it are connected via mycelium (like morels are). I suppose that runs thru the peeling ??
I am not worried about it.
TNHunter
Picture of Pristine apple 150 feet south of a cedar forest this morning. Very light CAR. Fruit never affected.
I read that a person wants to eliminate cedar from the direction of the prevailing winds, which for me is southerly winds so I’ve tried to eliminate all cedars to the south as far I can can control (which is fairly far). Not sure if it’s true, but it’s been working for me for the most part. Trees that have less resistance to CAR, I have located further away. Keepsake which is closer (maybe 50’ south of cedars) is much more affected, but I don’t recall the fruit ever having issues. The charts detailing resistance don’t always agree with each other which can further confuse the issue.
My disease pressure is quite low and the worst common problem we have is scab, but not every year. I do see some blossom blight, but it’s rarely a big problem. No cedar apple rust, minimal fire blight. Gold Rush is super reliable and useful homestead tree here, William’s pride, scab free, but I’ve seen it get bad blossom blight, I don’t have a lot of the standard stuff people mention here. Hauer is barely worth growing to me eating wise, but I’m going to look closer at is as a breeder since it is an extreme late ripener here, eaten off the tree in December. I’m surprised to hardly see sweet 16 mentioned here , but maybe it has some susceptibilities I’m not aware of. Its a good performer here and pretty much scab immune as far as I’ve noticed. It is also one of the most interesting and strongly flavored apples, which is reason enough to use it as a breeding parent.
Anyone that has followed my apple breeding project knows what I’m going to say next ha ha, we should start taking the best of these and growing out seedlings! Breeding programs, while they are somewhat narrow in scope, have made important strides in disease resistance. Even without genetic engineering, just using the advances in gene sequencing for preselection of seedlings for certain traits, and advanced methods of bringing seedlings to fruit more quickly so progress and turnover are faster, we are going to see spray free apples coming down the pike. But what will they do with diversity of fun flavors and other traits that we might want? probably not what we would do. But it is a foundation to work off of, and with hundreds of people growing out random numbers of seedlings and trading genetic material as progress is made, there would have to be good things to come of that down the line.
If I cross William’s Pride with something really tasty and fun, and you cross some other disease resistant apple with fun stuff, we can cross those together and increase the chances of keeping those disease resistance and overall performance traits in offspring in that next generation and further down the line. And no one really needs to grow very many. With a big enough, well connected back yard movement, I’m convinced we can make real progress. It is very unlikely that the apple breeding industry, meaning the people that get the money and resources to breed apples, will ever give us the amazingly flavored, disease resistant russet that we want, when they have been systematically attempting to eliminate russet for decades. Let alone a disease resistant red fleshed russet, or a red fleshed russet crab, or any other number of unconventional, outside the box apples I could dream up. And the potential in pursuing crabs and crab genes, don’t get me started 
I should have some genetic material available soon to this end, which I plan to get to as many people as I can that will make use of it to move the goal of improved AND more disease resistant apples forward, as pollen, seeds and cuttings. My last two videos on YouTube are on William’s Pride and Looking at some new fruiting William’s Pride x Vixen crosses. One of those was actually quite promising. I think at least several will prove to carry WP’s scab resistance, and it seems apparent that one does. It is not a bad scab year, so I won’t learn much this year about that. but even if they don’t display it, the genes may still be lurking to express in a later generation. I’m surprised how many people have got in on this idea and are dabbling in seedling apples, and I think there will be many more. With even a small amount of intent and focus in that direction, I think progress will be made on creating disease resistant apples that will greatly benefit home growers. That is the vision anyway, and even if I’m wrong, it’s been pretty damn fun so far 
i love his vids… hes in s. central Quebec, 2 hrs west of me. someday ill visit his orchard. i googled about novamac. i should have known from the name. it was bredd at the Kent research station in Nova Scotia. probably why its more common in Canada.
@steveb4 - I love his vids too… I watched his top 5 apple tree (grown organic) vid last night too… and another Nova was in that group… NovaSpy.
I have been watching SKILLCULT this week to on youtube (Chestnut Crab vids) and have been for years now. Seems we have some famous youtubers visit here with us. It was his Gold Rush video’s that turned me on to Gold Rush… works great for him… but with my overload of Cedar Trees, not so good for me. Location, Location, Location.
TNHunter
@SkillCult I totally agree! I have been gathering and grafting to my new orchard a list of trees I am hopeful about and as soon as they get to producing I plan to do lots of crosses and plant out hundreds of the best seedlings. It is an interesting idea to pursue! I plan to do it with special focus on disease resistant later bloom keeper apple types. And hybrid persimmons and tasty or large jujube. And anything else that does great and has potential for new selections like maybe Romance cherries and Euro plums. Probably plant out several acres of seedlings. Im not one to throw away seeds lol!
Always good to hear Make sure you look at Court Pendu Plat. Extremely late bloomer. It’s a weak grower, but that’s okay and seedlings will probably be more vigorous. But it has quality and late blooming at least, and I think some scab resistance Apple variety Court Pendu Plat - YouTube
I’ve been working on the ‘better red fleshed apple’ for 5-6 years, but more misfortune than success so far. But, I have 30 red fleshed and near 90 other apples…more possibilities for crosses than you can dream of.
Niedzwetzkyana still is the best until I discover better.
Is Kent Research Station still in operation?
i think so as acc wendy strawb and acc eden rasp. are newer releases from them only 2-3 years ago.
Thanks for your thoughts @SkillCult yeah I got CPP and hope to cross it with good ones like perhaps Enterprise, Goldrush, and Keepsake
A few of the apples mentioned in this thread I am growing, in my (~somewhat) hot/humid southeast location. As it happens a bunch of them I’ll eventually cull and replace with the same cultivar, on different rootstock, and with better spacing, etc… Long story… But as result of that plan, they’ve had basically no care this year. No sprays of any kind… I would have if they had fruited but an April freeze got everything. So I ignored these and only concentrated on the ones I’ve re-grafted and re-planted. Which sprayed only with non-synthetic “organic” sprays are very healthy and have zero CAR, scab, etc…
Note that none of these have yet fruited at all, so cultivar accuracy isn’t guaranteed.
Crimson Crisp:
GoldRush:
Arkansas Black:
Black Limbertwig:
Blenheim Orange:
Horse:
Mutsu:
And even though it wasn’t mentioned, the bug/disease magnet Honey Crisp:
@wdingus – I think your gold rush looks worse than mine… a little bit. It is a close call.
Wish it wasnt so…
TNHunter
@Chris_in_GA — just saw your good report on Hudson Golden Gem… I have a 2 yr old that Is looking great so far. It is right next to my gold rush that has awful car/foliage issues… but the HGG is very mildly affected… looking good.
And you are south of me… very likely even more hot and humid than my southern TN location.
I have even more hope for my HGG now.
Thanks
TNHunter
Amazing that the English apple foliage looks the best! Blenheim Orange. Scott puts it on his easier to grow list. You obviously have nearby red cedars.
This part of the country has lots of red cedar… Farmers have to constantly fight to keep them from consuming their pasture.
I’ve read that CAR spores can travel up to two miles. I don’t doubt it. There isn’t a cedar within many hundreds of feet in any direction from my orchard.
Same here. Fire and cedars are a good mix It’s a wonderful sight!
I have burned plenty. They go up like match sticks.
Cider taste is proportional to crop quality. Maybe codling moths don’t have a lot of flavor, but they cause a lot of secondary spoilage.
I’m planning to ‘harvest’ some fence posts…and get rid of my red cedars.
Have had more than usual CAR. Ooten has died, 30 year old ANOKA and 30 YEAR old Braeburn are almost defoliated. Numerous varieties have leaves that aren’t pretty.
