I live in the middle of Eastern Red Cedar (Juniperus virginiana) territory. My little city is officially nicknamed Cedar City, in fact. Ergo, tons of cedar-apple rust (and also cedar-hawthorn rust).
I’ve had a Callaway crab for a few years, and it has done fine. So I know that rust-resistant varieties can survive here. (My poor hawthorn tree, OTOH, is a very sorry sight every year!) This year I’ve ordered a Dolgo crab plus Liberty and Williams Pride apples. I’ve looked at Arkansas Black, but did not order one because of its reported sensitivity to fire blight and apple scab. I didn’t order Freedom because it wasn’t available at the nurseries I was ordering from.
So – if you were going to add another apple to Callaway, Dolgo, Liberty, and Williams Pride, in 7a Tennessee surrounded by cedars, what would you choose?
Yes, I have had little CAR trouble out of Granny Smith (but it rots bad), Braeburn, Arkansas Black, winesap, wolf river, …and so many others are fine as I have quite a collection of varieties.
I am cutting some cedars for fence posts, so that should help even more…but I’ve really just had a problem with some obscure varieties.
Possibly steer away from yellow delicious…but the red delicious are
quite resistant.
Thanks! I don’t like the Delicious varieties anyway, but I do like Granny Smith, Braeburn, and Winesap. I’ll do some research on their preferred growing areas.
I have 1 … 20 year old apple tree… and a crab that evidently pollinates it… it produces lots of apples.
It is early mcintosh… and is only mildly affected by CAR.
I am in southern middle TN and like you cedars abound and some within 40 ft of my apple trees.
I have 3 other apples that were 2 yr olds this year…
Hudson Golden Gem… and Akane which were only mildly affected…
And Gold Rush… which was much much worse. It looked aweful…
Some here have said that CAR… may look bad but may not hurt fruit production all that much … may reduce the tree vigor some… which might be a good thing.
My 2 yr GR set a few apples this year but the fruit dropped in Sept… way b4 ripe. Each fruit developed a dark spot where the stem entered the apple… and then dropped. Not sure if that was CAR related or not.
Of my 3 new trees the HGG is the most impressive so far. No fruit yet though… hopefully this next year.
Orange pippin also covers resistance to rust for many cultivars and in many cases the information they provide on rust is draw from University of Arkansas data.
Also – huh. Speaking of that Purdue chart (great chart!), I had forgotten about cedar-quince rust. Although there’s a bazillion cedars here, I guess I don’t have the quince rust locally. I’ve got two different japonica varieties, and I’ve never seen rust on them. But I get terrible rust on my hawthorn tree, so I know I’ve got that one!
