Interesting article. The census of agriculture shows about 25,000 trees in commercial apple orchards in Fairfax County in 1925. If my math is right that would be almost 250 acres.
@scottfsmith Scott- are your Gala or Fuji special blight-resistant strains? I see both apples listed most everywhere on internet alongside other blight magnet varieties as highly susceptible to blight. Also- did Hooples drop out of your Top Ten? Would your Top Ten change for a no-spray orchard?
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I haven’t grown either for awhile but they were not big blight problems for me. They were just standard strains, forget which ones now though.
The list above is my “bulletproof” top apples, not my top-10. Hooples is pretty good on the bulletproof front but gets a bit of spot rot so is not quite “bulletproof”…
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@scottfsmith I read through your 2018 apple notes as well and think I’d like to try Swayzie, but I can’t find it for sale anywhere online. Where did you find it?
A lot of your apple suggestions seem to be either gala-like yellow with red blush or yellow GD type varieties. I want to avoid planting too many that taste really similar and my newbie mostly grocery store-based tasting experience doesn’t help much. We’ve gone apple picking for several years but I admit I’m bad about tossing all the varieties in together and forget to keep track of what I like. Though I’d love to have at least one dark red variety simply because they look awesome. Is there a huge difference between suncrisp, goldrush, and hooples? gala and Reinettes etc?
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Perhaps you should consider some of the Limbertwig varieties. Myers Royal and Victoria are two of my favorites.
Victoria Limbertwig
Myers Royal Limbertwig
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You do need to watch that you don’t plant too many Golden Delicious types. I like those types more so there are more on my top apples list. Don’t go by the looks, Gala looks like Reine des Reinettes but tastes different. Pomme Gris is very similar to Swayzie so I would just get that one if you can’t find Swayzie. It seems a bit more productive than Swayzie as well. There is no apple quite like those two so it is a good kind of apple to get. Rubinette is another good one, it is the best Cox-type for me. Blenheim Orange, Wagener, and Newtown Pippin are also very different apples compared to other ones and are nice to have for that reason.
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I have an Arkansas Black (the “starkspur” sport), Goldrush, Mammoth Black Twig, Hooples Antique Gold, Liberty, Enterprise.
My trees are only three years old now and too young for me to really tell you how they compare other than to say that Liberty, Enterprise, and Arkansas Black show little to no Cedar Apple Rust, Mammoth Black Twig shows a moderate amount, and Goldrush and Hooples show a lot.
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Ok, we’ve decided on about a dozen from the suggestions earlier in the thread (thanks for that). Now we’re trying to decide which rootstocks to get and how far to space them. We plan to put two staggered rows of trees across the front of our yard (maybe 100 ft). We don’t mind the look of larger trees and we want trees that don’t have to be staked permanently, but because of ease of pruning/spraying etc we were guessing we should keep the size to around 10ft.
Century Farms has many of the varieties we’re interested in on mm111. They suggest 20x20 spacing, but that seems far apart compared to what I’m reading on the forums and elsewhere online. Cummins has a few other varieties we like (rubinette, wagener, newton pippen) on 935 and 890, but we weren’t sure if those would need permanent staking.
What are your suggestions on rootstock and spacing? What does everyone find the size limit of easy to care for if you don’t mind using a small step ladder on occasion? Would mm111s do okay at 15x15 or less or would it be too difficult to keep them pruned small enough?
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I plant mm111 at 15’ or sometimes less. My MM111 planting is pruned to be in the “small step ladder” category, taller than my dwarf and semi-dwarf apples but not massively big.
I don’t have any of the newer Geneva roots and have no experience with the ones you list.
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Hello there. I’m in NOVA and have a variety of heirloom apple trees growing. Regarding your questions above, I would advise you to buy the book “Grow A Little Fruit Tree” by Ann Ralph. Here’s a link to an article she wrote for Mother Earth News on the topic.
I started out with five trees on a roughly 15x15 spacing, until I read her book. I’m now on roughly an 8x8 spacing for the M111 rootstocks and a four-foot spacing for the G.41 rootstocks.
Here are the two apples we picked today from my three-year-old Williams Favorite tree I got from Century Farm Orchards.
Here was one of them hanging on the tree just before I picked it. You can see that the Japanese beetles have enjoyed a few leaves.
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Those are very distinctive looking apples.
Thanks to everyone for your encouragement and advice. We ordered Gala, Pomme Gris, Hooples Antique Gold, Blacktwig, Newton Pippen, and Goldrush on mm111. I still need to measure the full non-shaded area of the yard. I’m hoping we can fit in a few more varieties and another pear. We’re hoping to fit in Blenheim orange, reine des reinettes, wagener, and yates if there’s space and I can find them on larger rootstocks.
For us (and the front yard placement) larger trees were the way to go. We plan to keep them at 10-12ft tall, but it’ll be years before we have to worry about those heights. We’ll have to weigth 3-5 years for fruit but with our heavy clay soil and not wanting permanent stakes 111 seems like the best choice.
Can’t wait to start planting next spring.
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And they were delicious. The smaller one actually dropped from the tree overnight, while the larger one was still on. The smaller was fully ripe, with a slight tartness that was rich and sprightly. The larger was a little less ripe, so it lacked the full richness of the smaller–but it was good nonetheless.
Since this is the tree’s first year to fruit, these were the only two on the tree. I hope to have several more next summer.
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Anyone know where I can find Blenheim Orange, Reine des Reinettes, and Wagener on 111 rootstocks?
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If you can’t find larger trees, Maple Valley Orchards will sell you benchgrafts of the latter two on MM111 from their own scionwood, and will custom-graft Blenheim Orange from scionwood you obtain elsewhere. One good source for that variety is @derekamills.
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