Southern apple growers - Outside of Liberty and William's Pride, what apples/crabapples do you recommend?

Bagging of my apples and pears was so successful last year I’m okay have some more pome fruit! I’m thinking I might buy some apple benchgrafts from @39thparallel. Prices seem good. Liberty has done well for me. I added William’s Pride and Evereste crab last year. I’ve been told CAR/Fire Blight pressure is strong in my area of NE Texas although I haven’t seen any on my Liberty or pears(Tennousi, Meadows, Southern Bartlett). Any disease resistant, heat tolerant, southern surviving, recommendations or must haves?

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Southern apple growers must be a quiet bunch :rofl:

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You may want to do a search on forum for Southern Apples and see what you find. Texas is a bit different in terms of climate from Kentucky or Georgia so people might be reluctant to make recommendations. Also are you willing to spray for cedar apple rust (CAR)? I think Goldrush would work but you need to spray for CAR. Enterprise would also work and has some resistance to CAR.

Take a look at this webpage that Kuffel Creek nursery has. They test apples in hot climates (including the tropics) and have a recommended hot climate apple list. Also look carefully at the “no longer offered list” at the bottom of the page. Some of these could work well but no longer are offered for various reasons. Enterprise for example was dropped because it was on patent at the time.

http://www.kuffelcreek.com/applelist.htm

I would also take a look at this disease chart it will help you pick apples that have resistance to fireblight and CAR.

https://www.extension.purdue.edu/extmedia/BP/BP-132-W.pdf

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I have grown Liberty, Hawkeye, Jonalicious, Sundance, Sundowner, and Wickson in Houston. All with no problems with disease or fruiting. I prefer bud9 and g30 rootstock to keep trees small and manageable. Had problems with the “m” rootstocks so stopped getting trees with them. Stay away from g41 also. One of my favorite trees broke at the graft third year of fruiting. You can grow most of the disease resistant varieties without worries. My personal favorites are Jonalicious and Hawkeye. I prefer the Jonalicious still green. Tastes like Pink Lady and Granny Smith had a baby. Sundowner is really good also, but gave it to my sister because they ripen so late and tired of fighting the squirrels that long.

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My winners in McKinney TX last year were Monark, Williams Pride, Holland. Had I bagged I bet Enterprise would have been good

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MonArk.

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I’m down here in Harper, Texas. I’ve got Akane, Goldrush, Arkansas Black, Red Rebel, Reverend Morgan and William’s pride. I’ve also added a single Sundance and two Sierra Beauties. The Akane bloomed last year and was only 2 years old. I’ve been impressed with it’s growth. All the others have leafed out, but too young to bloom. I did have cotton root rot take out three of my trees last summer.
I’m going to be putting in a pink lady and pixie crunch (for my Mom), as well as a wickson crab this spring. There is an apple orchard in Mason, Texas. He has goldrush, and has had good success with it.
I’ve liked the G.41 so far, but the tree hasn’t borne fruit yet. Goldrush on G.222 hasn’t liked the heat very much. The two varieties that have the least amount of leaf folding/less severe have been Arkansas Black on G.41 and Akane on G. 890

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Thanks for posting this link to Kuffel Creek- good info. Now I -really- want to try Hashabi for cider. I wonder who else has this? and whether it would do well in acid clay soil. Red Boskoop too, as Belle de Boskoop was recommended to me by two people this week. KC is sold out for 2021.

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I have bought trees from Century Farms Orchard (on Kuffel Creek’s recommendation) and have been pleased with them. There is a lot of information on their site for southern varieties and also on CAR/Fireblight prevention and resistant varieties.
https://www.centuryfarmorchards.com/
Their stock is very low for spring also.

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@mamuang I think you placed your post in the wrong thread?

Thanks.

No problem :slight_smile:

Thanks for the contributions y’all! I’m really trying not to start up a spray schedule with Immunox so built in resistance takes priority.

I have Enterprise and Arkansas Black on the way.

Anyone tried limbertwigs near/in North Texas or similar conditions? I’m eyeballing Swiss and Royal. Kuffel Creek says Royal are great if they ripen later vs earlier.

Any red fleshed apples with good fire blight/car resistance?

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Redfield and Odysso appear to be clean…the jury is still out on most of the red fleshed in that department based on any personal experience. (I have red cedar…juniperus virginiana all around).

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I couldn’t get ahold of some recommendations this round since I’m so late deciding I need more apples. There’s always next year!

I’m going to try to raise these suckers long enough to try. I’m hoping Clark’s crab is @clarkinks variety. It looked great in the pictures on a previous thread. Here’s hoping I don’t kill too many the first season! :joy: Looking forward to giving a review of @39thparallel after I receive them. His shop has so many varieties! I planned on grabbing some of the pears listed, but I couldn’t find enough info on fire blight/CAR resistance.

image

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I just ordered a few scion myself from 39thParallel- try looking up the pears in the ARS-GRIN database. Most came from there- Maxine, Duchess d’Angouleme, and Ayers do well against fire blight as far as I’ve read. Also Warren and Potomac are on my list for next year, don’t remember who has those. Trying to keep myself from getting too much this year. It’s hard when you are eating apple pie while ordering, I want more apples.

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Hello, from north Texas (north of Ft Worth), I have some young trees (only in the ground for 2 years), but of them Araknsas Black, Winter Banana, Anna, and Golden Dorset have all done well for me. Only one year in the ground is Cinnamon spice, but this one also seems promising. I have seen different reviews on this, so I am very curious to find if it actually has a spiced flavor to it.
What I have read, is to control fertilizer and watering to keep vigor down. Fire Blight has an easier time infecting fast growing new growth. So if your new growth is kept to a minimum (instead of each shoot putting on 12" in a week) you will be better able to keep fire blight down.
For pears, I really like Maxie, it is a cross between an Asian pear and a European pear. I am also preparing to start a blood pear breading program as I just got a red fleshed pear sapling.
For red fleshed apples I am trialing Era, Calypso, Odysso, Grenadine, Rubaiyat, and Thornberry. I have a graft that was labeled as Pink Parfait (wasn’t what i ordered) so we will see if that is real or mislabeled. One of my Grenadine benchgrafts failed, but it appears that the seedling rootstock is red fleshed so I will be growing that out too.

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Now that’s some luck! Please keep us updated on your red fleshed pears. I’d be interested in growing those suckers for sure.

Cinnamon Spice is the old English Variety “Laxton’s Fortune”. (Cox Orange Pippin x Wealthy)

I grafted it, but it hasn’t grown and the graft may be failing.

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I’ve found mixed reviews on that Cinnamon Spice as well. I ended up going with Red Cinnamon on @39thparallel advice in a previous post saying does have a pronounced cinnamon flavor. Not a big deal considering we could just toss some cinnamon on an apple and call it a day, but it would be neat fresh :rofl:

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