Photo MrBolan
Why would anyone grow them instead of regular apples?
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Some are quite flavorful.
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Southeast Asians like to dip it in some funky fish sauce that i like to call… Crack sauce, because if you’ve grown up with it or if you like spicy, sour with a tinge of sweet flavors, it’s like Crack. You can eat enough to poop lava for a day and still not get enough.
Crab apples have a fantastic flavor that compliments “jeow” jew? Jou? … the Lao folks call it jeow/pronounced Ju or something similar. I haven’t been around my people enough to remember but again, i call it Crack sauce… 
which reminds me that i gotta hunt down a dolgo crabapple so my little girl can experience this too in the summer 
also they seem to have less bugs in them in general without having to spray them which is nice.
I do not grow regular apples and do not want to because it’s too much work i feel. But i do want to go out of my way for some dolgo crabapples though. They actually get a little sweet when fully ripened
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Deer love them
Plus, Chestnut crab is as good eating as many regular apples. Better than most in a good year.
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Most of them are very good pollinators.
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I’m growing some “eating” crabapples because they are generally more disease and pest resistant than “regular” apples. I’m don’t want to have to spray my trees.
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One good reason is for rootstock. I will have Malus Brevipes and large fruited {50-100g} Kaido Crab for dwarfing rootstock. Crabs are also valuable for their high pectin in jellies and preserves. Some fine hard ciders are made with many like Wickson.
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Because we like to experiment!!! Mixing crab apple - i have six cultivars - and «regular« apples gives a heavenly juice. Once you have come up with a “blend” - Trailman + Rouville or Hewes + Richelieu or Chestnut + Golden Russet you can happily die and don’t care going to Hell because you have already gone to Heaven before…
Marc
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I got some for jelly.
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This was my first year to harvest Red Gravenstien from a semidwarf rootstock Honeycrisp that I had topworked to other varieties eliminating Honeycrisp due to its cantankerous bitter pit. Red Gravenstien turned out to be my earliest to ripen. One variety I added two years ago was Calloway from Bill in Alabama, @Auburn, and I am very happy with the cross pollination results. This box in pic shows about half of this years first crop, so productive that I had to prop up several limbs for fear of breaking. This variety far exceeded our expectations for a tart but sweet flavor with nice crisp texture. A definite win over Honeycrisp! I don’t know if the Calloway’s can be used for anything but the pollination of its flowers were quite successful! Thanks Bill for your scions!
Dennis
Kent, Wa
Red Gravenstien one Golden Reinette in corner
Calloway pollinizer
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Do they pollinate regular apples?
I found one abandoned at a park and tried some fruit. I could not see what the fasciation was with them. Maybe it was a bad variety.
Why are they so dusty?
I guess it is OK if you got the room. But I can’t afford much experimentation. If I had unlimited room, maybe I’d have 100 - 125 trees. But before that I would need a greenhouse and some figs and warm weather persimmons in it.
Deer already gets tons of my fruit. They love the Asian pears and I’m glad they do. I don’t have to cleanup! The deer clean a peach pit as clean as is it was sandblasted.
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For the flowers
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Calloway is quite popular for jelly and pickling in Georgia.
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I got a crabapple because it’s from seed. Wanted a big juicy apple, but got a small cherry size fruit. It’s very vigorous. Grafted a Gala, scions from my other apple seedlings, Asian pear and a Bartlett. The Gala scion is growing nicely this year. It’s growing faster than the Gala tree itself. Plus the leaves are bigger. I expect some Gala fruit next year. Then I can compare the Gala on the apple seedling vs the Gala on M111 root stock. My bet is on the apple seedling as the champ because it’s more mature.
Wild crabs are a hit and miss prospect. Try a cultivated crab like Wickson. A taste Flavor bomb. Intense flavors big apples rarely match. But it is one of many fine eating crabs like Chestnut. Whitney, Trailman. Or our own favorite Clark’s Crab.
The great Albert Etter created an entire team of great tasting crabs with unique tastes from each other. Wickson is his greatest crab creation. But it can be sensitive to skin cracking due to a thin skin.
Of course Etter bred a very good collection of Apples{Waltana, Katherine, Etter’s Gold, Alaska} and a couple of “Applecrabs”{Crimson Gold, Vixen} too.
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There are crab apples and and then there are crab apples, not all crabs are created equal.
The flavour of Trailman crab after a few frosts cannot be beat by a regular apple. Chestnut carries more flavour than a Honey crisp, Macintosh or many others.
For me regular apples are great but I prefer a little sour snap and many don’t have that.
I halve the crabs, scoop out the core and use them in crisps and pie no pealing needed.
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The haze is Surround WP residue which repels all insects
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