I’ve been thinking about adding a Yarlington Mill apple to my lineup, but I’m nervous about its apparent susceptibility to fireblight. I’m up in Ottawa, Canada, zone 4ish. Summers are hot and humid and winters are bone cold. Fireblight does exist in my area though I haven’t seen it in my yard yet (knock on wood). Generally I only grow fairly disease resistant apple varieties.
Curious if anyone here has grown it in a northern climate and has had success with keeping disease at bay. I’m also considering trying Bulmer’s Norman, but research points to Yarlington Mill being superior for brewing cider.
I am trialing Yarlington, Frequin Rouge, Muscadette de Dieppe, Bulmers Norman and Porters perfection.
Chose these based off Claude Jolicours book and the Recupom trials (RECUPOM. Résultats 2021).
Porters gets pretty bad winter dieback at least when younger. Bulmers is not vigorous. I’ve seen some dieback with Yarlington but seems to improve with age of tree. Muscadet and Frequin seem to be doing well. BUTi have yet to see fireblight on any of my trees AND none of these except a graft of Frequin have flowered so I really can’t say.
I will say I got 2 apples from Frequin one year and the tannins were out of this world. So much more flavourful and « soft/round? » than the tannins I get from crabapples or wild apples I have found.
I’m way behind on my annual writups but I’ll get to them some day. Check here and FrozenNorthFruit.com occasionally. Bought a fatmrm start of COVID and now have 2 acres planted with 90 trees on Bud118 (best rootstock for our climate in my opinion).
Thanks, great info, I was actually hoping you’d answer I’d definitely be interested in hearing how things progress when your trees start bearing.
Are you trialing Harrison by chance? By all accounts online it is supposed to be hardy to zone 5, though Bob Osborne over at Corn Hill Nursery in New Brunswick states that it’s zone 4. Seems like it’s one of the best N.American varieties for cider.
Also wondering where you ordered your trees. Silvercreek Nursery has Yarlington Mill but they only offer on EMLA 106 which is susceptible to crown rot. I’d not worry so much except that one of my trees seems like it might have early stage crown rot. Would prefer B.9 as I don’t really have space for a larger tree.
I’ve grafted all my stuff. Silver creek is good. So is Whiffletree.
Buy it on Bud 118 and just prune it to keep it too size. Most of my Bud9 died because they are not vigorous enough to survive bug attacks (apple borer) nor our short growing season. It’s really easy to keep Bud118 to 8-10 feet with winter pruning and perhaps a July summer prune. And you will get more fruit and a tree that will not die/break after you invested 6-8 years into it.
Bud9 sucks in a no spray, no irrigation, no fertilizer, cold climate environment. At least that is my experience.
I’m growing Chestnut on Bud 9. Five years now and it’s performed really well, produces like crazy every year and no disease (except cedar rust which is rampant in my neighborhood). I do spray once a year though with sulphur and dormant oil.
Other trees are on B.10, M.26, G.935 and G.41 and a few unknowns. M.26 has issues with burr knot, and G.41 is too brittle, my 1 yr old Wickson on G.41 snapped right off at the graft union last winter. Both are known issues.
Whiffletree does’t sell cider apples anymore, at least no bittersharps or bittersweets, they used to. I reached out to them and they said they’re not planning on bringing them back in the near future.
I haven’t trialed B.118 yet but assumed it would make a tree 70-80% of standard so avoided it. Good to know its size is manageable with pruning though.
I have 8 Harrison, 5 on B.118 and 3 on M.111. I’m a Z4a in NY / Adirondacks. My Harrison trees have been vigorous, VERY upright, and hardy. We had a low of -27.6F this past winter. The B.118 trees were grafted in 2018 and have not yet bloomed, the M.111 trees were grafted in 2019 and I’ve had just a couple blooms on them with no fruit production to date.
Just grab some rootstock from wherever and you can get some wood from me. Or send me a PM, I probably have an extra Bud118 I could sell you next spring and even graft it for you.
I did not plant Harrisson because it ripens late Oct/early Nov and that is too late for my climate.
I’d definitely be interested in hearing how things progress when your trees start bearing.