I am interested in getting a yates apple however I already have problems with deer will the yates apple attract them to my fruit trees even more. I asked this because based upon information I read some people plant them to attract deer. I appreciate your thoughts. Thanks. Dave
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If you find a variety that does not attract deer please let me know.
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In my area Yates is planted for deer because it is late ripening and reported to be disease resistant. The tree like most all apples is prone to being munched on by deer until the canopy is out of reach.
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Agreed. Yates is no more tasty to dear than any other apple variety. But, it hangs on the tree into the new year and gives a great feeding station so I am sure the hunters really like it.
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Thanks JDARL, Auburn and Scott. I think I am going to order the tree.
Hoping to spark up some more discussion on Yates apple here - can anyone who has been growing this apple tell us more about it in regards to taste and disease resistance? I have one 1-2 years old growing on a seedling rootstock from BlueHille Wildlife Nursery, so it will be a while until I get to try it out myself.
Sure.
In terms of disease resistance itâs about as good as it gets. There are almost no rots on it and it doesnât get much firelight or CAR.
The texture is like your average apple, not super crispy but not soft either. The skin is average on the thin/crip vs rubbery/thick scale as well, something like Red Delicious for example.
In terms of taste, before getting into that you need to make sure they have been well-ripened and well-aged. Mine I harvest in late November and I donât really eat them until January. I would say the closest apple for taste is Hubbardston Nonesuch, which may not mean a lot if you donât know that apple. They have a light rose/raspberry aromatic flavor and are very sweet (often over 20 brix for me). They donât make my top-10 list as they are not a âwowâ apple but I really enjoy them. One reason why I enjoy them so much is I am eating them until the next yearâs apple crop comes in, they store well through the following summer. The only other apple that has stored that long for me is GoldRush.
I expect it would be a leading apple if it were not so small. I actually like how small they are, they are a lot easier to eat without a knife.
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⌠I thought I would take a picture of my tree now as I wanted to check on how it was doing anyway.
You can see that I let the tree set quite a bit, the apples are small so I donât thin much (if I thin more they are not appreciably bigger).
I tasted one and they are further along than they usually are this time of year, I am 1-2 weeks ahead of the usual. They are perfectly edible now but a bit starchy. If there was a hard freeze tonight and I had to pick them all today they would be great in January.
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Iâm pleased to find this discussion going already. When we moved to Cookeville TN, there were a lot of apple trees around town. Most of those trees are gone now, the town has grown so much and no one wanted to bother with all that fruit messing up their lawns. When we moved out to the country, I hardly ever saw apple trees, and assumed they were hard to grow here, on this soil. Over in the Tennessee Valley, there were big old apple trees on the hills, and cropping trees in peopleâs front yards, so the contrast was noticeable. Now Iâve had 2 people tell me there was a big (60 acres!) orchard within a mile of our property, so THAT may be why no one bothered to plant apple trees close by. So much easier to go to the orchard, and a wider variety. A 60 yr old said he remembered it, and it was bulldozed for pasture. Going by what someone said here about black and white root rots here, I bet the orchard had had it. Still, a pity I didnât get to this area in time to explore it.
While in Cookeville, I came upon a small apple tree loaded with small, deep red fruit with prominent red dots. Plainly the livestock fence and the curve in the road had cut it off from whatever house it had belonged to. I picked a bunch and brought them home. It was getting into cool weather, so I put them out on the porch and they kept reasonably well. I guessed they were Yates, because Yates is common, late, a good keeper, etc. But Iâve been wondering. The fruit were quite flat. I think the slightly âtannicâ description I read for them fits. But certainly no âlight rose/raspberry aromatic flavorâ and not high brix. Mind you, there was no green left on any of them, they may have been different earlier. I donât think a one had fallen off though. This is the one pic that fits them Apple âYatesâ all the others show a deeper bodied, greener fruit. And again, consider that when someone was out with the camera recording all the big main fall crop, Yates wasnât quite ripe, so they were a bit greener. But ever since I read Lee Calhounâs Southern Apples book and came across the âShortcoreâ description from Berea Ky, I have wondered about it.
The picture here looks EXACTLY like what I picked. And that last name, âShort Core Winesapâ, very apt. As the fruit aged, they became extremely, almost offensively winesappy in taste.
Apple Index - "Sally Gray to Slope" | NC Historic Sites
Short Core (Garden Red, Short Core Winesap?)
<Description: Fruit medium, roundish or slightly oblong, flattened on the ends, often irregular in shape; skin mostly deep or purplish red; dots numerous, white. Flesh fine-grained, yellowish, juicy, subacid. Ripe October.
History: Originated before 1850 in an orchard belonging to a Mrs. Todd near Berea, Kentucky. Described by the USDA as a good dessert-quality apple borne on a small, productive tree. Uses: Fresh Eating, Stores well>
Contrast to their description of Yates âFruit small, roundish to oblate; skin mostly covered with shades and stripes of dark red; dots numerous, gray or russet.â
No, there wasnât any lighter colored background for stripes to show up on. And the dots were large and whitish. Huh, and Lee Calhoun says itâs CAR resistant. Donât remember anything about the leaves. And it went mealy. There might have been some left for pie Christmas, which would have been a good ending for apples gone mealy.
There were a couple of good greengrocer type stores in Sparta at the time, but only one pitiful failing one in Cookeville. Unless you knew where there were produce stands (I didnât), you were stuck with grocery apples (translation: PNW).
Yes your apple sounds like Short Core ⌠Yates doesnât have a short core, itâs standard shaped. Also it doesnât go mealy at all. I had some I forgot about that were in my fridge this August and they were a bit soft but no mealiness at all.
that tree is long gone as the road was straightened back in the 1990âs. Big Horse Creek isnât offering Short Core this year, but I really didnât enjoy them much. I have Yates now, and may like it better. I think weâd all better grab what we what from this yearâs list, they may or may not have as many last year. Excerpt from email: âBe aware however that our list may not be as extensive as in years past since we did NOT get all of our apple trees pruned last year.â
So their list might be better next year, but you know, time marches on.
Iâm always trying to make sure I get from SandHillPreservation.com whatever seeds I think I might ever want, because they are probably at their biggest variety they will ever have.
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