Sam, Welcome to Garden Web! Your first list sounds like a winner for the most part. Liberty apples are a very good choice: they can be excellent eating apples, they are quite resistant and easy to grow. One you didn't mention was William's Pride: an early August apple, very disease resistant, a real treat as well as beautiful. If you can manage Cedar Apple Rust a bit, Goldrush is a real winner with an intense sweet tart snappy flavor for later in the fall. This apple requires a pretty long growing season, ready late October-November. The world of apples is very large: it is almost a universe all its own. Don't be real hasty and get plenty of advice. Apple Blessings, Ted

My first recommendation would be to always check Dave's Garden Watchdog to view the reputation of any nursery you are thinking of buying from.

"The world of apples is very large: it is almost a universe all its own. Don't be real hasty and get plenty of advice."

So I am coming to understand. A radio segment I heard said there were 16,000-17,000 varieties in the U.S., which is outrageous. Thanks for the advice, Ted.

thisisme, the Watchdog site led me to a highly rated nursery in NY, which I will look into. Thanks.

Blackrag, I did something similar at the local organic farmers market in the fall. The growers seemed to think I was crazy for wanting to start a family orchard, but we still enjoyed 20 or so varieties of tasty apples. Curiously, most aren't listed as disease-resistant so I wonder how complex the spaying schedules and IPM plans are at the bigger organic orchards. I'm guessing more than I can pull off.

Ian Merwin, Cornell researcher and Trumansburg NY apple grower seems to like GoldRush, William's Pride, Crimson Crisp, Liberty, and Sundance. These have some disease resistance and sell well at his fruit stands. He doesn't like Enterprise, Redfree, Jonafree, and Priscilla. There are more descriptions on his website listed below.

Here is a link that might be useful: apple descriptions by Merwin

Cummins Nursery carries many of the apples Merwin recommends. I've bought from them and have been satisfied. The elder Cummins is retired from Cornell and has worked with Merwin.

Here is a link that might be useful: Cummins Nursery

Taste is subjective, but starting off you should know that the disease resistant varieties don't require less spraying, just a less complicated spray mix.

Liberty is a bug magnet and at the time you spray to protect form those bugs you can also spray for fungus. I say grow what you love and not everyone loves Liberty (or any other variety for that matter).

One other good thing to know is that as your tastes change due to greater apple awareness your trees can always be grafted to other varieties (although Liberties growth habit can make this difficult).

Goldrush is a wonderful variety but it won't ripen in all Z5 sites, particularly without nearly dawn to dusk full sun and on shorter growing seasons with cool weather. The length of growing seasons varies year to year in any zone.

Liberty is a fabulous treat for a limited time. The fruit is difficult to store (but it can be done!) and the tree is very difficult to manage. As much as my wife and I enjoy the fruit I do wish I had started with a more tractable tree.

Negatives aside: the fruit is great eating when right, is good for cider, and I like it for pies a lot, as it holds its firmness and flavor. The tree is almost completely disease free in Western Montana (I did have a tiny touch of powdery mildew one year) and, as H-man puts it, is a fruit machine once you learn how to handle it. For that matter, it's productive no matter what you do.

Maybe that's why the damn codling moths love it so.

I believe Liberty is a better apple where sun is more intense,judging from posts I've read here. In orchards I grow it where neighbors often come and pick the fruit they like, Liberty is consistently neglected and it's generally failed as a commercial apple in the northeast (in spite of being sold firm and ripe) so I'd have to say it's failed the public popularity contest.

When I give people a Goldrush they almost always are blown away. I believe Liberty to be, as grown here, less appealing. Taste is subjective, but obviously some varieties appeal to a wider range of tastes.

William's Pride is kindof the early Liberty and it's much more popular with people here because it really is exceptionally good for an early apple. In Liberty's season there's so many to choose from and Macoun has a better crunch and more aromatic flavor for an apple of that type IMO.

Thanks for all the good suggestions. I'm kind of leaning towards Liberty, Jonafree, and William's Pride for this year. I'm also still considering a Jonamac, as my father-in-law loves McIntosh and it's supposed to be CAR-resistant and more-or-less manageable.

Goldrush was also recommended by an orchard owner I contacted, but the only place I could fine them was Stark Bros, and they only have it on dwarf stock (I'm planning on semi-dwarf).

No one nursery has all these varieties, especially at this point in the season. To get the first three, I'd have to go to two different nurseries and adding Jonamac would involve a third. Might be crazy-making.

Anyway, whatever I don't get/find will go into the hopper for later consideration, I think. Given the rocks in our field, digging a few less holes this time around sounds okay.

Thanks again!

Fruitnut,

Is there another page where Merwin talks about the apples he didn't like and why, especially Priscilla? I wasn't able to find it and only saw a description of what he is currently growing on the link provided.

Thanks,
Bob

Bob:

The varieties I listed as Merwin's favorites and laggards are listed in the article in Good Fruit Grower March 15 2011. Good Fruit Grower has a web page and I'll try to link the article below. I'm not sure you need to be a member to read the article but we'll see.

Here is a link that might be useful: Merwin's article

Hi Sam: I've had Jonafree and Freedom in for 6 or 7 years now and am positive that they are susceptible to CAR in an environment heavily infested with CAR as mine is. Can't speak to organic controls for CAR having never tried any. Perhaps Freedom and Jonafree would do fine without any CAR sprays in a lightly infested environment.

Seems I read somewhere that Freedom is a rather vigorous grower, mine appears to display that trait and requires more pruning attention each year than the others.

In it's 7th leaf now, Freedom really can produce a large crop of large fruit, I juice all of mine and love the juice.

Great suggestions here. We have Wms pride, enterprise and liberty. Like them all for different reasons, but I wanted to add to watch ripening times closely because harvesting apples takes time. Also wms pride drops its fruit, which can be a hassle.

Um You don't want to spray and stick to organic. Good luck. In the last couple of years The Cuddling Moss made me forget my middle name. For 2 years I harvested a total of 15 Apples. That are the ones I can reach to bag. Off course that plus about 1000 injured Apples I collected from under the trees to take to the trash. Last year I used something called Surround It worked some what nicely but Nothing is 100% proof. Surround is Organic any way.

Hi Sam_NY-
Good luck in sticking to the organic route. It can be done, just not in my environment. The book you want to read is "The Apple Grower" by Michael Phillips. Most of that book centers around Vermont and New Hampshire where CAR isn't present. You won't have that luxury in New York.

There is no organic solution to CAR, and around here, CAR will devastate most of my trees. William's Pride is the one exception to that. It laughs off CAR. Not even a speck of CAR (when I didn't spray it with Immunox). Even my Liberty which is supposed to be resistant gets run over by the CAR.

As far as insects, you'll want to look into bagging your fruit (search the forum and you'll find lots of info). The only problem is, I'm worried about the time when your fruit is too small to bag (smaller than a dime). For me, I still have to do an insecticidal spray during that time.

For the organic route, you'll want to look at getting some (organic-copper) Kocide 3000 and oil. That will help you quite a bit with scab.

Good luck,
-Glenn

Sam, don't let these naysayers get you down. You can do organic. Thats not to say its easy...

For CAR, I have found that Serenade and sulphur make a dent in it and as long as you don't have too many junipers nearby you will not get so many problems. The timing of those sprays is important so look into that aspect if you see CAR. I have quite a few spots on some varieties but the amount of damage I get on the fruits themselves is very small.

For the fruits you can spray with Surround from petal fall through bagging time and that will eliminate the curculio problems. If you don't want to bag it can be very hard to avoid the codling moth. I do it by a combination of mating confusion, granulosis virus, and spinosad, but its a lot of work.

I have not had big scab problems, maybe my dormant copper has been a factor in helping with that. If you do get scab Michael Phillips' book has tons (too much really) information on scab spray timing.

Note that disease resistant varieties only make your work about 10% easier. I think the nurseries over-market that aspect. The things they breed resistance to are not my biggest problems, the biggest disease problem is fireblight and the bugs which are most of the work there is no resistance to. Some varieties are more resistant to fireblight but its not extreme. See the link below for some fireblight data for some varieties, you will notice the best category is only "moderately resistant". I would say the major thing is to avoid the highly susceptible varieties. Note that the top-2 treatments for fireblight, copper and agrimycin, are organic, so fireblight is no harder for the organic grower.

Scott

Here is a link that might be useful: fireblight data

I'm in Z6 NY and on my property I don't even always have to spray any fungicide to control CAR, even on susceptible varieties. Sites vary greatly and there are many varieties besides those recently bred for disease resistance that offer pretty good resistance to both scab and CAR.

Some that Tom Buford suggest are Ashmeads Kernel, Golden Russet, King David, Limbertwig, Roxbury Russet (my easiest to grow russet and a very good multi-use apple), Spartan, St. Edmunds Pippin, old strain Stayman, and Yates. Any of these I've tasted are great varieties I consider better than any of the disease resistant ones I've tried besides Goldrush.

Pressure is much less the further N. you go IMO and any of these might well work in an organic program with zero fungicide.

Sites that are open and windy are the easiest to go this route but my own is pretty sheltered and I'm sure I could easily crop many varieties consistently without fungicide.

I just happen to think that the organic gospel is a bit silly, but growing fruit without poison is a great idea if you have the time and inclination. Never could understand why all synthetic chemicals should be considered undesirable but we've already done that dance here many times.

Thanks Fruitnut- No login was needed and it was a good article.

Bob

We purchased GoldRush on EMLA 111 (just slightly smaller than standard size) from Adams County nursery, and were pleased with the tree they sent. They also sell it on a number of other root stocks, and the website is good. If you do end up wanting GoldRush I recommend them.

How about deer? In our neck of the NY woods, they are a huge problem, and we have to completely fence our small tree so it doesn't get devoured. This is one reason we selected a not-so-dwarfing root stock -- so that the fruit on the mature tree will be out of reach of the deer.

Wow, a weekend off from the computer to go dig holes and I come back to tons more useful info.

So glad that the discussion of varieties also led to some suggestions on organic pest/disease control and happy that some people have had success with organic methods. I'll try it and see how it goes. The Michael Phillips book has been recommended time and again on this forum, so I'll definitely pick up a copy.

Jayco, yes we have legions of deer. I'll be fencing in my trees for the deer, as well as surrounding each trunk with hardware cloth for the rodents. The nurseries I'm looking at don't list what stock their semi-dwarf trees are, but I'll ask.

Thanks, everyone else, for the tips and resources.

Jayco, MM111 may not help you - deer will strip bark from a young apple tree regardless of the rootstock, and kill the tree. They need to be kept completely away.

Yes, thanks, we have our young tree fenced for now. I just meant that we hope one day -- in 10 years or so -- it will be tall enough so that we can remove the fence!

Sam, personally I would always prefer to purchase from a nursery who tells you the rootstock. This is important info and I think it's worth paying a bit more to get better trees -- or to get trees on the rootstock best suited for your area and purposes.

Taking up Harvestman's comments on Tom Burford's suggestions, I recall hearing him a few years ago highly recommend Pomme Gris for those who want to grow apples organically.

I've had experience with Enterprise and William's Pride. Both have lived up to the claims of disease resistance here in MD where fire blight and Cedar Apple rust are common. No signs of either on the Williams Pride and only a very small amount of CAR on the Enterprise. So far Williams Pride has been the better apple. It has seemed to take a few years before the fruit really started tasting exceptional, as they did last year. I am hoping the same for Enterprise. One thing Enterprise definitely needs is some time in the fridge to develop best flavor. I spray with Surround early in the season and then bag the apples in plastic sandwich bags when the fruit are big enough to do so.

Williams Pride is very attractive to the curculio, but this is perhaps because it sets fruit a bit earlier than the Enterprise.

Aus, you're right about small miracles happening when Enterprise goes into the fridge. After a week or so it becomes the best apple ever to eat with peanut butter.

We make wine with most of our Williams Pride, which has gone standard and gotten into alternate bearing. A grand tree, but not for everyone.

I presently grow 6 different 'resistant' varieties and a pair of non-resistant trees. At first I thought that the resistant trees were a great idea. Then I found out that scab is only one (but very significant) problem that apples will have here in my Illinois location. The disappointment I have is that 4 out of the 6 have very similar flavors. I can't tell the difference between Williams' Pride, Redfree, Liberty and Nova Easygro. They are sort of 'me too' in flavor. I would say they were not outstanding. The two that are different are the Pristine and the Enterprise. Pristine is yellow and has a better flavor. It is so early that it is easy to be fooled as to the proper time to harvest. A little late and I get soft, easily bruised fruit. Enterprise is the opposite end of the season. It is a good keeping apple that improves with a bit of refrigeration. The other 4 'resistant' varieties are pretty much interchangeable to me. This is not what I was aiming at when I chose them. I wanted a variety of flavors and textures and acid levels and sweetness.
Don't get me wrong, they definitely are scab resistant. They almost never show any signs of it, even when conditions are favorable, and they are usually favorable here in the Midwest.
I much prefer the two 'non-resistant' apples that I have. They have very good flavors and I can tell them apart blindfolded.
My experience may be unique, but please consider the 'non-resistant' varieties too. The extra effort may be worth it.

One advantage I find to my having Liberty, William's Pride, and Redfree is that they ripen at different times. Also, this year the Liberty has a good crop, but the William's Pride, Redfree, Enterprise, and Pristine were all very sparse here. They are on a 5-in-1 tree, plus I have a separate Redfree. I've never tried Nova Easygro. I have a 5-in-1 old-fashioned tree that hasn't had any knockouts on it, either, so a branch of each variety is plenty there. I also have a Honeycrisp, a Zestar, and a Cortland. I would like to try grafting some day, as I am out of space. Northwoodswis

Igarden, not only is your experience not unique, I would suggest it to be fairly common. On orchards I manage the DR's often are not prized. The Cornell creations are mostly less interesting than the parent material to many of us and Liberty can never replace the bouquet and unique crunch of a Macintosh off the tree- and Mac isn't even one of my favorite apples. When I speak of WP being a good apple, it's in the context of its season, although it is one that some people really flip for.

Goldrush is the one DR that I consider world class, but where CAR is the main issue it will not save you any fungicide. It also needs a long season to ripen properly.
On the plus side it is less attractive to insects than many other apples and even squirrels don't like it much until it is ripe.

I agree that Pristine is a very good early apple and that its narrow window is a major liability with it.

Hi Sam,

I live in Saratoga County. You might want to talk to Randy at Faddegon's Nursery in Latham (on Route 7 near the airport). They're well-respected locally and he seems quite knowledgable on local varieties. That's where I get all my non-mail order trees.

Tom

As I posted here a few days ago, resistant doesn't mean immune. I've found I'll need to spray Enterprise against CAR.