albart,

Ive just started apple dwarfs so Im kind of on the same boat as you. Probably the best apple ive ever had is a honey crisp and I would really recommend this. Its extremely juicy and crisp (hence the name) and grow huge apples. Then I know you said you don't like delicious, but even so golden delicious apple trees make good pollinators because they have a relatively longer bloom time then most others. Ive ordered mine from Stark Bros (website) and they came in great shape. The golden came 4ft tall too. They can tolerate shade, all apple can, it just cant be too much. And if it is they will just take longer to produce and grow. Thats my take on it anyway. and seriosuly, honeycrisp are awesome.

Hope this helped

Semaje

Al,

There are some wonderful apples that fit your description. Yes, Honeycrisp apples are fantastic. Some disease resistant varieties that may fit the bill are:

Liberty, a McIntosh type with great flavor and texture and disease resistance.

Goldrush, a golden delicious looking apple with lots of sweet tart punch, one of our favorites. This apple is very late ripening.

William's Pride, a very early apple with a crunchy sweet tart mix, also disease resistant.

Pixie Crunch, also an early apple with exquisite eating quality.

All of these are supposed to be scab immune. These are just a few we have experience with. I'm sure there are many, many more!

There is a whole world of apples out there. Don't jump into growing the more common varieties too fast. A little research will go a long way in guiding you to some great varieties.

Sit back, relax, enjoy your quest for the best apples for you!

Best Regards,
Ted

Albartsch-
I live just a little south of you in RI, and I've always been fond of Disease Resistant apples. If you look at my "My Page", you'll see exactly what I'm growing, and even a few pictures of them. I've only been growing them for the last 4 years ago, but I've been learning as much as I can since I started. In the DR category, I grow Liberty, Williams Pride, and Enterprize.

About Liberty: "...interested in McIntosh types... disease resistant": You've basically hit upon the very definition of Liberty. I couldn't describe it better. When I do side-by-side comparisons, I usually like Liberty better than the Macs, but they're so similar, it's a difficult choice, and my experience is limited. Some people (on this site) 'diss Liberty, and say that there are better flavored apples out there and there are. Apples like an Ashmed's Kernel, or maybe a Cox Orange Pippen come to mind. But flavor is just one category of things to look for in an apple. If you like Mac's (and I do), and you want disease resistance, then Liberty is your choice.

About Williams Pride: If you're interested in Disease Resistant trees, I don't think you could do any better than William's Pride. It is a great tasting early apple, which is a hard combination to find, even among non DR trees. If I had to pick any tree which was the MOST DR, it would be WP. Around here, my (our) biggest problem was Cedar Apple Rust. Where as all my other trees have been hit hard by CAR in the past (before I found Immunox), my WP gets not even one little spec of CAR. Amazing. Even a liberty, youÂll still want to spray (my friends donÂt and still get ok apples, but thatÂs not how I roll), but WP I believe you could almost get away with not spraying it with anything. And thatÂs almost what I do.

For me, I donÂt think my apple orchard would be quite complete with just DR trees, so thatÂs why I grow my non DR trees as well. IÂm also interested in spreading out my harvest for as long as possible starting with WP in July, and ending with Granny Smith in November. One fun post you might like was our "best of the best apple tasting varieties". Look towards the bottom where we tallied up the results.

Especially while the trees are young, you might want to look at bagging your apples to keep the insects away (instead of spraying insecticides). Search this site for more info on that.

Take it from me you want to give your trees as much light as you can, or youÂll regret it later. I finally went all-in and took down the trees in my front yard to make an orchard. I have other trees in the back which only get 6 or so hours of sun, and they still live/grow and make a few apples, but they do struggle. I think this also makes them more susceptible to disease. How many hours are you talking? If you could put in less trees, and thus give each one more light, IÂd go that route instead. You can always graft on other varieties. Do whatever you can to maximize their light, or youÂll regret it later.

Hope this helps,
-Glenn

Personally I like a good strain of Mac more than Liberty- much more perfumed with the Mac unique snap, but I only like it off the tree- the texture disappears in storage. Just my opinion.

Goldrush is the one disease resistant apple I consider world class, especially out of a couple months storage, but it is susceptable to cedar apple rust, which can be a problem. I grow it here without the benefit of any fungicide, however. I don't have diseased apples in the nearby vicinity and can grow most varieties of apples without fungicide.

One thing you should know is that disease resistant doesn't decrease the amount of spraying required- it just means you won't have to add fungicide in the insecticide mix. I would never let that minor complication keep me from the apples I love.

I also recommend that you go semi-dwarf with EMLA 26 as a good choice if you want the benifit of early harvests. Much less fussy than a full dwarf.

There's quite a few nurseries out there and a good many of the best ones are not to far from you. one that comes to mind is Hocking Hills Its up north of you I think, it carries a great many Heirloom apple varieties and even some scion wood for grafting if you want to increase the number of varieties without losing space. Where I'm at in Missouri we have a lot of disease that attacks apples and pears and even our plum trees get hit too. So getting trees that are resistant is a good Idea from the get go.
I have two apple trees that are just about the right size to graft they are Gala and Golden delicious neither are resistant, so I have to keep them spraid and even doing that they still showed signs of cedar rust. I would love some cuttings of Liberty or Empire, as they are some what resistant, but I would give my right arm for some cuttings of Lamb Abbey Pearmain, Kidds Orange Red,Calville Blanc D Hiver or Ashmeads Kernel, just to name a few, most of them are not resistant, but I have to spray anyways. I can order and buy cuttings, but I live on a small disability check, so I'm hoping for some kind soul that might share some cuttings for the price of postage. I do have a small grafted apple tree on the way, the cutting came from a old apple tree that got cut down by the road crew, it has some disease resistance and the apples were large, crisp, sweet with good acid and had a wine like after taste. It was a shame that they had to cut it down, it must have been close to 75 years old as it was a full grown tree when I was still a kid some 60 years ago. The apples are a deep red over yellow with some red striping, I managed to get a lot of cuttings at the time they cut it down and gave them all out to people that wanted them. So one person grafted me one of the cuttings on a dwarf root stock. So now I have at least one good tree that has some resistance to fire blight and cedar rust or at least I will when I get it. I have no way of knowing what variety it was as the old couple that own the land died several years ago, but from what I heard the tree may have come from from up north some where, so I'm guessing it might be a heirloom variet of some sort. Well I hope you find what you want, I would go to a local Orchard where they sale apples and talk to them about what you might want they might know where you can get the variety that you want and you could also try some of the apples that they have so you can get a idea of what some of them taste like.
George W. Z5-6 Mo.

I'm no expert, but I just ordered a few trees myself, and thought these links might interest you:
http://www.allaboutapples.com/varieties/
http://attra.ncat.org/attra-pub/apple.html#Appendix2
http://www.cumminsnursery.com/available2010.php

Liberty was my first apple tree. A great starter tree for someone who knows a little, but not much, about fruit trees. A great apple.

Williams Pride will be my second.

Rain2Fall

Thanks for all the great messages. I've had my eye on Williams Pride for some time and Liberty sounds good too.

Has anyone tried the mini-dwarfs? I could provide them with full sun if they are as small as they seem.

I spend most of my time with fruit trees and make my living from my bearing age fruit tree nursery and tending orchards on estates in the wealthy neighborhoods north of NYC. I have 2 decades of this experience in a climate about the same as yours.

You will probably want a range of varieties that will span the season from early (Williams Pride, Pristine) to late (Goldrush). You will probably not want as many of the earlys because they don't keep and don't cook well and you can only eat so many fresh.

I don't grow full dwarfs but have managed a few- they are more susceptable to rodent girdling and neglect (drought and weed competition) than more vigorous trees. No reason you can't make them work if you nurture them. At least pruning is much less complicated. You could also run with M 26 and graft a couple additional varieties to each tree. Grafting is easier than other things you will have to master, such as pest control.

Where you are you may be able to control insects with as few as 2 sprays and if you include the right fungicide in these sprays (myclobutanyl, sold as Montery Fungus Killer) you can grow any apple you like without additional sprays.

As you get used to eating your own apples you will never be satisfied with what you can buy so you will probably want to grow some that keep all winter in cool storage like Goldrush, Fuji, Pink Lady, Cameo or Crimson Crisp.

Before you order your trees, check out Adams County Nursery. Cummins may also be a good place although Adams has a better selection of modern varieties and usually has larger trees. Cummins will offer you very nice guidance to go with your trees and has a lot more heirlooms if that is your interest.

I think harvestman meant "(myclobutanyl sold as Immunox)" Monterey Fungus Killer is really the homeowner version of "Orbit" for controlling things like Brown Rot in peaches. Harvestman obviously knows this, but I think it was just a bit early in the morning.
-Glenn

Glen, aw shucks, you're right. Those cobwebs must have got me, thank goodness it wasn't a professional consultation. Got the chemical name right but cross circuited the trade name. I buy myclobutanyl under the name Messenger in a more concentrated formulation suitable for mixing a minimum of 100 gallons at a time. I still think of it by its old name of Nova.

Hahahha... Actually, I hadn't heard of Messenger before. I've heard Myclobutanyl, Nova, Eagle, Rally, Immunox and now Messenger. Lots of names for the same stuff! -Glenn

If you thought that was funny, google Messenger and you'll see I blotched it again. Don't know how I pulled that one out of my head because it is a fungicide but not even an an SI. I don't even use it. At least I caught it before someone else corrected me again. Small victory. Think I better get my brain scanned. Rally it is.

Hahahha. Sounds like you had a rough day!!!