Planting Apple Trees - Which Ones?

[FB.]

Gosh FB....very interesting reading!
Thanks!

In coming years, I hope to start some amateur apple breeding. (I used to be a bird breeder, so breeding programmes are nothing new to me).
Most of the modern apple varieties are bred for mass-production, long refrigeration-storage, perfect shape/size, attractive skin (smooth, shiny, no blemishes) and to withstand the rough supermarket handling. It is also envisaged that most modern varieties will, if necessary, be treated with copious amounts of chemicals, so disease resistance is not a breeding priority and flavour is not at the top of the list either.
The main commercial breeding uses either Cox Orange Pippin or Golden Delicious as one of the parents. That's a very narrow gene pool.

My envisaged amateur breeding will focus on crossing old, forgotten varieties (of which I have quite a few), with disease resistance and taste as the top priorities. Appearance will not be a consideration.

[FB.]

ava

From what you've said (and from my experiences), if I were given the task of sorting out your apples, of the one's that I grow, I would get you:

Discovery (Worcester Pearmain-type apple).
M26 bush.
Vigour: low-medium.
Eat July-September.
Resistant to mildew and scab.
Flowering: group C (frost resistant blossom).

Egremont Russet (Russet-type apple).
M26 bush.
Vigour: low-medium.
Eat: October-December.
Resistant to mildew, scab and canker.
Flowering: group B (self fertile, frost resistant blossom).

Winston (Cox-type apple).
M26 bush.
Vigour: medium.
Eat: December-April.
Resistant to mildew, scab and canker.
Flowering: group D (self fertile).

Reverend Wilks.
M9 cordon or minarette.
Vigour: low-medium.
Cook: August-November.
Resistant to mildew, scab and canker.
Flowering: group B (self fertile).

Annie Elizabeth.
M9 cordon or minarette.
Vigour: medium.
Cook: October-May.
Resistant to mildew, scab and canker.
Flowering: group E (self fertile).


Why?
The main focus is on resistance to problems, to allow "hands-off" organic growing.
Resistance reduces the severity, but doesn't always completely block disease. You will have light bouts of scab, mildew or canker in some seasons if you don't spray, but it's unlikely to get out of control.

Lots of self-fertility means no need to find pollination partners and it will be useful to improve the cropping in bad years. Only Discovery isn't self-fertile, but the others will do a good job of providing pollen.

A broad spread of flowering times means less risk of frost destroying the whole crop.

You'll also have a nearly all-year-round supply of apples - both cookers and eaters and with a variety of tastes, textures and colours, although the three suggested eaters will all produce fairly small apples.

Bushes for the eaters, to give a good quantity, so you can eat one a day.

Low-moderate vigour bushes, so that three can virtually fit into the space of the two that you had envisaged.

Cordons (or minarettes) for the cookers. They take up very little space, and will reduce an apple overload (how many apple pies can you actually eat?)
Grow cordons on M9, just in case even the M26 bushes find the soil too heavy (M9 loves a heavy soil, but don't use it for bushes or trees because M9's weak roots will allow it to blow over in the wind!)

Hope that gives some ideas.

[FB.]

Apologies for the repeated posting.

I forgot to say that I'm unsure if your preferred "Sunset" would be suitable for a hands-off approach in this area. It's ability to withstand mildew may not be sufficient. I'd hate to say one way or the other.
Sunset is a cox-type apple, for which Winston may be an acceptable replacement.
Or, grow Sunset as an extra M9 cordon and see how it goes.
Or, take a chance and substitute Sunset for the Egremont Russet (they fruit at the same time).
If you replace the Egremont Russet with Sunset, but still want a russet-type (for variety), I'd suggest getting rid of Winston and replacing with Ashmead's Kernel, or D'Arcy Spice.

Ashmead's Kernel (Russet-type apple).
M26 bush.
Vigour: medium.
Eat: December-March.
Resistant to mildew and scab.
Flowering: group D.

D'Arcy Spice (Russet-type apple).
M25 bush. Note that very strong M25 rootstock will be required.
Vigour: very low (but will be increased by a strong rootstock).
Eat: December-April.
Resistant to mildew, scab and canker.
Flowering: group D.

I'll be quiet now.

[Nicos]

....no...keep going...this is all fascinating ...what you plan to do is fantastic!!!!
I'm all for planting rare breeds of apples.
We have a Reinette du Canada in it's 4th year - and the fruit is fantastic. 18thC I believe????

[FB.]

Nicos

I've never encountered "Reinette du Canada / Canada Reinette" - it's evidently not even popular enough for the nurseries to have a mother tree to graft from, but the info that I have says it's C18th. A fully russeted cooking apple sounds fascinating.
I'm assuming that you grow it in Normandy. Perhaps it isn't widely available in England because it needs more sun, warmer weather or can't cope with certain strains of diseases over this side of the channel. Or perhaps it's not in the British cooking apple style of strong & sharp taste - like Bramley.

[Nicos]

Nicos

I've never encountered "Reinette du Canada / Canada Reinette" - it's evidently not even popular enough for the nurseries to have a mother tree to graft from, but the info that I have says it's C18th. A fully russeted cooking apple sounds fascinating.
I'm assuming that you grow it in Normandy. Perhaps it isn't widely available in England because it needs more sun, warmer weather or can't cope with certain strains of diseases over this side of the channel. Or perhaps it's not in the British cooking apple style of strong & sharp taste - like Bramley.

Nope- I grow it in England- bought it 4 or 5 yrs ago from from one of the major seed companies as a 2 yr old tree.
Not had any diseases with it- only the odd bug. Pick November and stores until March!.
Well worth the effort.

[southlondongardener]

Apologies for the repeated posting.

I forgot to say that I'm unsure if your preferred "Sunset" would be suitable for a hands-off approach in this area. It's ability to withstand mildew may not be sufficient. I'd hate to say one way or the other.
Sunset is a cox-type apple, for which Winston may be an acceptable replacement.
Or, grow Sunset as an extra M9 cordon and see how it goes.
Or, take a chance and substitute Sunset for the Egremont Russet (they fruit at the same time).
If you replace the Egremont Russet with Sunset, but still want a russet-type (for variety), I'd suggest getting rid of Winston and replacing with Ashmead's Kernel, or D'Arcy Spice.

Ashmead's Kernel (Russet-type apple).
M26 bush.
Vigour: medium.
Eat: December-March.
Resistant to mildew and scab.
Flowering: group D.

D'Arcy Spice (Russet-type apple).
M25 bush. Note that very strong M25 rootstock will be required.
Vigour: very low (but will be increased by a strong rootstock).
Eat: December-April.
Resistant to mildew, scab and canker.
Flowering: group D.

I'll be quiet now.

Ashmead's Kernel can have very variable yields. I have a D'Arcy spice and it seems ok with vigour to me - but it is still young.

[FB.]

Ashmead's Kernel can have very variable yields. I have a D'Arcy spice and it seems ok with vigour to me - but it is still young.

Yes, each apple variety has good and bad points. Ashmead's Kernel is not perfect, but it has plenty of good qualities.
I have three D'Arcy Spice (two cordons and a bush) and I'd say that their annual growth rate is not much more than half that of an average apple tree in my area. D'Arcy Spice is also like Ashmead's Kernel - somewhat variable in yield.

The intentions behind my suggestion was a good selection of seasons, taste, disease resistance, pollination and so on. Some compromises have to be made to achieve that.
You can probably do better (regarding taste or cropping) by substituting some of my suggested one's (and personal taste will play a part), but I think it'd be hard to find many ways to get a virtually all-year-round apple supply from a spray-free group of trees.

Can you think of some good substitutions? (I might even try some myself!).

[southlondongardener]

Yes, each apple variety has good and bad points. Ashmead's Kernel is not perfect, but it has plenty of good qualities.
I have three D'Arcy Spice (two cordons and a bush) and I'd say that their annual growth rate is not much more than half that of an average apple tree in my area. D'Arcy Spice is also like Ashmead's Kernel - somewhat variable in yield.

The intentions behind my suggestion was a good selection of seasons, taste, disease resistance, pollination and so on. Some compromises have to be made to achieve that.
You can probably do better (regarding taste or cropping) by substituting some of my suggested one's (and personal taste will play a part), but I think it'd be hard to find many ways to get a virtually all-year-round apple supply from a spray-free group of trees.

Can you think of some good substitutions? (I might even try some myself!).

I was not saying don't do this - I was just pointing the flaws.
I am very new to growing fruit (I only started last year) but I think if you like Cox Jupiter/Jester/Fiesta are very good - or at least so far.

[FB.]

southlondongardener

My Fiesta is several years old and so far, it's not troubled by any diseases. It's never had a single mildewed leaf cluster, not a spot of scab and not a hint of canker.
I find Fiesta's resilience surprising, given the uninspiring reports on disease that I have read from some growers trials.

Jupiter seems a good variety that I had seriously considered, but with the large number of varieties that I currently grow, I don't feel that it'd give me any more options than I already have.

I've seen too many problems with other people's Cox's to want one myself. With regular sprays, it can be good, but I don't like to spray.
Instead of Cox, I grow Ellison's Orange, Fiesta, Winston and Tydeman's Late Orange, which are all from the Cox family line, but seem better able to withstand diseases.

My reluctance with family trees is because the tree looks strange, if it has green fruit on one side, yellow on another, red on another.......
I prefer to grow secondary varieties and pollinators as cordons near to the main tree(s). For example, as you can see from my earlier list - going clockwise around my garden - I grow most of my cordons close to my Bramley (which has sterile pollen), to allow pollination of it and of each other.

[realfood]

Fiesta is very bad for cold and wet climates where canker ruins it, so much that I had to grub the tree up, this year.

[FB.]

realfood

It's fascinating how the regional variation in climate influences the varieties that can be grown sucessfully. No doubt that's why growers trials (and your experiences) differ from my findings of Fiesta/Red Pippin.
That's where people have to be careful. A recommendation of a variety from someone else may be genuine, but if it's from the other end of the country, the climate may be very different.

For what it's worth, my area is hot and dry (and fairly windy).............
Canker is rare. Scab is not usually troublesome. Mildew is very troublesome on susceptible varieties.