Annie Elizabeth - Confused!

[Slinfold]

Hi all, I'm new to this forum.

I'm wanting to replace a cooking apple tree in our garden (which was here long before us), which had become diseased & died. It was a prolific producer of long-lasting (through the winter) cookers, but I have no idea what variety it was.

We also have one dessert apple tree, which doesn't produce a lot, and what it does produce is small, soft, often part eaten, falls easily, and doesn't last long at all. Again no idea what variety.

I knew nothing about apple trees, but have been reading up about them, and learning about pollination groups, etc.. Not knowing what our remaining tree is, I though a self-fertile tree might be a good idea for the new one.

My searching led me to this thread:
http://www.growfruitandveg.co.uk/gra...ree_49332.html and the very helpful advice and suggestions given there (and in other threads) a few years ago by FB.

I've therefore been looking at, amongst others, Annie Elizabeth.

This is where I get confused:

FB indicates that Annie Elizabeth is (at least partially) self-fertile, as do other sources, e.g. Keepers Nursery; Pots2Plots,

But now I've come across two sites sites that state that it is self-sterile, with one stating it's a triploid and one that it isn't!: Victoriana Nursery Gardens; Orange Pippin - The comprehensive resource for apples and orchards.

I had assumed that fertility is a feature of the variety and should therefore be the same whatever the purchase source of the particular tree? Or have I misunderstood something? Or does the rootstock affect fertility?

(I've used this particular variety as an example, but the underlying question is how come different, apparently authoritative, sources give conflicting info?)

Thanks in advance for your advice.

[FB.]

I used to grow Annie Elizabeth, but sadly the rootstocks (MM106 and M25) died from fungal disease.

Annie appeared to be part-self-fertile, as judging by how well she cropped compared to other varieties in various conditions.

Since Annie was allegedly bred from a Blenheim Orange (triploid), it would not be surprising if Annie has an abnormal chromosome number, since triploids themselves have an abnormal chromosome number.

It is also an interesting quirk that in many 100+ year old catalogues, many of the varieties listed as self-fertile also have since been found to be triploid. Other experiments have shown that triploids usually tend to have greater self-fertility than normal diploids. However, all apple trees benefit from being pollinated by an unrelated diploid variety.

On balance, I would assume that Annie Elizabeth is:

1. Triploid or aneuploid.

2. Because of #1 above, she may not be a reliable nor fertile pollinator of other varieties.

3. Again, because of #1 above, she may have better self-fertility than the average apple - partiall self-fertile.

Further on the subject of self-fertility.....

The degree of self-fertility of any variety will be influenced by many factors, such as:

The number of blossoms per foot length of branch.

The amount of pollen produced by each flower.

The viability of the pollen produced.

The optimum climate for highest fertility of the flowers or highest germination of the pollen.

The efficiency of the self-pollen-destruction system of the tree's flowers.

The size of the mature fruit - varieties with large fruits don't need such a high pollination rate to produce the same weight of crop. Many triploids produce large fruits.

-

Each of these features above will be genetically controlled, and since every apple variety is genetically different to the others, it will be found that some produce more blossoms, while others produce more pollen per flower, while others don't destroy their own pollen if it tries to pollinate their own flowers. Some varieties crop well even in poor weather, while others are very fussy and will not crop well unless the climate is perfect. Some like it hot and sunny. Some like it cool and dull.
Many older apple varieties are well-adapted for the local climate in which they originally were grown. Nowadays we just assume that we can all grow a specific variety to perfection, when, in fact, most varieties have their preferred soils and climates.
For example: Annie Elizabeth grows best on a cool, moisture-retaining, somewhat acidic clay soil, in central England (East and West Midlands). She will grow elsewhere, but that's where she's at her finest.
A different variety - such as Tydeman's Late Orange - likes a hot, dry, sandy soil in the SouthEast or East Anglia.
Yet other varieties - such as Barnack Orange - prefer a warm, dry, chalky soil.

I notice you are from Horsham, Sussex.
Have you considered local-ish varieties, such as:
Alfriston, Crawley Beauty, First&Last, Hambledon Deux Ans.

Have you also looked at your soil? A lot of areas near to you have nasty chalky soil which certain apple varieties will not tolerate - Annie prefers slightly acid, as opposed to the very alkaline of chalk.

Also choose your rootstock carefully. The "default" MM106 can be difficult to grow or disease-prone in certain soils and, in my opinion, almost any other rootstock is better because the other rootstocks are more predictable (and usually more disease-resistant) in their soil and climate response. M116 and MM111 are similar size to MM106 but much more disease resistant and much more tolerant of a wide range of soils and climates. MM111 is the ultimate for a difficult soil.

[Slinfold]

Thanks for your helpful and very detailed response FB.

We're actually on Wealden Clay (not chalk), so the soil can go from being sodden to being very dry! I presume that the fact that Crawley Beauty is said to be good on chalk don't mean that it's not suitable for other soils?

Although I have found references to the other varieties you suggested, none of them seems to be very readily available.

My initial choices were based on trying to choose something that is self-fertile, but I realise now that I may have to look beyond that.

If you have any suggestions of what may do well on clay, that would be much appreciated.

Thanks.

[FB.]

You may find that someone nearby has a tree which will act as a suitable pollinator. Even self-fertile varieties tend to produce better quality fruit if cross-pollinated by a different variety.
Self-pollinated fruits basically contain inbred pips, which are less healthy than normal pips, with the result that the pips don't induce the fruit to grow or draw nutrients as well as it could - size and flavour can suffer and fruits with marginally adequate pollination may drop early.
If you see a badly bent Conference pear, chances are that it was self-pollinated. "June drop" and Windfall fruits tend to be those with the fewest, least healthy and/or inbred pips (sometimes pests have eaten the pips which causes the fruit to drop).

Although Crawley Beauty does well on chalk, it also does well on very dry soil; unlike many varieties, Crawley Beauty doesn't suffer bitter pit on soil with moisture fluctuations. I would not have a problem with CB on clay, although perhaps not heavy acid clay in a very wet Western location.

Blenheim Orange, Howgate Wonder, Spartan, Tydeman's Late Orange also produce good quality fruit (if a little small or biennial in some cases) on soils with wide fluctuations in soil moisture.

MM111 or M25 rootstock would be preferred.
MM111 handles dry soil, heavy soil or moisture-variable-soil better than most rootstocks.
M25 isn't so happy in dry soil, but copes adequately and seems to give resistance to bitter pit which is of great benefit on dry soil.
The common MM106 rootstock can "runt-out", become impoverished/nutrient-deficient/disease-prone, produce tiny fruits, and suffer badly from bitter pit on soils which dry out. But MM106 also suffers from fungal root rots in heavy/saturated soils.

Quince-rootstocked pears will often rot from the core while still on the tree if grown in soils which don't remain moist (Quince rootstock is very dependent on a regular water supply). On such moisture-variable soils, true pear rootstocks such as Pyrus, seedling or Pyrodwarf are much better for producing good quality fruit, although the tree itself will be more vigorous than on a Quince rootstock.

[orangepippin]

Most sources are taking their information from the national fruit collection archives. More recently Defra carried out some research on the ploidy levels of a large number of apple varieties. This confirmed that many long-suspected varieties were indeed triploid - but Annie Elizabeth was not one of them. On that basis we are currently stating that Annie Elizabeth is a partially self-fertile diploid variety, capable of cross-pollinating with other varieties flowering at the same time.

(I'm the editor of the Orange Pippin website you quoted above).

[FB.]

Hi Richard.

I would still treat Annie with caution.
She is reputed to come from a triploid - Blenheim Orange. This puts Annie at high risk of having an abnormal chromosome number.
It is possible that she is aneuploid and the Defra genetic probes were chromosome-specific and only looking for certain chromosomes.
If Defra were looking for (say) chromosomes 1 through 4 being triple-copies as indicative of triploid, it is possible that an aneuploid might have two sets plus chromosomes 5 through 17 - which would not be detected.
It is also possible that Annie is triploid but Defra were only able to pick out two "markers" because one of the markers was present twice and therefore only showed two "different" sets of chromosomes.
For exmaple, using incompatibility alleles to illustrate:

Cox is 5,9
Jupiter is 5,9,28 (I think)

All three are different in Jupiter, so three different chromosomes can be detected.
But what if Jupiter was a self-pollinated Cox, or a self-pollinated "self-fertile" variety? Perhaps 5,5,9.
I can imagine that it would be much more difficult to tell whether it was 5,9 or 5,5,9 as the genetic sequences of two of the chromosomes would be the same - because it is the same chromosome twice!

Cheers,
Nigel

[orangepippin]

Given the wide scope of the recent Defra testing, and the fact that Annie E is not in the list of confirmed triploids, I think for now it is right to assume it is not a triploid. However I do agree this variety, like any large fruited vigorous disease-resistant old apple, should be kept on the "watch" list for triploid-ism.

[greenjelly]

A few weeks ago I started a thread regarding planting a new orchard - we have recently cleared some old diseased apple trees and wanted to plant a mini orchard but grow them organically. 'Early Fruiter' gave us some excellent advice most of which we have followed but I wanted to comment on the issue of which varieties you grow.

I have done a lot of reading around triploids/diploids and the origins of different varieties and I would say the best thing to do is grow those that are locally sourced not those you like the sound of.

I've found some lovely varieties that originate either from Leicestershire or Lincolnshire 'Annie Elizabeth' is one these and only have a triploid if you can have your trees in threes as triploids cannot fertilise other trees.

There's loads of information on the WWW and lots of books have been written - I was surprised how much research and knowledge has been amassed about the simple apple.

Our ancestors managed to grow apples without bucketloads of chemicals I think we could do the same - if you want a supermarket apple go to the supermarket!

The best advice I was given was look at your soil and grow what grows best - I'm sure there lots of lovely varieties originating from where you live. Try finding a community orchard project or country house with kitchen garden as they usually have old local varieties.

[orangepippin]

I suspect many local varieties existed not because they were somehow better suited to local conditions (which in any case will have changed quite a bit over the last few centuries), but because before the advent of modern transport infrastructure there was simply less knowledge and awareness of better varieties.

Having said that, there are of course many varieties that truely are suited to their local conditions - from Cornish Aromatic to Keswick Codlin.

Then again, some "local" varieties are probably not really local. Take Ribston Pippin for example, strongly associated with Ribston Hall in Yorkshire, and usually regarded as a Yorkshire apple, yet probably imported from France.

Also contrary to what you might think, the provenance of an apple is not a reliable indicator of how it will perform in different climates. Bramley's Seedling grows very happily in the year-round sunshine of Southern California, Cox doesn't.

So my advice would be just get familiar with your local climate and soil (as you have said), but then grow whatever you want and not get too bothered whether it is "local" or not.

[yummersetter]

I'd hate to be confined to local varieties, which are mainly apples that may be great for cider but taste of warlock piddle.
The good fruit trees here come from all round the world - Californian plums, New Zealand apples, Canadian apricots - I'd say taste fruits grown locally ( rather than bred nearby) to see what sparks your tastebuds.

[FB.]

Also contrary to what you might think, the provenance of an apple is not a reliable indicator of how it will perform in different climates. Bramley's Seedling grows very happily in the year-round sunshine of Southern California, Cox doesn't.

So my advice would be just get familiar with your local climate and soil (as you have said), but then grow whatever you want and not get too bothered whether it is "local" or not.

I suspect that Bramley copes well simply because it is one of the most vigorous apples known - and triploid as a bonus.
Vigorous helps overcome problems by outgrowing them or recovering faster after damage or disease. Triploid means an extra set of chromosomes, which may have more genes which allow the tree to overcome various problems and diseases.

It's turning out that a surprising number of the old "hand-me-downs" are triploids - Ashmead's Kernel, Ribston, Blenheim, Bramley, Orleans Reinette, Boskoop, Gravenstein, Norfolk Beefing, Adam's Pearmain......
Germinate some apple pips and you'll find that triploids are a very very rare occurrence. Yet triploids appear in surprisingly large numbers in the apples we grow - and especially the old ones.

In fairness, when someone sowed some seeds in centuries past, only the seeds which were best adapted to the local conditions would survive. Apple seedling mortality is very high - only the best-adapted survive. A few seedlings - such as Bramley - are vigorous enough to cope with being grown almost anywhere.

[orangepippin]

In fairness, when someone sowed some seeds in centuries past, only the seeds which were best adapted to the local conditions would survive. Apple seedling mortality is very high - only the best-adapted survive. A few seedlings - such as Bramley - are vigorous enough to cope with being grown almost anywhere.

I don't think it is vigour that allows a variety to thrive in different climates. Two other varieties with very wide climate ranges are Gala and Honeycrisp, neither of which are triploid and neither particularly vigorous.

[FB.]

I don't think it is vigour that allows a variety to thrive in different climates. Two other varieties with very wide climate ranges are Gala and Honeycrisp, neither of which are triploid and neither particularly vigorous.

Oh, vigour is not the only thing - vigour is no good if you've been frozen to death beyond the point of recovery. Some varieties cope better with freezes than others - as we discussed regarding MM111, MM106 and other rootstock hardiness the other day. M25 is more vigorous than MM111, but I would choose MM111 for deep winter freezes as it suffers less root death when the ground freezes.
But given a choice between M27 and M25 (to take an extreme example), I'd back the extra vigour of M25 to help it recovery from winter freeze injury, pests or diseases.

On the other hand, Gala - being diploid - has less genes to choose from to find resistance (compared to a triploid). So given a disease problem to overcome and the choice of a diploid or or a triploid, I'd choose a triploid.
Among my own trees, the average of my triploids are a whole class of healthiness above the average of my diploids.

In fact, I've just made space to add a Gravenstein this winter. Despite sporadic comments of disease problems ("slightly susceptible" to everything according to Keepers and M.Crawford), I'm expecting it to be very healthy; it's triploid, it's vigorous, it's not much relation to UK varieties (incompatibility groups: 4,13,20 - all rare in the UK, showing a very different gene pool) and it's not grown much in the UK so there should be no reservoir of diseases adapted to attack it.

[orangepippin]

I think we are talking about slightly different things, you are focussing on disease resistance whereas I was making the point that provenance is not necessarily a good indicator of how a variety will perform in different climates (to support my argument that one should not get too hung-up about planting "local" varieties). Climate range is not the same thing as disease-resistance, and neither is it related to the rootstock you choose to propagate on (although that may confer some climate and disease-resistance).

Gala and Honeycrisp and Bramley all have a wide climate range, in other words they are capable of producing good quality fruit in many different climate types. Honeycrisp is of course more disease-resistant than Gala, but that can be managed (if you so choose) in various ways. The point is you can get nice apples from all of them whether you are in London or Los Angeles. In contrast, you won't get nice apples from Cox's Orange Pippin in Los Angeles, the tree will grow, but the flavour will collapse in the heat. Neither will you get much out of a GoldRush or Spitzenburg in London, these varieties have a narrower climate range, and don't usually ripen in the UK even though they will grow quite happily.

This year has been a great test of disease-resistance and in my area the winners have been two modern disease-resistant varieties - Honeycrisp, Rajka, which have produced good crops of unblemished fruit. But Spartan and Grenadier and Chivers Delight - old-timers which are known for their reliability - have also done well.

With regard to Gravenstein, I think a lot of the alleged difficulties are down to poor pollination - it is quite early - in other words an apple tree that doesn't fruit (because it was not pollinated) can easily become labelled as a poor variety. Its disease profile seems very location-specific and I agree with you its natural triploid vigour will help in some cases.

[FB.]

My comments on vigour were mainly to illustrate that high vigour can help see a variety through tough conditions.
A century or so ago, Bunyard was quoted as saying, re: Bramley:

ironclad in constitution, growing wherever apples will grow. It makes a very large spreading tree and should be planted at least thirty feet apart

Pollination of my Gravenstein (F3; 4,13,20) should not be an issue. It will be near to an Irish Peach (F5;1,1), but I have other varieties nearby which are likely to have some overlap.
NFC report Gravenstein as 10% blossom around 28th April, full flower around 03rd May and down to 10% blossom (90% over) around 10th May.

I have a lot of other varieties which will have some overlap.
Irish Peach 10% open around 29th April, full flower around 05th May and back to 10% around 12th May.

The wonder-pollinator Spartan (F12; 9,10) is reported to be 10% open around 07th May and full flower around 12th May, so Spartan will have a small overlap with the later-opening Gravenstein flowers, and - like Irish Peach - the pollen of Spartan will be highly compatible with Gravenstein.