Apple Tree Help

Hello
I am in need of some help/information on apple trees and found half of what I needed. I was reading this thread where Sepp Holzer talks about apple trees https://permies.com/t/1354/Sepp-Holzer-apple-trees

If you look at the very bottom of that thread you will see someone who posted late in the thread but posted this link https://elizapples.com/2016/03/20/on-their-own-roots/

In this article she refers to finding apple trees that are 200+ years old and there is a  picture of her leaning on a huge apple tree. What I am looking for is how I can find these longer life, taller ancestors to our modern small and short lived apple trees? Most any commercial orchard is interested in selling dwarf/semi dwarf tress. It doesn't bother me that it will take 10+ years for these trees to produce, I what trees that will grow taller and be longer lived. I tried to find a contact for the lady on the website I posted above but I can't seem to find an email address. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Although I don't post much I love this website and am constantly browsing its' pages, Thank You!

Are you looking for trees that are not grafted, i.e ones that are growing on their own roots? Or are you simply after a larger apple tree than the dwarf/semi dwarfing ones you can find? My grandmother had some large 90 year old apples, they were grafted (they were named varieties so had to be) but were huge and still going strong 90 yeas of neglect later.
Apple root stocks come in many different sizes For full sized trees you are looking for root-stocks called M25 and MM111 or for slightly smaller trees (13ft/4m) MM106. I use MM106 as it's commonly available. You should be able to find apple varieties grafted to all of these but you might struggle outside of dedicated nurseries. online can be a good place to buy them and right now is the right time for bare rooted trees (Northern hemisphere)

Skandi Rogers wrote:Are you looking for trees that are not grafted, i.e ones that are growing on their own roots? Or are you simply after a larger apple tree than the dwarf/semi dwarfing ones you can find? My grandmother had some large 90 year old apples, they were grafted (they were named varieties so had to be) but were huge and still going strong 90 yeas of neglect later.
Apple root stocks come in many different sizes For full sized trees you are looking for root-stocks called M25 and MM111 or for slightly smaller trees (13ft/4m) MM106. I use MM106 as it's commonly available. You should be able to find apple varieties grafted to all of these but you might struggle outside of dedicated nurseries. online can be a good place to buy them and right now is the right time for bare rooted trees (Northern hemisphere)

Grafted or own root trees doesn't matter to me. I am mainly looking for large trees that grow to larger size than dwarf/semi dwarf. Hoping I can get some taller than 30+ feet. Thank you for the information.

Hi Kaleb:

What you seek are apple cultivars grown on, or grafted on to, standard, seedling or Antonovka rootstock.  Standard/Seedling/Ant rootstock will produce a full sized, vigorous, long lived tree.  These terms (standard, Antonovka) seem to be used interchangeably at times.

I'm not sure where you are located but as an example, an east coast US supplier of standard rootstock is Fedco.  They also have a nice selection of heritage apple cultivars on almost exclusively standard rootsock:  https://www.fedcoseeds.com/trees/malus-antonovka-rootstock-268

-Michael

Kaleb Rolly wrote:

Grafted or own root trees doesn't matter to me. I am mainly looking for large trees that grow to larger size than dwarf/semi dwarf. Hoping I can get some taller than 30+ feet. Thank you for the information.

I don't think you'll get close to 30ft with an apple they are not that large trees, generally topping out at 15-20ft. but any of the rootstocks I or Michael listed will give you the biggest possible tree.