Does anyone here have experience with these apple tree varieties from Georgia?

I was just looking at the State Botanical Garden of Georgia apple tree varieties (some of which are part of the Georgia Heirloom Apple Collection):

https://tinyurl.com/y7cdy6j6

What's surprising to me is that most of these are not mentioned the UGA extension discussion of apples for the home garden:

https://tinyurl.com/yc9oaonq

Does this mean these varieties are not suitable for an urban food forest environment?

If anyone has any experience with any of these varieties, please let me know. I want to buy one or two apple trees this year for use mainly to have a pectin source, to dehydrate, to make cider, and for applesauce. It's very humid here and a roller coaster between too wet and too dry, and I know apples can be a real pain to deal with. I want one that will involve the least pain!

Diane Kistner wrote:I was just looking at the State Botanical Garden of Georgia apple tree varieties (some of which are part of the Georgia Heirloom Apple Collection):

What's surprising to me is that most of these are not mentioned the UGA extension discussion of apples for the home garden:

My local university publication also doesn't mention hardly any apples that will grow in my area unfortunately. Sadly, for the ones they do mention, they've probably sprayed them like crazy too, which makes it not very applicable for us growing them without fungicides and pesticides. I wish we had better local evaluation of good apples for our area.

Does this mean these varieties are not suitable for an urban food forest environment?

I would guess that they just haven't evaluated very many,  

If anyone has any experience with any of these varieties, please let me know. I want to buy one or two apple trees this year for use mainly to have a pectin source, to dehydrate, to make cider, and for applesauce. It's very humid here and a roller coaster between too wet and too dry, and I know apples can be a real pain to deal with. I want one that will involve the least pain!

I'm currently growing Terry Winter (supposedly, haven't had any fruit yet) from that list. It's only on its second year of growing, and I had very high hopes for it, but it appears to have gotten some type of disease, and both new growing tips on the tree have been affected and died back a few inches. I'm hoping it's just a one time thing, and that it will recover and be good going forward, but I fear the worst.

Qualities that may be valuable to look for in apples for our areas are; late ripening varieties (avoids rotting and insect pests during our hot summers), thick skinned varieties (harder for insects to cut into the apples and damage them), resistant to fireblight and mildew (seem to be the main disease issues here).

I've had a hard time finding good apples that meet all of these qualities, but I refuse to give up, lol.

I'm hoping to breed some good new varieties that will thrive here, from varieties that have 1 or 2 of the beneficial characteristics above.

Wouldn't it be cool if the Southeast was a major apple producing region one day!

Hope this helps a little bit,  and hope you get some tasty apples soon Diane!

This is very helpful, Steve. Yes, it would be really great to be able to grow apples well here. I think you're probably right about there just not being much information. Your list of diseases and pests and the late-blooming thing are most helpful. Thanks.

Here's a photo of the tree.

On second look, I think it may be fireblight.

An update on the tree above.

It looks to have healed nicely on its own, and has two vigorous shoots coming up to replace the old ones!

I thought heirloom apples would be great, but the ones I tried were fussy, inconsistent from year to year, tended to have scab, and seemed more vulnerable to critters.   So lists are good for research, but maybe the best way to tell is go around locally in late summer, see which old trees -- which could be heirloom, or at least vintage -- are healthy and produce well, either get cuttings from them or find out if the owners know what they are.  Take a magnifying glass with you and really look at the leaves, and whatever damage they have on them, closely.

It is good to plant some newer, reliable fruit trees so you can be pretty sure that after 5-6 years they will produce well and be as disease free as possible. They will keep your spirits up when the other trees are looking iffy.

Try to stay skeptical about heirlooms, because if you commit to an apple tree it could be 5-6 years before it produces, and if it doesn't work out, you've lost a lot of time.

Cristo Balete wrote:I thought heirloom apples would be great, but the ones I tried were fussy, inconsistent from year to year, tended to have scab, and seemed more vulnerable to critters.   So lists are good for research, but maybe the best way to tell is go around locally in late summer, see which old trees -- which could be heirloom, or at least vintage -- are healthy and produce well, either get cuttings from them or find out if the owners know what they are.  Take a magnifying glass with you and really look at the leaves, and whatever damage they have on them, closely.

It is good to plant some newer, reliable fruit trees so you can be pretty sure that after 5-6 years they will produce well and be as disease free as possible. They will keep your spirits up when the other trees are looking iffy.

Try to stay skeptical about heirlooms, because if you commit to an apple tree it could be 5-6 years before it produces, and if it doesn't work out, you've lost a lot of time.

This is excellent advice, Cristo. Thanks.

Get the cuttings from them in the spring, BTW.  They are eager to grow, and the increasing day length encourages growth.

I had an experience with raspberries when I was growing and selling produce.  I wanted to grow types that were different from what everyone else was growing, heirloom, old style had to be better, right?  Not necessarily :-)  

So instead of the reliable and great tasting Heritage raspberries, I tried everything else, which just didn't work in my fussy clay soil and cool summers.  So I had no raspberries at all.  If I had done a couple of a few types I would have at least had raspberries while I was experimenting with the others.

A big thing I look for when selecting a fruit tree to grow, is where did it originate from? Sometimes this information isn't available, but a majority of the time it can be found. If it originated in a similar climate to mine, then there is a good chance that it will probably do well here!

Sometimes ones from completely different areas will do well, but this seems to be pretty rare.

A lot of the heritage apples and other old fruit trees will have info on where they originated from available as part of their history as an old preserved variety. A lot of the new varieties will also generally have this information available too, as they were created at a university breeding program or other breeder, however there is a strong chance that these trees were sprayed with all kinds of toxic gick, so the trees may not really be tough or adapted to the local climate, just sprayed instead.

Most of the new popular apples and other tree fruits do really bad here in general, and just seem really weak overall, like they were selected just for looks and the ability to be shipped, with no concern for the health of the tree (I assume most were ).

I personally prefer the older fruit tree varieties, from over a 100 years or more ago if possible, when a lot of trees were still grown without being sprayed with lots of bad stuff. Varieties that were just randomly found (and a lot were discovered this way, especially older ones), seem to also be tough and resiliant.

For me, trying to find apple trees that do well here, has been a little like trying to find a needle in a haystack, but I know they exist, and I hope to create lots of new varieties that will thrive here too from the tough varieties.

Best of luck Diane, excited to see if any turn out good for you!

Maybe these Georgia Heirloom apples, then, might actually work well, Steve. You've encouraged me to maybe try a few.

Greetings.

We are growing as many of the 28 Georgia Origin Apple trees in far south Waycross,Ga area. Folks think we are out of apple territory. But in the 1900's there was a large and busy Nursery in Waycross. And another in Jacksonville that had an extensive orchard in MacClenny, Florida. It may surprise they did quite well with Shockley, Yates and Ben Davis down there.

Our orchard is in it's infancy. And lawd knows it has been tough. Lost 17 varieties to what turns out to be the worst fire blight season in recent history. There are a number of fine old apples that do fantastic in the hot lower piedmonts and coastal plains. Little Benny, Sweet June, Schell{of Virgina}, Shell of Alabama, Cauley, Schumaker, Coble's Wilder to name just a few. We will be adding them as we can.

We are on target to have 24 out of the 28 currently known to exist Georgia Apples next season. Unfortunately loss of the Botner Collection and another southern heritage orchard have rendered Spice of North Georgia and Rabun{not Rabun Bald} out of reach for now, We are waiting another year to kindly acquire the just re-imported Taunton. And the variety Toccoa awaits an order to re-import from Australia.

Steve Thorn wrote:Here's a photo of the tree.

On second look, I think it may be fireblight.

It would have to be the very start of fire blight if so. The leaves turn black very quick.

The same condition also prevents when the tree's root system is immature or being attacked.

Diane Kistner wrote:I was just looking at the State Botanical Garden of Georgia apple tree varieties (some of which are part of the Georgia Heirloom Apple Collection):

https://tinyurl.com/y7cdy6j6

What's surprising to me is that most of these are not mentioned the UGA extension discussion of apples for the home garden:

https://tinyurl.com/yc9oaonq

Does this mean these varieties are not suitable for an urban food forest environment?

If anyone has any experience with any of these varieties, please let me know. I want to buy one or two apple trees this year for use mainly to have a pectin source, to dehydrate, to make cider, and for applesauce. It's very humid here and a roller coaster between too wet and too dry, and I know apples can be a real pain to deal with. I want one that will involve the least pain!

Hi. I was working with the former curator of the heritage garden at the  Georgia Botanical Gardens. She got a promotion and now runs an estate run by UGA in Athens now. Sadly the apple collection has been placed in limbo for now(the trees at the Botanical Garden; not the Heritage Apples in Blairsville).

We are working to establish a heritage nursery centered on Georgia origin trees. Sadly much has not been recorded on the habits of the 28 Georgia bred apple trees. We are trying hard to compile all 28. But have already run into problems with about 4 being missing or not available.

Being a small family operation we are building the collection first. We add some every year. We also will add some very interesting apples from the UK and Eastern Europe too.

Lastly we will feature apples that can root by cuttings, heritage low chill fruits, apples that are everbearing( ie..apples ripen over weeks or over a month) and lastly some rarities from fellow heritage nursery operations.

Currently we have Shockley, Shockley Grizzle, Yates, King Solomon., Parks Pippin, Old Fashioned Limbertwig, , Magnolia Gold, Disharoon. Wallace Howard. We will soon add  Kimrome, Cranberry of North Georgia, Hackworth, Bart, Clark, Coffee Seedling, Rabun Bald, Striped Sweeting, Summer Row, Forward Sour, Black Limbertwig ( Actually from Tennessee), Royal Limbertwig, Taunton, Rabun and Spice of North Georgia.

We are trying to get Toccoa nominated to be returned from Australia back to the USA. Taunton just recently returned the same way this year.

If you have questions I will try to help. For cider you can not go wrong with Yates. It has long been a cider use apple. And is smallish with a higher pectin content. All of your Limbertwigs have cider pasts. Parks Pippin would be a great Cider sour apple.Also Parmer and Golden Harvey have a long history of use as Cider apples though they are not Georgia apples. The apple variety  Horse too. Horse was the do everything sour apple. Striped Sweeting is sweet with a sour pop. Probably an ideal apple for Cider.

If you are looking for old southern apple varieties, check out Century Farm Orchards in NC.  Owner is very knowledgeable and helpful.

https://www.centuryfarmorchards.com

Century Farms is good. Horne Creek in NC has great rare heritage apple tree sales. Southern Cultured Orchards in Mississippi too. He sells scions and trees. The Joyners at Horse Creek NC are retiring and no longer sell trees but do sell scion.

All are great folks.

Also in Georgia. I'd love to hear from Darren and others about which heritage apples have shown the best resistance to fireblight. That disease has been the most discouraging factor for me. I might be bringing it on myself by how much I graft over large trees and all the vigorous growth that comes with that. I'll throw out William's Pride as a winner.

Chris Clinton wrote:Also in Georgia. I'd love to hear from Darren and others about which heritage apples have shown the best resistance to fireblight. That disease has been the most discouraging factor for me. I might be bringing it on myself by how much I graft over large trees and all the vigorous growth that comes with that. I'll throw out William's Pride as a winner.

Had the worst fireblight year in a long time down here perhaps a virulent new strain because we lost a lot of supposedly resistant types including most of my plants on Geneva G.214.

It is easier to name those that did not survive. Hackworth did not survive on any rootstock. Rabun Bald. Spice of N. Georgia, Cranberry of N. Georgia. All die on all 3 rootstock.

I had one short piece of Old Fashioned Limbertwig and I named it Lazurus. It got ran over by a truck, ate by goats and took brutal fire blight strike pruning. By winter time it looked great but not that tall.

In fact all of my other old Georgia trees took fireblight strikes but never died.

Liberty, Enterprise, Rouville, Magness pear, Kieffer and Ayers all got killed by Fireblight. All allegedly fireblight resistant.

Darren Robertson wrote:

Had the worst fireblight year in a long time down here perhaps a virulent new strain because we lost a lot of supposedly resistant types including most of my plants on Geneva G.214.

It is easier to name those that did not survive. Hackworth did not survive on any rootstock. Rabun Bald. Spice of N. Georgia, Cranberry of N. Georgia. All die on all 3 rootstock.

I had one short piece of Old Fashioned Limbertwig and I named it Lazurus. It got ran over by a truck, ate by goats and took brutal fire blight strike pruning. By winter time it looked great but not that tall.

In fact all of my other old Georgia trees took fireblight strikes but never died.

Liberty, Enterprise, Rouville, Magness pear, Kieffer and Ayers all got killed by Fireblight. All allegedly fireblight resistant.

oooof, that's rough. I don't even want to think of fireblight becoming even more challenging. That list of resistant varieties getting nailed is nuts. It's hard experiencing trees succumb after all the investment of work and care especially when the plan is for them to be long lived members of our landscape communities. I guess we just keep trying.

Chris Clinton wrote:

Darren Robertson wrote:

Had the worst fireblight year in a long time down here perhaps a virulent new strain because we lost a lot of supposedly resistant types including most of my plants on Geneva G.214.

It is easier to name those that did not survive. Hackworth did not survive on any rootstock. Rabun Bald. Spice of N. Georgia, Cranberry of N. Georgia. All die on all 3 rootstock.

I had one short piece of Old Fashioned Limbertwig and I named it Lazurus. It got ran over by a truck, ate by goats and took brutal fire blight strike pruning. By winter time it looked great but not that tall.

In fact all of my other old Georgia trees took fireblight strikes but never died.

Liberty, Enterprise, Rouville, Magness pear, Kieffer and Ayers all got killed by Fireblight. All allegedly fireblight resistant.

oooof, that's rough. I don't even want to think of fireblight becoming even more challenging. That list of resistant varieties getting nailed is nuts. It's hard experiencing trees succumb after all the investment of work and care especially when the plan is for them to be long lived members of our landscape communities. I guess we just keep trying.

Talking to Mr.Fazio at Cornell/ Geneva's breeding program, they got a lot of reports of a possible new strain of Fireblight. He wanted to send some G.257 rootstock to see how it responds. Last year I had 6% of grafts on G.214    survive. 52% of M111 survived. AND 48% OF P.2 grafts lived.

Now not all died to fireblight. We suffered two goat break outs. And maybe 10-15% had question root development.

Listening to Mr.Fazio lack of roots on G.214 is critical. Next time I will not buy regrades on them. Also you must heel them in the ground upon receipt. Water them in good. Then pull them as you need grafts.