A lot about apples!

Which variety of apples is the best for homesteading?  

There is no one best variety of apple for homesteading.

How do you want to use your apples?

If your goals run towards juice, cider, applejack, and jelly, almost any apples will work. Apple don't breed true through seed, but wild apples can be cheap and very useful, despite being smaller and less sweet. John Chapman, the famous "Johnny Appleseed," started all his plants from seed and sold them to buyers who planned to grow apples to make hard cider.

Most apple trees are produced by cloning and grafting, with rootstock from one variety and fruiting tops from a different variety. These produce fruit that is reliably larger and sweeter, ideal for fresh eating, baking, or making applesauce or apple butter.

You will need to either purchase grafted plants, which can be expensive, or learn to graft, which is harder than it looks. I've had 100% failure on all attempted grafts so far.

Visit nurseries in your area to see what's available. You are probably better off growing a variety chosen for your area.

I recommend semi-dwarf or full size apple trees, not dwarf, unless you are very space limited. Apple trees are a long term investment, and you will get more fruit from a somewhat larger tree.

It's up to you whether you prefer green, yellow, or red apples.

Unfortunately a lot of apple genetic diversity has been lost or is at risk of being lost.

And, don’t forget to consider climate and microclimate as you consider which apples to grow. Wet soil or well drained.


Rootstock is important too.  Apparently resistance to fireblight is conferred through rootstock, as well as resistance to other apple growing problems.  And here I thought the rootstock was just responsible for size of tree, and maybe ability to grow in wet soil-type of thing.

I was looking for where I could buy an evercrisp apple tree, and learned that there are a couple very promising new rootstocks coming along (developed through selective breeding)… delayed by propagation.  It might be worth waiting for the new rootstock.

Kristine Erwin wrote:Which variety of apples is the best for homesteading?  

You don't want a variety of apple; you usually need at least two trees so the bees can pollinate them from each other. I recommend you get trees fruiting at different times, but that may require more trees to ensure pollination.

I think it is worth noting that if you are looking to utilize a mixture of apples, the utility of crab apple trees!

They tend to be forgotten, but they are indeed edible. There is a higher malic acid content which can make them sour but they can be made into preserves, eaten raw, cider, and many more uses.

They can even be used as a pollinator for 'normal' apple trees without effecting the quality of fruit!

Crab apples are excellent for making apple jelly or extracting pectin for other uses. If you get crabapples, make sure they are not the tiny ornamental crabaples with fruits the size of a pencil eraser. Normal crabapple fruits are about the size of the human eye.

Kristine Erwin wrote:Which variety of apples is the best for homesteading?  

Welcome to Permies, Kristine. The best apple is first an apple that will do well where you are.
A lot depends on what you would like to do with the apples, your soil, your climate. Check your growing zone. The Arbor Day Foundation had some good prices for their regular customers, but their prices are going up. You will see a spot to add your zip code and they will tell you in which zone you are. I am in very sandy soil 4b but they place me in zone 5, so ask your neighbors too and believe your neighbors. see what grows in *their* orchards/ gardens. Most apples will grow well here. with amendments, because my soil is quite poor. So the next decision after this is:
How many apple trees? Mine are mid size, about 20 ft. apart and as some die, I replace them. I have chickens, so one use for apple trees folks might not think about is providing cover for my chooks while chickens perform the all important task of cleaning under the trees at the end of the season, keeping my trees relatively free of bugs, varmints. [The apple and plum trees that grow where their large corrals are,  are in much better shape, I noticed.] While we are here, spraying or not spraying is an important consideration. Some organic sprays are safe for the chooks, but I would still wait until they are in bed to spray. It is hard to do as you are starting, but look at the maintenance that is necessary: Removing suckers, pruning, watering, weeding, how you will improve the soil [important for me!] You may not want to figure out on a whole orchard right off the bat, then get totally swamped by the maintenance and let the trees to their own devices.
Some of mine are producing quite a lot and others have not started, but it won't be long before I'm absolutely swamped with apples. [I'm 75, so climbing up an apple tree... [I pick the lower apples by hand, but after that, I shake the tree, gather the apples and process them as quickly as I can.] Since we don't have a root cellar where I could hold them 'fresh' for a while, I find myself making juice, canned pie filling, jelly, applesauce, apple butter, you name it. So a good piece of advice might be: Arm yourself with good recipes before you buy the first tree, invest in good canning equipment ,see if you could sell commercially if you are inclined to do so. [I'm not: I don't have a business head].
Finally, we get to the crux of your question: which apples?  It is now the fall of the year and your assignment is to order a few catalogs over which I guarantee you will be salivating all winter. [I love wintertime for that reason: I can dream about all these perfect apples trees with perfect apples and nary a bug...]. Personally, I look online for nurseries nearby and I love to visit them in the spring of the year... and in the fall, where you can sometimes get good bargains. Visiting the nurseries will also let you choose which specimen of that cultivar you want.  Bareroot trees are best: You can see how extensive a root system the tree has. The more roots well spread out the better!  And don't give up too fast on raising apples from pips if you have the room [I have 2 garden beds full of seedlings and count on some of them to die or I won't have room!] They won't grow true to seed, but I'll get their pollen if nothing else. By the way, stone fruit are better candidate to grow from seed: They tend to stay closer to what the parent tree was.
You sound like you might be much younger than 75, so if you want to save money, try to buy young trees, seedlings even: they are easier to plant, experience less trauma, are easier to prune, easier to water and the couple of years before they bear will give you time to hone your skills, slowly get all necessary equipment...
Voilà. I hope this will give you something to think about. Let us know how you are faring. Good luck on your new homestead!

Cécile Stelzer Johnson wrote:. . . try to buy young trees . . .

Good point. As a general rule of thumb, the smaller the better.

Campbell Ritchie wrote:

Cécile Stelzer Johnson wrote:. . . try to buy young trees . . .

Good point. As a general rule of thumb, the smaller the better.

Yep. There comes a point in every person's life when their best years are behind them. Then, you start planting trees for the next generation, and for the planet. I also want to plant sugar maples as most of my oaks have "the wilt". I wish I had a good source of sugar maple seeds at a decent price. I'm not sure I will see them produce syrup but... at least, they will provide shade... and leaves with which to mulch the garden.

Responding to earlier comment which indicated grafting is hard.  Grafting a scion onto rootstock can be challenging. It is a skill to be learned, like any other, so don't give up too easily. Good instruction(s) is important.
Much easier is cleft grafting. It requires you have tree(s ) to start with. Given that, it is a super way to expand your varieties, all on the same tree if you wish. Below is a link to a description. Many video instructions can be found online.
You can also use this technique to graft onto a fresh stump.  Cambium to cambium is the key, whatever the type of graft.

https://www.motwebpageherearthnews.com/organic-gardening/grafting-apple-trees/

Maybe plant one tree close to bearing age along with all those youngsters.  You can have apples while you wait!

I was just given some advice by an expert hard cider maker (went to England to learn the craft). Get some pomace (mash) from a local cider mill (one with an older grinder that leaves the seeds intact), work into about an inch of loose soil (a raised bed works well), put some hay or straw on top, fence it from the deer, and let it go. Come spring, you will get a hundred pips -- those get spread out, are given another year -- and now you have seedlings ready to graft or plant that work with your micro-climate (with no out-of-pocket expense).

Sister Maria Philomena wrote:I was just given some advice by an expert hard cider maker (went to England to learn the craft). Get some pomace (mash) from a local cider mill (one with an older grinder that leaves the seeds intact), work into about an inch of loose soil (a raised bed works well), put some hay or straw on top, fence it from the deer, and let it go. Come spring, you will get a hundred pips -- those get spread out, are given another year -- and now you have seedlings ready to graft or plant that work with your micro-climate (with no out-of-pocket expense).

That's super, Sister. If you are in the process of getting into making hard cider, you can also mount a dedicated Insinkerator/ garbage disposal in a sink frame to crush these apples before you press them. I destroy more seeds by quartering the apples than running them through the garbage disposal. Now, yes, you will get a lot of pips and quite a mat of seedlings. Realize that you won't be able to decide the size of the tree unless you can graft a sizing piece of stock between the roots and the scion you end up grafting on it. That tree, without the sizing piece in between  will most likely be "full size" and it will take longer to get fruit from those. But you can get a full orchard pretty fast at rock bottom price. If hard cider is what you want to make, many of these apples are likely to not be great eating apples, but you probably have sturdy tall apple trees and some may even be good enough for the table.
I have about 60 such little seedlings in 2 raised beds. They will have to be moved next spring or they will be too big for me to budge!
I will try to graft something good on them.

It’s apple season here, and the juice and cider are available everywhere, at various prices, pasteurized and raw, filtered or unfiltered, hard or not.

I got a gallon of unpasteurized cider, in this case juice from cider apples.  I wanted to make vinegar, which I have done in the past by first fermenting with a sparkling white wine yeast, then fermenting the alcohol to vinegar.  I needed to speed up the process this year, so I poured a pint of raw apple cider vinegar into the gallon of cider.  It’s been less than a week, and I wanted to test my project.

There’s some carbonation, and the vinegar is progressing, and in the meantime it is fabulously delicious.  There’s a lot of sugar still in the cider, and it’s got a good puckering sourness from the vinegar, and it’s a little carbonated too!  

All of it might not make it to the vinegar bottle!

I am wondering if some of you who grow apples are getting worried about the lack of chill hours? Presently, in Wisconsin, this winter, we have unseasonably warm temperatures, after a warmish fall [Freezing a little but a brown Christmas]. Pretty much the entire month of January, we've had "maple tapping weather" [freezing a little at night and thawing during the day]. and now, at the end of the first week of February, we are still getting temps that are  30-40 degrees above what's normal.
Chill hours are defined as a measurement of the cumulative amount of time that a fruit or nut tree spends exposed to temperatures below a specific temperature, like freezing, although I also have seen it defined as the number of hours in the winter below 32F. The following maps use 35F, so the methodology needs to become more universal.
https://mrcc.purdue.edu/VIP/indexChillHours
You can click on your state and see, but it is complicated by the fact that different cultivars of one same crop may have different chilling requirements. Amongst apples, for example, Galas, require 500 Chilling hours. Honeycrisps require 800-1,000 chilling hours.
And what if you don't get enough chill hours? Well, the fruiting will be poor and the quality of the fruit will suffer.
I understand only the basics of this concept, so if you have more information, please fill us in.
I know that on top of that, we are in a drought period. We are well below our average of 32" of precipitation as it has rained very little all of last year and the little bit of snow we got is already gone, so a very unusual winter.
The ground is mostly thawed and the voles and the moles are making all kinds of mounds on the lawn! and we are only on the 8th of February!

I've started to consciously try and add one 'fruit' into my daily consumption and have found apples to be a really convenient food.

Looking at nutrition, are there better types of apples than others? Is there much variation?

Timothy Norton wrote:I've started to consciously try and add one 'fruit' into my daily consumption and have found apples to be a really convenient food.

Looking at nutrition, are there better types of apples than others? Is there much variation?

FASCINATING QUESTION!

I don’t know but what you might have uncovered a new field of inquiry, Timothy!  There are sure to be differences between individual apples and apple varieties.  There are sure to be molecular differences between varieties, because of the range of flavors.

As for nutritional values…. if starvation is an issue, get the highest sugar you can—- usually translates to sweetest.  But if a person is on the overfed end of the spectrum, then stay away from the high sugar.

Some apple varieties have pigmented flesh.  I’m just guessing here, but higher pigment is likely indicative of higher antioxidant content.

That’s the extent of my current conjecture.  I am researching other questions right now, or I would see what might be available on line.

Can’t wait to see where this conversation goes!

Having trouble with my Jonathon apple tree this year and I curious if anybody can help me diagnose the problem. Thank you

Charles Beckmann
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Having trouble with my Jonathon apple tree this year and I curious if anybody can help me diagnose the problem. Thank you

Hello,

Don’t know how to do a quote yet, so it was cut and paste and a big Welcome to permies, Charles
Had a quick look at your photographs without my specs.
The leaves reminded me of peach leaf curl -I know it’s not a peach -
didn’t see any sign of ants or aphids
Thought of wind burn
And probably off mark with still a lot to learn so looking forward to some diagnoses.

Around here, rodents absolutely love young apple tree roots.
One ends up with a slim trunk bevelled at the root end.
By the by, they also demolish borage root.
Copying British orchards, I plant lots of bulbs around the trees which seem to offer a little protection and a delight in spring.

Somebody asked me how I kept myself occupied in view of having trees.
Sounds like a disease, I have a touch of trees.
Trees, they like to be admired, appreciated, a little bit of cleaning around the root perimeter, an occasional beauty treatment with a clay wash on the trunk and a whey spray on leaves and fruit, checking for unwanted guests; the list lengthens as we get to know each other.
It takes the time it takes and fruit doesn’t magically appear in the dish on the sideboard.

I love the comments about cultivating pips.
Grafting, is it that difficult? Ther have been grafts that have taken and others not, there you go.
Haven’t tried August grafting, that would be late summer here, using the method that I use with roses.
Don’t know all the names, sorry.

It still raining and raining and not warm though perhaps not enough of the chill factor when it was needed.

Thank you all
M-H

Well, Charles, the leaf curling on your Jonathan apple tree does indicate that all is not well. Better Homes and Gardens says that the curling of the leaves on an apple tree, [not necessarily Jonathan] has one of 3 causes:
Fungal diseases, bugs and bacteria.
You pointed out that you've had a lot of rain, and perhaps the Jonathan cultivar doesn't handle that well. I know my Wealthy apples on the tree will burst if they are given too much water toward the end of ripening, but I also have Jonathan, and that didn't bother them, so perhaps, it is the cultivar?
They recommend checking the unhealthy leaves for stickiness or powdery substance on the underside. That might  indicate bugs or bacteria. Unfortunately, we can't fix the weather. For more:
https://www.bhg.com/gardening/trees-shrubs-vines/trees/why-are-the-leaves-curling-on-my-apple-tree/#:~:text=Your%20apple%20tree%20has%20three,might%20even%20see%20small%20insects.

I'm trying two new projects this year concerning apples.
The first is growing seeds from purchased apples of varieties, Fuji, Gala, Honeycrisp, and Evercrisp. I've had some limited success with all four varieties and will keep those going through to a good transplant size. IF you like good SOLID apples try the Evercrisp (make sure your dentures are well secured!)!  :-)

I also am trying to propagate an "apple tree" from the limb of a neighbor's tree that have GREAT apples. I show the wrapped limb below. It is inside a plastic container with fine peat moss, covered with cling wrap and then crinkled tinfoil to keep the birds away. It is in its third-fourth week of a six week process. Hopefully it is forming lots of good roots. I believe this to be a Macintosh, but not sure, nor is the owner aware of the variety.

I love Evercrisp apples! I buy them from the organic local grower when they are newly harvested and keep them several months. The flavor is tremendous. The skin gets a little wrinkly, but the texture when I eat them hasn’t deteriorated and the flavor remains excellent.  Stored 5 months in a paper bag in my storage unit in an arid climate, I find that incredible.

I was traveling and found some Evercrisp apples available in a big name grocery store. I was very excited. I bought a few. I was very disappointed.  They were crisp alright, but zero flavor.  What’s the point if they don’t taste good!

Maybe those commercial apples had been in storage for years!  I don’t know, maybe they had no flavor when they came off the tree!  The region where I live is known for high quality fruit.

If you got a bleh evercrisp, it isn’t the tree’s fault, nor the variety.  It’s a fabulous apple at 5 months off the tree!