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  • From: Anton Callaway <marillen@earthlink.net>
  • To: North American Fruit Explorers <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [NAFEX] PRI apples
  • Date: Thu, 28 Oct 2010 22:39:40 -0400 (GMT-04:00)

Enterprise does well and tastes pretty good as grown here in piedmont North
Carolina (Zone 8). In the prolonged and extreme (record breaking) heat we
had this year, they were often mealy and the skin is usually tough, but the
flavor is good and most years the texture is good as well (not mealy). It
naturally has a beautiful shape, is productive and needs little care.

I wouldn't give up on it in the South anyway.

Anton


-----Original Message-----
>From: Kieran and/or Donna <holycow@frontiernet.net>
>Sent: Oct 26, 2010 7:52 PM
>To: North American Fruit Explorers <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
>Subject: Re: [NAFEX] PRI apples
>
> David,
> Thank you. I have Winesap and the related Mammoth Blacktwig (which
> isn't nearly as good but comes in very late and keeps pretty well) because
> of their CAR resistance. If I remember correctly scab is favored by cooler
> temps than we have in our Tennessee summers. That means scab will grow
> fine early and late in the season, but not in the middle. Mind you, that
> may be as long as the entire season further north, so it may be a bigger
> problem than I think it is. They had a terrible year in western WA this
> year for anything fruit or gardenwise. It was a cold wet spring and summer
> just didn't arrive. My son had a hive of bees starve to death in June
> because there were still no flowers for them. He has all these apple trees
> in his front yard that make apples without his apparently lifting a finger.
> Well, that's not true, he has those sticky red balls for apple maggot, but
> the irritating thing is that they grow while my trees sit around doing
> nothing for years on end. So it was a big deal for me to go out and just
> look at what he had. I saw that he'd not gotten out and thinnned so I
> yanked little stunted apples out of 2 trees that weren't ripe yet, Fuji and
> Grany Smith. The Granny Smiths were just disgusting with scab, so I pulled
> the worst of them as well as the little ones. He says that the climate is
> all wrong west of the Cascades for fruit and that scab is the big problem.
> He said it was the ideal year to look at old trees to evaluate for scab.
> Some had it bad, most did not. One place we went to had the biggest
> butternut tree known, planted around 1850. The guy, George W. Bush, was
> one of the original 9 families to settle the area and he must have brought
> a pound of apple seeds with him. Dave said he planted about 160 acres in
> apple trees, had the apple business wrapped up there for generations. The
> story is that the very best of the big orchard were grafted in the backyard
> of the house, and he collected budwood from all 6 trees. One had already
> finished, one was yellow and unbelievably sour, one was pretty good, and
> the others weren't quite ripe. The original orchard is now a small
> airport. Anyway, what I was coming around to is that I have a friend with
> a Granny Smith tree in his no-spray home orchard, and he says they have to
> pick the apples early because they get these black spots that rot if they
> don't go ahead and pick and process them. Sounds like scab to me now that
> I know GS is prone to it. Also now I can say I know for sure what scab
> looks like on apples, because there just aren't all that many apples in our
> area. Pears are a whole lot more successful. Over in the Tennessee Valley
> I knew where all the yards were with producing apple trees, but here there
> are just hardly any successful old trees. And maybe because the trees
> don't do well they get cut down and never reach the age where they are
> going to be really productive. I say that because I just remembered that
> there is a neighborhood where a small orchard was planted by a TN Tech
> professor in the 40's, and those trees did make crops most years.
> I have tried several times to graft a Grimes Golden. I know of an old
> orchard north of Cookeville where I picked a wonderful apple that must be
> Grimes, been there twice and got scions, but no takes. I'll have to look
> into Goldrush. And I'm disappointed to hear someone didn't like
> Enterprise, which sounded good to me. But he was in the PNW, and maybe it
> likes heat? Donna





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