North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

["Alan Haigh" <alandhaigh@gmail.com>]

You can grow scab and cedar-apple-rust resistant varieties but you may have trouble selling them.  I managed a small commercial orchard that wasn't organic but we used an extreme low-spray of 2 applications of imidan with summer oil in the first doable ap.  Liberty was the primary cultivar and they were gorgeous (the site was open and windy with little soot or speck) but we couldn't give them away.  Members will say we didn't harvest at the correct time but they weren't there and they'd be wrong.  It may have better potential in other parts of the country however but it has bombed here as a commercial.  It lacks the Mac crunch and aroma and is just a so-so apple.

 

Goldrush is the only D R that I've tried that I consider world-class based on my taste and scores of others but it gets plenty of CAR and insect damage of course though it's more curc resistant than most.  You'll need at least 3 aps of Surround at 10-day intervals from pedal-fall.  Enterprise is pretty good also.

 

I'd approach this project  with caution before a major cash or labor investment- experiment first.