North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

["Glenn & Kathy Russell" <GlennAndKathy2@cox.net>]

Perhaps one might say that Liberty has lost the commercial battle for the
grocery store, but I think that's just one of its very few drawbacks.  As a
home orcharder, I care very little about what is sold in the grocery store.
Having to deal with every disease under the sun here in RI, I'm thrilled
that Liberty is so disease resistant, and even happier when I found out that
they IMHO taste better than 80% of the apples out there.  With its DR
properties, I don't understand why a home grower would ever a Mac type plant
when this great variety is available.  

So far, I have a few other friends that gotten into growing a couple trees,
and the first variety I recommend to them is Liberty.  They don't want to
deal with all the spraying that's involved with other apples.  This variety
keeps it reasonable for your average home owner to grow.

Most of the orchards around here seem to have sizable blocks of Liberty, so
all those apples are indeed going somewhere. perhaps just not to the grocery
store shelves.  Yes, all of us DR / Liberty enthusiasts continue to educate,
but liberty will probably never overtake the Red Delicious.  Nevertheless, I
still consider it a great success.

Again, on the taste topic, my father and I apparently have similar taste in
apples.  Granted, it wasn't a blind taste test, and also, I don't like sweet
apples like Gala.  But, in our local orchard, out of 9 varieties, Liberty
came in a close second. only to Empire.  I found them to be just a bit
better than the Mac that they had.  I'll happily sacrifice that very small
difference in taste for the large amount of work and chemicals needed to
protect many of the other varieties.  

Is it spring yet?

                -Glenn