North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[Alan Haigh <alandhaigh@gmail.com>]

Glen wrote, "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."

 

That was what turned out to be the big lie about Liberty.  It didn't decrease the number of sprays I needed to harvest sound fruit, just the number of ingredients in the spray tank.  I am much more concerned about the materials I use to control insects that those I use to control fungus.  Yes, Nova comes in too large of quantities for the home grower, but when used with some Captan it will control scab and car adequately without a single additional spray I'm making anyway to control plum curculio.  This combination has worked for me in scores of sites for the last 20 years.

 

I am not just talking about grocery stores, Liberty has failed at farm markets where the clientele is very savvy about food and discerning about taste.  You just can't argue about the facts of commerce-  If you have a taste for Liberty, there's nothing wrong with that, but you are in the minority.  If Liberty wasn't disease resistant I doubt it would "taste" so good.  Taste tests are very misleading- purchasing habits come from multiple taste tests and those are the ones that matter. 

 

In my business it's not about selling apples but about growing apples people will actually use and love.  Liberty has never been the favorite apple of a single one of my customers.  It may be a better apple grown elsewhere, but here Macoun is similar and much more pleasing to most, so if I want an ugly tree why not go with the Macoun?  If I lived where the main battle wasn't with plum curculio, I might feel differently.