North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[Alan Haigh <alandhaigh@gmail.com>]

I can't stand by when someone suggests that heirloom varieties are superior to modern ones.  In my opinion, which is based on spending pretty much my entire life with all kinds of apple trees as I manage a bearing age fruit tree nursery and about 100 home and estate orchards and even one small commercial orchard in southeastern NY.  Most of the six months I spend every season pruning fruit trees all working day long is in heirloom variety apple trees- many of them over 100 years old and quite large.  

Of coarse taste is entirely subjective but I've noticed that novice growers tend to be a bit over enamored of heirlooms, especially if that's all they grow.  Apples off your own trees are going to taste better than anything you're likely to buy at the grocery store and if you're good at it they probably will be better than  what you can buy at a farm.

Of my top 10 apples, maybe half are heirlooms and most apple growing fools I know have come to the conclusion that if you want to grow the best apples you need a mix of the modern and the traditional.   What's more, in general, newer apples tend to be more grower friendly than many heirlooms- easier to prune and more forgiving of unusual weather.  A couple of the new disease resistant varieties are particularly good in this department- especially Goldrush.

Baldwin used to be my favorite apple but the warm autums we've been having a lot of lately aren't conducive to it getting to best quality.  This is typical of heirlooms which are much more likely to be dependent on what would be normal weather in the region of the country where they were discovered.  Modern varieties tend to be tested in a wide range of weather conditions to make sure the patent is going to be worth the expense.

I don't care if you like sweet or tart apples or light or dense fleshed ones there are new and old varieties that will fill the bill if you have an open mind.