There is more to apple trees than you or I know. There are dozens of species around the world in the Malus genus. They can grow in swamps or rocky outcrops bearing fruit the size of a pea or a large potato. Skin color can be yellow, green, red, orange, and even blue. Both white flesh and red flesh are possibilities. Flavor can be horribly bitter, puckeringly astringent, candy-sweet, or complex and tart in ways supermarket consumers never know. But the apple tree is much more than its fruit. These trees are complex organisms with their own unique personalities and ecological roles.
Apples branch and branch and branch again. Their canopies are a tangled maze that reminds me of a human brain with all its tunnels wrapped around one another. Lost under the shade of bigger trees, apples will become spindly, reaching for any light they can find. Out in the sun, they are spreading, vibrant beings welcoming sunlight, rain, wind, and the night sky.
The genus Malus is as diverse as the flavors of its fruits. It reminds me of the dog family. There is the wolf, from which domesticated dogs were bred. And so we have the wild apple, Malus sieversii, that is the parent to the domesticated apple. Many of these domesticated apples would be equated to dogs like the poodle and the shih tzu. Some are a bit more resilient, but none are like the wolf. And just as in the dog family, there are many wild offshoots of the apple. With dogs, there are foxes, coyotes, dingoes, dholes, jackals, hyenas, and several others. It is the same with apples. There are species originating from North America, Asia, and Europe. Some of these are hardy to –50°F; many make excellent disease-resistant small apples. Some are very rarely cultivated. You might not recognize them all as apples; some of them are only as big as a small blueberry, but they are indeed apples and they are very useful members of this incredible genus.
The Wild Tree
Apples are generally small trees that sprout in old fields and hedgerows, and along roadsides. They are some of the toughest trees around, able to compete with the thickest of weeds and withstand endless browse. Wild apples tolerate some of the most extreme soil conditions, from overly wet to extremely dry, acidic to alkaline. They won’t always thrive in these conditions, but they will often grow and produce fruit anyway.
Apple buds and leaves are highly palatable to deer. The twigs and bark are a favorite winter food for rabbits and many rodents. In the spring, when the flowers open, we can see dozens of species of insects gathering nectar and spreading pollen. On warm spring days in May when the apple trees are blossoming, I like to stand still in front of a big tree and let my vision go out of focus. After a moment, the activity is revealed. It is a mesmerizing event.
The leaves and fruit are also an important food for dozens of species of Lepidoptera and other insects.
Like most trees, apples take a break after a heavy crop. They will generally flower very little the year after a large fruit-set. If there is a late frost that kills all the blossoms one year, the next year will see a very heavy bloom. Of course, a frost can wipe out a crop any year. Commercial orchards will prune branches and thin fruitlets soon after set to prevent trees from taking the next year off. They will also sometimes use frost machines to keep the blossoms alive by spraying them with fog or mist continuously on cold nights. In the wild, apples usually won’t fruit every year, but as with all things apple, there are exceptions.
Wild apples are more common than many folks realize. There is a thicket of them on my property consisting of a few hundred trees. People often don’t believe me when I explain that they are wild and not planted. In the spring I can see hundreds of wild apple seedlings in the grass as I walk across the fields. Wild apples are spread by deer and birds; they are one of the most successful trees to establish in old fields. They have no problem competing with such aggressive species as autumn olive, European buckthorn, multiflora rose, gray dogwood, and honeysuckle.
Apples can live for a long time; it’s not uncommon to find trees over 100 years old around central New York State. I have heard of apples living for over 300 years in some parts of the world. When apples become old, they gather a lot of deadwood. Often whole trunks will be hollowed out. An apple tree can live like this for a very long time. It will send sprouts from everywhere and continue to grow even after it has completely fallen over and uprooted. These old large apple trees offer great denning sites for mammals and birds.
Wild apples growing at Twisted Tree Farm. This is what happens to many abandoned cow pastures in upstate New York.
I have spent many hours perched up in a wild apple tree during the fall observing wildlife. It is truly a center of activity in the quiet of the woods and fields. Sitting completely still for hours in nature has become lost to most of our culture, preserved by a handful of hunters and a few Earth lovers. It is very good for the soul, though there are often stretches of boredom that are not easy to endure. Sitting in an apple tree when it is fruiting requires no such discipline. There will be plenty of wildlife for the short attention span if you are able to remain mostly still and hidden up in the canopy. Dozens of species of songbirds, chipmunks, squirrels, various rodents, skunks, possums, deer, and raccoons are all likely to stop by, and so are the predators of these creatures. Apples enliven the land wherever they dwell.
The Domesticated Apple
Comparing wild apple trees with modern orchard systems is like comparing wolves with poodles. Domestic apple trees have been selected for centuries. Approaches to caring for them are as varied as the people who tend them.
Conventionally Grown
The trend in commercial production is toward ever-increasing inputs and trees that cannot fend for themselves. In most orchards trees are fed, irrigated, and sprayed with multiple rounds of fungicides and insecticides, while all other plants are kept at bay with regular applications of herbicide. No grass grows under the narrow canopy of dwarf, trellised trees that hold up more weight in fruit than wood. Most conventional orchards comprise trees that literally cannot stand up on their own or even grow with a cover of sod. Toxic sprays are heavily used to fend off every insect and fungus. The work of the tree is just to make fruit. Everything else is taken care of by the orchardist. Mike Biltonen, an expert orchard consultant, describes conventional apples as being on a constant IV drip to keep them going.
Organically Grown
The demand for perfect-looking fruit at a low price puts growers in a tough place. Many pests of apples don’t affect the flavor of the fruit or the health of the tree, but they are unacceptable to consumers expecting a shiny apple.
I have a T-shirt from my friends at Eve’s Cidery. It has a diagram of an apple split in half with labels on all the parts of the fruit including the pericarp, calyx, radical, seed, and so on. The label on the skin of the apple reads UNREALISTIC EXPECTATIONS.
The East Coast is home to several significant pests that growers on the West Coast do not have to worry about. Almost all organic apples grown in the United States come from irrigated deserts in the West because of these pests. Trees out there are grown in semi-arid regions with no significant fungal issues and fewer insects. In the East growers have to be not only creative but also highly educated on the needs of the trees and the life cycles of pests.
East Coast organic apple growers are a subculture with such an in-depth knowledge of trees and pests that few people outside their circles can even understand what they’re talking about. Their strategies are brilliant and creative. Originally, organic apple growers in the East were focused on how to kill pests with organic pesticides. They still are, but it has evolved into a practice in which tree immunity and orchard ecosystem health is supported to fight off the pests. These growers spray mixtures using clay, cultured microorganisms, plant extracts, and minerals. They plant mixtures of wildflowers and sometimes shrubs under the trees to encourage specific predatory insects and biodiversity. Their trees are the epitome of health, and they have to be to fend off some of these pests. But it is not just the vigor of the tree that is supported; their practices go far beyond that. Mating cycles of pests are confused with pheromones, and micronutrients are applied to boost immune activity in the tree at specific times of fungal and bacterial activity. Parasitic fungi are crowded out by beneficial fungi that are applied to leaf surfaces. These growers understand the life cycles of all the insects and fungi that feed on apple trees. Volumes could be written about their constantly evolving practices.
If you want to commercially grow apples that look like the ones you see in the store and you live in the East or Midwest, then it will take this kind of dedication. You can get away with a lot by having a site with good airflow and the latest disease-resistant varieties, but you will still need deep knowledge and understanding. Fortunately for the rest of us, there are many other reasons to grow apples than just for pristine-looking fruit on a supermarket shelf.
Species
This list is by no means complete. It is here to give you an idea of some of the 50-plus species of apples found around the world.
Sweet-Scented Crab aka Garland Crab (Malus coronaria)
This tree is native to the eastern half of the US. It is beloved for its unbelievably fragrant flowers. The fruits are small, about half an inch in diameter. They are yellow-green hard little things that are mouth-puckering. In the old days these apples found their way into ciders and jelly (they still can today). Garland crabs are small, gnarly trees that form thickets.
I think the most interesting thing about this tree is that it flowers much later than other apple trees. While domestic apples are in full bloom, the sweet-scented crab still looks dormant with completely closed buds. In a world of changing climate and wild fluctuations in spring temperatures, this seems a good tree to bring into the fold of breeding programs.
Sargent Crab (Malus sargentii)
This amazing tree is native to Japan. It is widely planted for ornamental purposes. Sargent crab is extremely disease-resistant. The fruits are small—about half an inch in diameter—and fire-engine red. Fruits hang on the tree throughout the winter and are heavily fed on by birds. They’re tart, but I enjoy eating them fresh. In the fall they are pretty mouth-puckering, but as winter goes on they mellow quite a bit. I have gathered and eaten countless tasty sargent apples standing in parking lots as late as March.
Sargent crab in late winter. These tiny apples have a sweet-tart flavor and are true living bird feeders.
Siberian Crab (Malus baccata)
Native to Asia from Siberia through the Himalayas, M. baccata reaches heights of close to 50 feet in the wild. This is the parent to the Ranetka apple that is widely used as a rootstock in far northern plantings, where extreme cold hardiness is a must. Siberian crabs are also extensively used in ornamental landscaping. They make tiny fruits and abundant blossoms.
Malus sieversii
There is a place in Central Asia that is home to the largest genepool of apples in the world. In the Tian Shan mountains of eastern Kazakhstan, on the border of western China, stands the world’s original apple forest made of Malus sieversii.
It is here that 300-year-old giants can be found bearing all types of apples, including immaculate fruit. Seeds from these trees were brought out along the Silk Road to Europe thousands of years ago. From there the apple has spread. But only a small portion of Malus sieversii’s genes were represented in this diaspora. The wild apple forests are large and remote. Most of what is there is unknown. Researchers started taking field trips in the 1990s into these forests and collecting seeds and cuttings from amazing trees. Trees that are resistant to many of the diseases orchardists spray to control.
A request made to the New York State Agricultural Experiment Station in Geneva, New York, will get you 100 free seeds sent from the Kazakhstan apples they planted. You can request the seeds here: www
Varieties
There are around 7,500 named apple varieties in the world. I’m going to list a few here to give you an idea of some of the diversity available. Understand that this is not even close to a comprehensive list. Also, understand that fruit will vary in quality from year to year and from location to location. Soils, climate, and even age play a role in flavor. For a longer list check out www
Bramley’s Seedling apples harvested at Eve’s Cidery. Photo courtesy of Autumn Stoscheck.
Northern Spy: An all-around great apple, good for fresh eating, cider, and cooking. Vigorous grower, ripens late season, large fruits somewhat disease-susceptible. Beautiful green, yellow, and red striping. This apple has been around since the 1840s for good reasons.
Liberty: This apple was released from Geneva, New York, in 1978. It’s highly resistant to all major apple diseases. Liberty has very good flavor; best used for fresh eating. Stores well all winter. Ripens late season.
Jonagold: Delicious sweet dessert apple. One of the tastiest varieties. Generally susceptible to most apple diseases. Mid- to late-season ripening.
Dolgo Crab: Good-eating crab apple; bright red 1-inch fruits make excellent sauces and jelly; good for fresh eating, too. Copious white blossoms, a great pollinator. Originating from Siberia, hardy to zone 2. Early ripening. Very disease-resistant.
Kingston Black: Considered able to make a good hard cider by itself (typically, hard ciders need multiple types of apples in a blend). Originating in England, this apple is the standard hard cider tree there. Late-season ripening.
Sweet 16: Disease-resistant, sweet apples with yellow flesh. Mid- to late season.
Black Oxford: Purplish dark fruit. Great flavor, good for fresh eating, cooking, juice, and an excellent keeper. Mid- to late season.
Bramley’s Seedling: Hands down the best cooking apple. Very large fruits put Granny Smiths to shame. Mid- to late season.
Keepsake: As the name implies, this is a very good keeper. Medium to small fruits; sweet flavor peaks during storage in midwinter; keeps until April. Very hardy. Late ripener.
Hudson’s Golden Gem: Excellent flavor, russeted skin with yellow flesh; crisp and sweet with a nutty flavor. Late ripener.
Pristine: My favorite early apple, Pristine ripens in mid-July. Sweet and crisp, it stores well (especially for a summer apple). Very disease-resistant fruits, though leaves get cedar apple rust.
Golden Russet: Wonderful flavor, good disease resistance. Great for fresh eating, cooking, storing, and hard cider. Early- to midseason ripening. Like Kingston Black, this tree also can make a quality stand-alone hard cider.
Roxbury Russet: An old russet, possibly the first named variety of apple to be born in America. Good for fresh eating, cooking, hard cider, and storing. Mid- to late-season ripening. After hundreds of years, Roxbury is still highly resistant to scab, cedar apple rust, and fireblight.
Akane: Very disease-resistant, good dessert apple. Early- to midseason.
Wickson Crab: A great crab apple for fresh eating or for hard cider. Fruits are 2 inches, with wonderful color and flavor. Late season.
Ashmead’s Kernel: An old variety from England with outstanding flavor that has a hint of pear. Stores well and is great for hard cider and fresh eating. Ripens late season. To many folks this is the best-tasting apple. Still fairly disease-resistant, even though it has been around for hundreds of years.
Calville Blanc d’Hiver: A 17th-century French heirloom. Makes lumpy green apples that are considered by many to be one of the best-tasting apples in the world. Slight citrus flavor, high in vitamin C. Ripens mid- to late season.
I could go on and on describing varieties, but then this book would never end. I have seen people so addicted to growing different varieties that they just kept collecting after they ran out of room. Each tree in their backyard orchard had a minimum of five varieties grafted on.
Rootstocks
Cloned apples are the rule in commercial apple orchards. With known varieties, rows of trees can be harvested on a schedule. The qualities of the fruit are known and consistent from one tree to the next. This uniformity and predictability is also useful on the rootstock side of the tree. Rootstocks influence growth habit and flowering.
Dwarfing rootstocks are selected for weakness or poor compatibility with scionwood. They are the pampered poodles of the apple world. They are so weak that they often cannot live without irrigation and weed control. Some dwarfing rootstocks have a life span of less than 20 years. They cause the grafted top of the tree to flower at a very young age, around two or three years. The trees are easy to manage and train for orchardists. It’s a lot easier to spray, pick, and a prune an 8-foot tree than a 30-footer. I understand why commercial orchardists use dwarfing rootstocks. They have tight margins and need high productivity at a young age.
Personally, I prefer real trees that can take care of themselves. I like apple trees that will be alive for my grandkids to climb and harvest wild honey from. I’d rather grow a tree that produces 1,000 pounds of fruit and acts as a magnet to wildlife and people for decades after I’m dead. There are clonal rootstocks that can do this, though seedling roots are more likely.
Clonal rootstocks have their origins in different agricultural experiment stations from around the world.
Geneva
The Geneva series has been spearheaded by the work of Dr. Jim Cummins. Dr. Cummins has made endless crosses and experiments to create this series of rootstocks. In his work, beds of seedlings were sprayed with heavy doses of fireblight to discover resistant individuals.
Most of the Geneva series are dwarfs bred for super-productivity on high-input trellis systems. This is the modern wave in apple growing. Trees are planted a few feet apart in the rows and trained along a trellis. Irrigation and weed control are standard practice. What it looks like is walls of fruit. The per-acre yields on many of these Geneva roots are much higher than ever before seen. Fully productive crops begin by age three. However, many of these trees may have a life span of only 15 to 20 years, and most cannot stand up on their own without being staked. Many of the Geneva rootstocks have been showing up with unexpected problems in recent years, including poor graft unions and sudden apple decline. I will say that the folks in Geneva continue to develop and breed new rootstocks, so who knows what they will release next?
Malling
The Malling series is an old time-tested group of rootstocks from the U.K. There are a wide range of dwarfs and semi-dwarfs. My top pick for strength and reliability is MM111. It grows to about 60 percent of the size of a seedling apple tree. It is a strong-rooted, tough tree. This is a rootstock that has proven its reliability. It is not a heavy producer.
Budagovsky
The Budagovsky series also has a wide range of dwarfs and semi-dwarfs. The releases are not as old and tested as Malling, but they appear to be of good quality. Bud 118, developed in Russia, grows to 80 percent of a standard’s size. It is very cold-hardy, tough, and precocious. Bud 118 encourages trees to flower around age three. It is less susceptible to burr knotting, as is frequently an issue with MM111. Bud 118 has red leaves, making root suckers easy to identify. What I really like about Bud 118 is that it combines the virtues of early bearing and strength. Generally, growers have to choose between the two.
Antonovka
This strain of seedling apples originated in Russia. The fruits are used there for cooking and processing. In the US, Antonovka apples are used primarily as a rootstock or for wildlife plantings. They are extremely cold-hardy and adaptable to adverse soil conditions. Antonovkas are well-anchored, deep-rooted trees. As a rootstock, they are slow to influence fruiting, often taking 5 to 10 years.
Traditionally apple rootstocks were cloned in stool beds. They still are for the most part today, though tissue culture labs are starting to clone rootstocks. Almost all the clonal rootstocks in the US are grown in the Pacific Northwest. Millions of rooted layers are harvested off acres of clones. Fungicides, insecticides, herbicides, and chemical fertilizers are the rule.
Building your own clonal rootstock bed isn’t hard, and it’s a very productive use of space. Large commercial nurseries are harvesting 60,000 rooted stems per acre. That is a lot of trees per square foot. I set up a small stool bed for Bud 118 this last year. It was 3 feet wide by 15 feet long. I started with three individual two-year-old trees in the spring. By fall I harvested around 75 rooted stems, and this was only the first year. The root system of the stools will only grow stronger every year.
Stooling apple rootstocks is easier than most other trees. They root readily and freely into soil or sawdust piled against them. This is not true for all apple trees, though. One of the criteria in traditional apple rootstock breeding programs is ease of propagation. For a detailed explanation of stooling, see the propagation chapters of this book.
Grafting Apples
Apples are one of the most forgiving trees to the propagator. They callus thickly and quickly under warm or cool conditions. Unions form easily. Bench grafting can happen anytime over the winter so long as the trees are dormant and you have a protected place to store them (I currently store mine in our unheated basement).
Top-working is done outside before apple blossoms open in the spring. Warm days when the sap is pushing are best—though I have seen fresh apple grafts survive temperatures in the teens.
I have found that it’s easier for the tree to heal small wounds. So I prefer to graft onto branches or sprouts rather than onto the main trunk. After the grafts take on the smaller limbs, the rest of the trunk can be cut off.
Grafting apples is pretty easy compared with other species, and there are more varieties of apple available today than just about any other fruit.
Seedling Apples
Search for “growing apples from seed” and you will see the same thing written at the beginning of just about every article: “If you grow an apple seed, it will make a tree that bears a different fruit than its parent.” This is true, and it’s okay. Diversity in nature is a wonderful thing. There are more shapes, tastes, and colors in the genetic pool of the Malus genus than we can even dream of. There are apples with blue skin and red flesh, some that ripen in early July, some that hang on the tree all winter tasting sweeter and sweeter. There are apples the size of a pea and others the size of a large potato. We can grow apples from seed and find wonderful trees.
Let’s not forget that every amazing apple variety in this world started out as a seed.
For all the great advantages that cloned apple trees have, seedlings have quite a few themselves. First of all, there is no graft union. The entire tree is itself; any sprouts from the roots are true to the top. A tree girdled by rabbits in the winter does not need to be bridge-grafted; it can just grow back from the roots.
Seedlings can live a very long time. Apple seedlings have a life expectancy of over 100 years. Compare that with a cultivated apple on a dwarfing rootstock, which might live for only 15 years.
Lack of the graft union is essential to bigger size and longer life. Seedlings are also tougher. They can tolerate soils that would kill most cultivated rootstocks. On my farm, wherever it is wet and muddy we get wild apples springing up.
It is often said that 1 in 1,000 apple seeds will make a good apple. There is no way that can be true. I live in upstate New York. Wild apple trees are basically an invasive species here. I sample apples everywhere I go in the fall. I would say about one out of three trees is palatable. Maybe 1 in 20 tastes great. I just do not believe the notion that 1 in 1,000 trees is good. It appears to be just repeated information with no basis in reality. Taste lots of wild apples and you will find lots of great apples.
Also, virtually all apples can be processed into something edible and delicious—from dried fruit to applesauce to vinegar to hard cider to ethanol to pork and venison. All apples are suitable for at least one of these categories.
Growing Seedlings
How does nature grow them? Very close together and crowded. If we are to plant seedling trees and expect 1 in 20 or 100 to be good, then we need to plant crowded. It is okay to plant 100 trees close together in a space where only 1 is wanted. The best way to do this from a management perspective in my mind is to plant a hedgerow. As time goes on the hedgerow is thinned out. The cut-back trees will regrow again and again unless they are mowed repeatedly in the summer. A few mowings in a year will kill most young trees.
You don’t know what you’ll find if you plant apples from seed—not just in the fruit, but also in the form. I hope to one day discover a timber-type apple and a timber pear. The wood would be highly prized by woodworkers, the trees grow fast, and they would be an excellent soft fruit mast for wildlife.
Propagation by Seed
Growing apples from seed is not hard. The first time I did it, I just bit into an apple and took the seeds out. I planted the seeds in some potting soil in a window, and about a week later they sprouted.
Some apple seeds will sprout right away in warm soil, while others will require moist stratification. I use a couple of methods to stratify apple seed. With cleaned seeds, I pack them in damp sand in plastic bags in the fridge. With gathered fruit, I store seeds outside in the fall by letting the fruit rot outside all winter. By spring, the apples are mushy after all the freeze and thaw cycles. I then mix the rotten fruit into a slurry with a paint mixer. This slurry of pulp is raked into the soil about half an inch deep. Germination usually occurs within a couple of weeks.
I have also grown many seedlings from the pomace produced from cideries. I lay the pomace on top of a bed in the fall, chop it up with a hoe, and incorporate it into the top layer of soil. Seeds will sprout in the following spring.
A nursery bed of apple seedlings at Twisted Tree Farm.
I find that storing the seeds in the fruit or in pomace is the best way to prevent them from sprouting too early. This early sprouting can be a problem with refrigerated seed.
Another way to grow apple seedlings is to look around large apple trees. You can often find seedlings growing on their own. Dig them up before the lawn mower gets them. They transplant easily and can sometimes be found by the hundreds under a single tree.
Planting a Wildlife Plot
Apple trees are one of the best choices for wildlife plantings. Their fruit, buds, leaves, and blossoms attract a diverse array of creatures. Planting multiple varieties that ripen at different times offers so much more to wildlife than a block of the same clone. There are apples that ripen in July, ones that don’t lose their fruit until April, and everything in between.
Many crab apples will hang on to their tiny fruits all winter. I used to think this was because the birds did not like them. I have since learned that those late-winter fruits are relished by songbirds returning from migration in the spring. A tree will hold on to this fruit through the endless onslaught of winter, dropping a few here and there occasionally. Then, in one quick swoop, a flock of cedar waxwings will harvest everything upon their return from warmer lands.
If you are planting trees for wildlife, then use seedling rootstocks for long life. Use a multitude of varieties with different ripening times. Crab apples in both wild and domestic form are often the true champions in productivity for wildlife.
Wood
The wood of the apple tree is another of its gifts. It has a warm rich color and smell. The density is very high, coming close to hickory. Applewood burns very hot and long. It makes an outstanding wood for carving and is somewhat durable. I have seen apple trunks and branches with perfectly sound wood after being outside for several years.
Apples grow fast and can endure repeated and hard cutting. They coppice well and can grow back from large wounds easily. They have a powerful ability to heal themselves. The branching can be so tremendous on apples that it’s difficult to harvest large amounts of wood. I have often daydreamed of finding an apple tree with a form like an ash: a tree that grew straight up, making a thick trunk; a log of apple. Such a tree could grow 70 to 80 feet and compete well in the hardwood forest. Every two or three years it would rain down a crop to feed the animals. Floors, tables, or cabinets of applewood would be just as striking as those of cherry and mahogany. I believe this tree exists and that a forest of mixed hardwoods with apple is a true possibility. One inspired person could create a viable population of timber-type apples. They would grow out thousands of seedlings every year, each generation becoming better and better. Eventually walking through a forest of oak, hickory, chestnut, and apple would be a reality.
Using Apples
Certainly an entire book could be written on all the uses for these magnanimous beings. The apple is much more than a snack in a kid’s lunch box. Hard cider, juice, vinegar, ethanol, sauce, butter, chips, and an endless array of desserts are just some of the uses for this fruit that is revered by our civilization.
Apples store well in cool conditions. A normal root cellar is too warm for them, and even good keeping varieties will become mealy after a month. Storing apples at 32 to 34°F (0–1°C) will keep certain varieties in perfect shape for six months or more.
Claude Jolicoeur recently published The New Cider Maker’s Handbook for folks wanting to delve deeply into this subject. Hard cider is an old tradition that is finding new life today. An industry is forming across the US, and old knowledge is being regained and expanded upon. There are many types of hard cider and they are not all the same. They are as varied as beer or wine in flavors and quality. Unfortunately, many of the more visible hard cider brands in stores are made by large companies using sweet apple juice concentrate from China. If you are interested in hard cider, I recommend you try traditional cider made by a small cidery blending bitter apples high in tannin and acidity. Just as wine from Concord grapes is not the same as wine from true wine grapes, so it is with apples. There are trees that produce fruit with the best qualities for fermentation. Real hard cider doesn’t taste like Mott’s apple juice.
Autumn Stoscheck from Eve’s Cidery gathering crab apples. Autumn works along with her husband Ezra and a small crew to produce one of the highest-quality ciders in the world. Photo courtesy Ezra Sherman.
Applesauce and dried apples are what I have done with most apples I gather. These are pretty simple foods that many people are familiar with, and it’s easy to find information on these products. Here are a few tips that you may find useful.
With sauce, I don’t peel the fruit. I cook the apples down with the skins on them; sometimes I remove cores and sometimes I just throw the whole fruit in the pot. Either way, I let the fruit cook on low heat in a stockpot with a tiny bit of water in the bottom. When the fruit is soft enough that it mushes easily, then it’s done cooking. While it’s hot, I run it through a food mill to remove seeds and skins. Applesauce cooked with the skins on this way often comes out pink as opposed to the pale yellow we see in stores. I have never found a need to sweeten applesauce made this way, and I do love sugar.
Drying apples is easy, and you don’t have to dry them in ring form. I just slice apples into pieces and lay them on screens either in a dehydrator or above the woodstove. The key is to not slice them too thick or too thin. If they’re too thick, they won’t dry well. If they’re too thin, they’ll be brittle, paper-like chips that aren’t much fun to eat. Experiment with the thickness of the slices and you’ll find a size that is perfect—a little chewy and not too brittle. Making your own dried fruit is very satisfying and makes economic sense. There have been years that I’ve had several gallons of dried apples in the cupboard; they make an easy snack for the family. It would be cost-prohibitive to let everyone freely eat them if we purchased them in the store for $20 a pound, however.
You can also dry applesauce or apple butter. Just spread it out on a cookie sheet suspended over the woodstove or placed in a dehydrator. Homemade apple fruit leather is awesome.
Pests and Diseases
Here are some of the most basic and common pests to manage if you are looking to just keep your trees healthy enough to produce fruit for processing or wildlife. One thing to keep in mind is that not all disease-resistant varieties are insect-resistant.
The telltale sign of an apple borer: orange frass.
Round-Headed Apple Borer
If you only pay attention to one pest, this is the one to focus on. Apple borers kill young trees quickly. Eggs are laid throughout the summer months in the bark. The eggs turn into larvae, which tunnel into the tree. Damage can be severe enough that the tree just breaks off at the base from all the tunneling. Check the trunk for orange frass (insect poop). It is usually low on the trunk, or sometimes an inch below the soil. Dig out the grub with a pocketknife. You have to find it and kill it. Otherwise it will keep chewing through the tree. It will seem like you are hurting the tree by digging into it with a knife, but if you don’t get the borer, it will often kill the whole tree. No damage you do with the knife will be worse than leaving the grub(s) alive.
Apple Scab
This is a fungus that covers leaves and fruit with dark lesions. Damage can be severe enough to block most photosynthesis and render fruit inedible. Spores overwinter in fallen fruit and leaves. One management strategy is to rake up or mulch over all the leaves in fall. Another is to plant scab-resistant varieties. Understand that apple scab, like most fungi, is evolving rapidly. A tree that has full resistance now may or may not be resistant in a few decades. As resistant trees show up, the fungus can mutate. This ongoing drama reminds me of the relationship between deer and wolves. Each species makes the other better by improving itself.
Fireblight
This very serious bacterial disease can kill branches or entire trees very fast. Affected trees look as if they have been burned: The ends of their branches are black and curled into a shepherd’s crook. Fireblight can be controlled by planting resistant varieties and pruning out and burning all infected wood.
Cedar Apple Rust
This rust-colored fungus can cover leaves and fruit, causing extreme damage in some cases. It has a complex life cycle in which it uses two hosts—cedars and apples. However, it is very important to understand that the word cedar has been misused and often causes confusion. True cedars are those in the genus Cedrus; they are from the Mideast (as in, the cedars of Lebanon). The name cedar in America generally refers to the genus Thuja, sometimes known as arborvitae. But it is the red cedars in the Juniperus genus that actually host cedar apple rust. This is important to know if you are planning on removing host trees in the area.
It is also important to know that not all red cedars (junipers) are susceptible to the rust. Many are resistant. Junipers are commonly planted in landscapes and abound in the wild. Many growers recommend removing all “cedars” in the area. However, blight spores can travel for miles, though infestation is more severe where the trees are close together. If you do want to cut out red cedars or junipers, it would be a good idea to be sure you have the right tree and watch for galls. Red cedar trees that are hosting cedar apple rust will be covered in bizarre-looking orange galls.
The best way to deal with cedar apple rust is by planting resistant varieties, of which there are plenty to choose from.
Commercial Possibilities
Apples offer many options for someone who wants to make a living from trees.
Nursery Stock
Certainly there is a demand for seeds, cuttings, rootstocks, and trees. Apple trees are planted regularly by orchardists, homeowners, ornamental gardeners, homesteaders, preppers, wildlife proponents, and municipalities. Apples are one of the easiest trees from which to sell plant material. They are a large part of my nursery’s income.
Hard Cider
This is a very fast-growing industry right now. Cideries are springing up all over the Northeast and in many other regions. You can start your own or sell fruit to one if they are in your area. Several cideries near me buy wild fruit. They want fruit that has a high level of astringency or bitterness. Make sure you know a fruit is wanted before you harvest. Not all wild apples are preferred by the cider makers, but many are. Sixty cents a pound is what we’ve been paid. It’s hard work, but totally possible to make $1,000 a day. Laying down tarps and shaking big old apple trees is a lot better than going to a job you don’t believe in.
Sauce/Dried/Leather/Juice
Though I admire the work of organic orchardists, I have never been interested in trying to grow apples for sale as they are. Processing will render all blemishes invisible. Processing will also allow you to use wild apples that may have a more astringent flavor. Sometimes simply drying or cooking fruit will remove all trace of astringency. If it doesn’t, honey works well. The price for processed fruit is very high and always will be. You do need access to a commercial kitchen, but you don’t have to build one to start out. You can rent space in many commercial kitchens for an hour at a time. Often, they are just in people’s houses. I believe processing apples into sauce or chips or juice is the best way to make a living from an apple orchard. You can cut your costs way down by eliminating sprays, reducing pruning, and harvesting any fruit that’s halfway decent. You can harvest fruit by shaking it down onto tarps.
The cider barn at Eve’s Cidery. There are gigantic corporate producers of hard cider, but cider making is also a burgeoning cottage industry. Photo courtesy Autumn Stoscheck.
You can compete with larger operations by reducing your costs. Fruit can be harvested from wild trees that cost you nothing to plant or maintain. You can even collect fruit from people’s yards. It’s amazing how many millions of pounds of apples fall to the ground uncollected in the suburbs of America every year. Your biggest costs would be the initial purchasing of equipment for juicing, fruit pulping, or drying.
If you have been inspired to grow apples but feel intimidated by the pest issues they face, then I recommend taking a close look at processing fruit.
Fresh Fruit
This is an enormous industry, and there is an insatiable demand for good apples. If you choose to go this route, you should talk with other orchardists (as many as you can). You should also read Michael Phillips’s books: The Apple Grower, The Holistic Orchard, and Mycorrhizal Planet.
Apple trees bursting out of hedgerows with their blossoms in spring, bent to the ground with heavy fruit in the fall, the smell of cider in the barn. How missed our apple trees would be if they were to disappear tomorrow! These trees are a gift to the world; they are magnetic epicenters of life. Everyone who plants an apple tree can know that they have left something wonderful behind (so long as it’s not on a dwarf rootstock!).