Disease Resistant Apple Trees: Apple is one of the most popular and healthy fruits and is enjoyed by people of all ages worldwide. Both children and adults love a good apple pie, and up to 7,500 varieties are out there to choose from.
It is good to have an extensive range of apples, but unfortunately, apple trees can be susceptible to pests and diseases like many fruits.
Apple diseases are a significant constraint on apple growth around the world. Several disease-resistant apple trees are now available for cultivation. These disease-resistant apple varieties can reduce pesticides and fungicides use and ultimately lower the growing cost.
Disease Resistant Apple Tree Varieties
To reduce the maintenance cost of your apple garden/yard and limit the use of pesticides and fungicides, you can choose to cultivate one of the below-mentioned disease resistant apple trees.
Pristine Apple Tree
Pristine is one of the disease resistant apple trees. This variety was grown and patented by the PRI disease-resistant apple breeding program in Indiana, the USA, in 1994 for apple scab resistance. This variety is resistant to apple scab, cedar apple rust, and powdery mildew, highly resistant, and to a certain extent has fire blight resistance.
It produces flowers early, paired with William’s Pride, Redfree, Liberty, Jonafree, or Pristine. Its large fruits are sour yellow, crisp, and mature early.
This variety has a canary yellow apple with a sour and juicy taste, ideal for cooking or snacks. Highly yielding pristine trees bloom early, but the long shelf life of the fruit allows you to keep apples throughout the summer.
William’s Pride Apple
Williams Pride apples are attractive, early-ripening, deep red medium to large, with a crispy flesh and a sour taste. These have excellent fruit quality and resistance to cedar apple rust, scab, fire blight, and mildew.
If you wish to eat ripe apples with excellent disease resistance very early, your list should contain the Williams Pride apple tree.
William’s Pride is a delicious and early ripening variety. William’s Pride ripens at the end of July and produces large, deeply reddish-purple fruits, juicy, rich, and tasty. William’s Pride is highly resistant to disease and easy to grow. Properly stored, it will last up to six weeks.
Also Read: Apple Tree Organic Pest Control
Goldrush Apple Tree
One of the disease resistant apple trees is goldrush it is a late-ripening yellow apple with good fruit quality, long shelf life, and resistance to apple scabs. Modern disease-resistant Goldrush apple is appropriate for home gardens, as well as for commercial apple growers.
The apple is recognized as one of the best modern apples by taste and growth characteristics. The apple variety adds so much to every backyard orchard.
Goldrush apples are easy to store thanks to their excellent taste because they are highly resistant to apple scabs. It is also somewhat resistant to fire blight, although the possibility of resistance to rust and mildew is present too.
This late-ripening fruit preserves well with the flavor of semi-tart that is hard cider and fruit pies suitable.
Enterprise Cultivars
An attractive and late-ripening, this apple variety has excellent fruit quality. It has good resistance against fire blight ignited by Erwinia amylovora and, to a certain extent, has resistance against powdery mildew caused by Podosphaera leucotrich.
It is also resistant to apple scabs ignited by Venturia inaequalis, high resistance to cedar-apple rust ignited by Gymnosporangium juniperi-virginianae.
The fruits are large and good-looking and maintain an excellent quality of freshness for up to six months at 1°C. Its moderate acidity at harvest softens during storage and is optimal after a month.
Enterprise Cultivars apple variety is jointly developed by New Jersey, Indiana, and Illinois Agricultural Experiment Stations.
Liberty Apple Tree
Developed by the New York State Agricultural Experiment Station, Liberty is a hybrid apple variety. Seedling produced by pollination of Macoun by Purdue 54-12 to acquire Malus floribunda disease resistance. It was first shown to the public in 1978.
This apple variety is resistant to fire blight, scab, and cedar apple rust. For powdery mildew, it has moderate to susceptible resistance.
Liberty is a mid-season bloomer and is one of the well-known types of disease resistance. Liberty apples are the best choice for pies with yellow-green and red color that usually ripens around September.
Their crunchy taste is also ideal for canning and desserts, but don’t miss the opportunity to make them a snack – they are delicious.
Redfree Apple Tree
Reffree is also one of the disease resistant apple trees. This apple tree variety is coming out as a potential variety option for a summer dessert apple. Redfree has an excellent finish and attractive apple, resistance against apple scab and cedar apple rust. The fruits are medium-sized.
This apple variety is the sixth variety of apples developed by the Apple Breeding Program (PRI of Illinois, Indiana, and New Jersey Agricultural Experiment Stations. This apple has been extensively tested in Western Europe and the United States.
It differs from other summer apples in that it has firm flesh, and without losing firmness and quality, it can be stored for up to 2 months. Early summer variety Redfree is straightforward and is one of the best disease resistant apple trees that deliver red fruits with smooth skin.
Topaz Apple Tree
Like different disease-resistant varieties, Topaz is a cross bread between Vanda and Rubin, developed in the Czech Republic at the Institute of Experimental Botany in the second half of the 20th century. Topaz Apple is special bread resistant to common apple diseases, like apple scabs and powdery mildew.
Because of easy and reliable to grow, Topaz is a good apple for gardens. The biggest problem with gardening is that the size of the fruit can be small, so at the end of May, thinning of the fruit lets is advised.
Topaz apples are very fresh apples and are ideal for salads as raw or as a side dish to cheeses and cream-based dips. They are also great when used with various cooked foods, both savory and sweet.
Freedom Apple
This apple variety was developed in Geneva, NY, and launched in 1983. Ideal for those areas with the scab, cedar apple rust, and mildew. Extraordinary disease resistance and easy to care for.
Freedom variety’s unique feature is that it possesses two different types of scab resistance, partly from the famous Malus floribunda and partly from the Antonovka apple variety, which has also been shown to be resistant to scab.
This beautiful mid-season apple is medium to large, almost red on a yellow background. The apple is crispy and juicy, with firm flesh having a sweet and fresh taste. It is good to eat fresh, baking, and dipped sauces and can be well stored for up to three months.
Conclusion
These are just a few disease-resistant apple trees you can grow. Varieties of apple trees are available with good to excellent resistance against scab, the most common fungal disease in rainy climates.
These trees also have resistance against powdery mildew and fire blight. The fruit quality of these disease-resistant apple trees is also good.
Planting different varieties of apple trees with genetic resistance to a particular disease can reduce or eliminate the incidence of the disease in question and lower the use of pesticides and maintenance costs.
