Welcome! I would recommend getting Michael Phillips' book "The Apple Grower". It is for organic apple growing, but whether or not you are organic it is an excellent general resource on things like spacing, rootstocks, microclimate, etc. Online the best guide I have found is the PSU one, see below.

Scott

Here is a link that might be useful: PSU home apples guide

You said "4 semi-dwarf, 2 dwarf and 2 espalier trees" this is way out of wack. So do a whole lot of learning before you buy any trees. Sounds like you spent a lot of time reading on cider. That type of obsession is what it takes to be good at fruit growing.

You should add more info to your profile so we can see your zone. It doesn't matter on this but will with future questions.

Scott or anyone, regarding the Michael Phillips book. I have "The Hollistic Orchard" by him... My understanding is that this has all the apple info plus more. Is that correct or am I missing some apple info?

The recommendation of M. Phillips should perhaps come with the caveat that it is about organic apple production. In my opinion MP is a bit of a propagandist for the organic orthodoxy, although a very good writer- just maybe not the perfect guru for someone intending to use some modern chemistry to grow fruit.

On the other hand, it's hard to think of a more useful book for the purpose- Stella Otto's used to be about the most practical on home orcharding in general, but Phillip's book is much more detailed on the subject of apples.

I recommend you join NAFEX to get access to their library where there are many useful books available for the price of postage.

cckw, the holistic orchard book is not nearly as complete for apple information, just do a page count of the apple section of the former vs the latter and something has to have gotten cut.

hman, you don't need to add much to that book to cover synthetic sprays. On advantage of synthetics is all you need is a few what and whens and you have it covered. With neem or sulphur theres a lot more you have to know Re: timing, stickers, repetition, etc.

Scott

Scott, I didn't read your response about Phillip's book at all carefully- somehow didn't notice that you said it was written with a slant to organic. You are absolutely correct and I withdraw my reservations.

My mom has 1 Yellow Delicious and the rest (8 trees) a so-so mix of red apples (probably 'cheap' varieties like Rome, Winesap, Jonathan or maybe all the same type? They're good but not as good as the Yellow Delicious), we don't even know the type but they bear heavily every year and were they pruned out after the buds set and fertilized with a slow release fertilizer you could makes gallons of cider from her trees. As it is you could make gallons of cider as that's what orchards typically do with left over and non-pretty apples anyway.

She's never applied fertilizer, sprayed, or pruned her trees; however she ran over 2 of them year before last but they needed cut down anyway as the bedrock wasn't too deep under those.

I'm not an expert but I have been around people all my life that sustenance farmed as children so I listen to them of course.

As far as the diseases and problems I've seen in the forums it mostly seems fungus presents far more problems than birds and insects so maybe a sunnier location and less watering would help minimize the chances you have problems with those diseases.

So for cider you don't need pretty apples.

Why the mixture of training methods and rootstocks? Not much land?

Hard or sweet cider?

What AC said has some truth in it. The old strain yellow delicious is unattractive to plum curculio for some reason and often produces fruit with no spray. Newer "improved" strains of it don't seem to share this trait and are often less sweet and rich. There is a russetted sport of GD that produces very sweet apples and is also resistant to pests but I never see it sold anywhere. It is even hard to find early strain YD unless you know of a tree to graft from.

YD makes a very sweet if not terribly interesting "sweet cider". I once toured an orchard in VA where the owner harvested unsprayed yellow delicious to make sweet cider for sale- maybe the only commercial source at the time for organic cider produced in VA.

Harvestman, are you referring to Razor Russet, when you say "russetted sport of GD that produces very sweet apples"? I've had this one on my "maybe try out" list for a while, but would have gotten it, if I had known it was reputed to be pest-resistant.

Bob, I don't know. I've seen it sold at a Farmers market not far from me and spoke to the farmer about it but he just called it Russetted YD.

A man who used to work for me and later started his own business manages one and told me about its resistance. He promised to bring me some wood, but I've been waiting a couple years for that. He didn't have a name for it, just said it was a russetted YD also.

Because YD has a tendency towards rusetting, especially old strain, there could be much more than one sport that does this and they might be nearly identical apples. The newer sports were primarily selected for their resistance to russetting.

I'm getting my first Razor Russet fruits this year. The curc didn't touch them in spite of me not spraying them because I didn't see the fruits. Another russet that never gets problems in my orchard is Pomme Gris. I am thinking of adding more of that for cider. Its not quite sweet enough but its also not that sour and its hard to find non-sour apples good for cider as the most famous cider apples are on the sour side.

Its surprising the different susceptibility to plum curculio, some varieties get none and some get nailed.

Scott

Thanks Scott and HM. Razor Russet sound like something to add. Please let us know how it tastes this fall, Scott.

My Pomme Gris has apples for the first time this year, it's 3rd year. It was one of the few trees which didn't have any during year #2, so it is one of the bigger trees. Even so, it only has 5-10 apples, as it bloomed very late and had poor set. I'm not sure if that is due to poor pollination (there were 2 other trees, Court Pendu Plat and Mother, with a few blooms that at least partially overlapped), or blossom blight. ARS has it at 17 brix, so hopefully it will be pretty good.