My front garden apple tree project

[FB.]

Looking around a bit further - I see that Sunset is one of the most popular "modern" varieties.

Being popular and widely-grown means a lot of potentially diseased trees just waiting to pass their Sunset-specific diseases onto yours; fungal spores from diseased trees will blow on the wind from perhaps several miles away.

I would definitely avoid Sunset because it's too popular and is known to be prone to a disease which your soil is likely to encourage. It is also closely related to the canker-prone Cox's Orange Pippin, which is also a widely grown variety.
However, as said in my previous post: you might get lucky and find it to always be completely disease-free.

[FB.]

Sorry to keep waffling, but here's another interesting but probably useless fact:

The anti-canker "Bordeaux Mixture" has an active ingredient of Copper II Sulphate; the Cu2+ ions being toxic to fungi and fungal spores (and also toxic to many beneficial creatures!).

The other ingredient of Bordeax Mixture is lime. This makes the Bordeaux mixture an alkaline Cu2+ solution, which is even more effective. Fungi and fungal spores don't generally like alkaline conditions.

Also note that acid soil is more prone to canker. Alkaline (lime-containing) soils are less prone to canker, although very sickly varieties or varieties which don't like lime will not thrive and may still canker due to being unhappy.

[mikedigitales]

Feel free to post as much as you can FB. You have all been incredibly helpful, I totally understand that you aren't guaranteeing everything to go perfectly, but I'm sure it is making success more likely!

I'll avoid Sunset, bit risky. If I went for Lord Derby and Winter Gem on M26 should I expect similar mature sizes? (I'm estimating both around 3m?)

If the above is right and I choose something like a Discovery or Falstaff (both less vigorous) do I need to go up a root stock to match the ~3m size? Would M111 be overkill?

[FB.]

Lord Derby and Winter Gem are a bit more vigorous than average, but not quite up there with the big triploids. I'd class them as "slightly large".

Discovery is "slightly small" in my experience, so it might need MM111 to keep up. I have spoken to one Northern grower who considers Discovery to be slightly large - but he may be referring to the original Discovery which may have been replaced in many nurseries by the modern spur-type mutants of lower vigour and greater productivity.
It might also be a "Northern climate" thing - Discovery's parents (Worcester Pearmain and Beauty of Bath) are both known to be better than many other varieties in cool climates. Perhaps Orangepippin has some local Discovery trees which he can comment on vigour.

After a very long time, if unpruned, the MM111 would probably continue growing after the M26's had stopped.

Someone near to me has what was labelled as, and appears to be, a Falstaff. It is extremely vigorous, even on MM106 (supposedly). It has far outrun its medium-vigour John Downie MM106 companion and another crab which I don't recognise.
It also suffers from severe bitter pit, and is less resistant to scab than it should be - perhaps it is becoming too widely grown (and its James Grieve and Golden Delicious parents are also widely grown and prone to disease in some areas).

On this Falstaff's supposed MM106 rootstock, it is a match for my M25's. Officially Falstaff is about average vigour and a precocious heavy cropper so I'm not sure what to make of it; an average-vigour, precocious MM106 should not be matching my M25's - especially as my M25's are twice the size of my MM106's. Maybe theirs isn't the MM106 rootstock that they thought.
Mis-labelling mistakes do happen in nurseries. I'd say their Falstaff looks like a medium-vigour M25 - but that's not what the label said.

[orangepippin]

I would definitely avoid Sunset because it's too popular and is known to be prone to a disease which your soil is likely to encourage. It is also closely related to the canker-prone Cox's Orange Pippin, which is also a widely grown variety.
However, as said in my previous post: you might get lucky and find it to always be completely disease-free.

I largely agree with FB's theory about popular varieties having a potentially larger reservoir of pests and diseases opposing them, but I think it is also true that certain varieties have good combinations of genes - and Sunset is one of those lucky varieties that is generally problem free despite its Cox ancestry. Another Cox-relative which is also surprisingly disease-free is Alkmene (more commonly grown as Red Windsor).

[orangepippin]

Discovery is "slightly small" in my experience, so it might need MM111 to keep up. I have spoken to one Northern grower who considers Discovery to be slightly large - but he may be referring to the original Discovery which may have been replaced in many nurseries by the modern spur-type mutants of lower vigour and greater productivity.
It might also be a "Northern climate" thing - Discovery's parents (Worcester Pearmain and Beauty of Bath) are both known to be better than many other varieties in cool climates. Perhaps Orangepippin has some local Discovery trees which he can comment on vigour.

Discovery average or below average vigour for us, certainly not vigorous. We also have Rosette on M9, which I suspect is a red-fleshed Discovery sport and that is also slighly below average. Discovery is very clean and reliable here. I note it is also recommended by John Butterworth in his book about apples for Scotland.

[orangepippin]

Someone near to me has what was labelled as, and appears to be, a Falstaff. It is extremely vigorous, even on MM106 (supposedly).

On this Falstaff's supposed MM106 rootstock, it is a match for my M25's. Officially Falstaff is about average vigour and a precocious heavy cropper so I'm not sure what to make of it; an average-vigour, precocious MM106 should not be matching my M25's - especially as my M25's are twice the size of my MM106's. Maybe theirs isn't the MM106 rootstock that they thought.
Mis-labelling mistakes do happen in nurseries. I'd say their Falstaff looks like a medium-vigour M25 - but that's not what the label said.

Falstaff is not vigorous in my opinion, but it is certainly a very heavy cropper, which of course keeps the vigour down even more. If it is indeed Falstaff (it is fairly easy to identify from flavour and crop load, and it never looks vigorous if you know what I mean) then it would need to be on a vigorous rootstock to achieve a big size.

[FB.]

Discovery is very clean and reliable here. I note it is also recommended by John Butterworth in his book about apples for Scotland.

It's a heavy and reliable cropper with no disease problems and tasty fruit for me, but I don't manage to get as high a yield of good quality fruit from it as I'd like because it is a magnet for codling moth and apple sawfly "maggots", also wasps and other insects chew holes in them.

Many of the fruit - at least when grown on MM106 - end up with bitter pit or scald. In 2012 my own crop was poor quality; I threw most of it away. The nearby tree which we deduced to probably be a Discovery on M25 had much less severe bitter pit - also possibly less colourful and less pest-damaged fruit (perhaps being less colourful meant the pests didn't notice?).

The tree itself is also quite prone to woolly aphids.

Much the same as the above comment also applies to Scrumptious.

Irish Peach and Laxton's Epicure are very noticably less troubled by pests - probably the lesser amount of red colouration and the tendency to colour-up and sweeten-up at the last minute before dropping off the tree. Discovery and Scumptious hang better on the tree when ripe.
Irish Peach is also resistant to woolly aphid, although Epicure isn't.

[FB.]

it would need to be on a vigorous rootstock to achieve a big size.

Yes, that's my thoughts. I struggle to believe that it's MM106, but I have no reason to suspect that it isn't Falstaff.
Probably rootstock not true-to-type due to a work experience kid on a Friday afternoon.

[yummersetter]

Can I throw into the ring Fortune and Kidds Orange Red ( no surprise there, eh?)
Fortune is mid season. Kidds late, they do well here on clay, virtually no disease or pests - the only drawback is that Fortune is biennial - but they've got a great flavour, good crops and they both look beautiful.

[mikedigitales]

I've ordered my plants from Blackmoors, and spent the weekend getting the garden ready for planting when they arrive hopefully in a week or two. I've cut three 4 foot diameter circles, removing the grass and breaking up the topsoil/clay. Thankfully the topsoil away from the house is a bit deeper than nearer the house where I originally dug a test pit. I've got about a spades depth of more decent soil, and have removed lots of stones and junk that had been left under the lawn for 40 odd years.

I've read a few guides but would definitely love any tips for planting out my apples when they arrive? One thing I'm unsure of is staking the young trees, I've read some people say yes, some no. I'm pretty sure that the roots(two M26 and a M111) might like a bit of help holding up the top growth even when mature? If my gut feeling is correct what size stake would you guys recommend, and what is the best way of 'using' it, e.g. at an angle to the tree.

[orangepippin]

M26 trees generally need staking for many years, possibly permanently. MM111 trees probably don't need staking if planted as 1-year trees - unless you have very sandy soil etc.

A vertical stake is better if it is to be permanent, and also looks better (in my opinion) if you are growing the tree with the central leader retained.

[FB.]

M26 trees generally need staking for many years, possibly permanently. MM111 trees probably don't need staking if planted as 1-year trees - unless you have very sandy soil etc.

Some people are of the opinion that if planted as a maiden and not staked, the tree will flex in the wind and will not like it. The tree will then respond by growing more roots to better anchor itself, and a somewhat thicker stem in order to resist bending in the wind.
I tend to agree; I've planted some MM111's and M25's in the past and the scion was a very slender variety - it whipped in the wind - sometimes blown almost horizontal - and clearly got fed up with it and very quickly stiffened itself up.

So even M26 may well become well-anchored if it is planted as a one-year maiden and not pushed too hard for an early crop (two-year bushes lose too much root when dug up - and people's demand for heavy crops a few months after planting also prevents a good root system).
However, I still wouldn't want to grow M26 on more than a 4ft stem because of the topweight rocking in the wind.

Some varieties - such as Bramley and Worcester to name a couple of common varieties - seem to induce thicker stems, which may mean thicker and stronger roots too. Varieties listed as "spreading" habit tend to have thin stems (hence the upright branches bend down and spread under weight of fruit). I can imagine that slender spreading scions might result in more slender and weaker roots if grown on M26 and perhaps they will, indeed, be in need of long-term staking.

[FB.]

One thing I'm unsure of is staking the young trees, I've read some people say yes, some no. I'm pretty sure that the roots(two M26 and a M111) might like a bit of help holding up the top growth even when mature?

If they are one-year maidens I probably wouldn't stake them.
If they are two-year-olds you might want to support them due to the loss of roots that happens on the bigger plants (simply because a two-year-old root system's fine roots can easily reach 1m either side of the trunk, but many of these will be broken off when dug up in the nursery - you'll probably have roots half that spread.
A one-year maiden's roots will be smaller and less extensive, so is easier for the nurseryman to get out with less damage than a two-year-old.

MM111's anchorage tends to be excellent - at least as good, if not better, than the more vigorous M25. Possibly the best anchorage of any of the common M and MM series rootstocks available in the UK.
MM111 will not need staking for more than a year or two. I don't usually bother staking at all. Mostly, if I do stake a 111 or 25, it's to straighten a slightly bent stem of a whip.

Which varieties did you choose? MM111 is in a different league to M26 when it comes to growth rate and mature size, unless the vigour of the scion is low on the 111 and high on the M26.

[yummersetter]

there's something about diagonal stakes that attract the unwary - you're walking past in a howling gale with your arms full of rubbish and its a certainty that you'll catch your wellie on the stake and go toppling over. If you're lucky, you don't grab the tree to save yourself and pull it across the top of you.