Apple cultivars

Over 7,500 cultivars of the apple are known. In the following list, use for "eating" means that the fruit is used fresh, rather than cooked. Cultivars used primarily for making cider are indicated. Those varieties marked agm have gained the Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit.

grained, very juicy, well balanced sugar and acid level, rich flavour

Pretty reddish pink coat. Believed at one time Minnesota was too cold to grow apples until "Wealthy" was cultivated. Now a parent to many apples for resistance to temperatures below freezing. Still available in upper Midwest.

Cider apples may be far too sour or bitter for fresh eating, but are used for making cider. Some apples (especially older ones from the U.S. and Canada) are used for both cider and eating purposes.

Selection of cultivars can be difficult: vigorous roots tend to give trees that are healthy but grow too tall to be harvested easily without careful pruning, while dwarfing rootstocks result in small trees that are easy to harvest from, but are often shorter-lived and sometimes less healthy. Most modern commercial orchards use one of the "Malling series" (aka 'M' series), introduced or developed by the East Malling Research Station from the early 20th century onward. However, a great deal of work has been done recently introducing new rootstocks in Poland, the U.S. (Geneva), and other nations. The Polish rootstocks are often used where cold hardiness is needed. The Geneva series of rootstocks has been developed to resist important diseases such as fireblight and collar rot, as well as for high fruit productivity.

Khanizadeh, S. and J. Cousineau. 1998. "Our Apples/ Les Pommiers de Chez Nous", A Description of Over 250 Apple Cultivars Grown in Eastern and Central Canada Including 400 Coloured Photographs of the Fruits, Flowers and Leaves. Publisher Shahrokh Khanizadeh, 260 p. Ed: S. Khanizadeh. ISBN .

Two of the most comprehensive publications on apple cultivars are: Khanizadeh, S. and J. Cousineau. 1998. "Our Apples/ Les Pommiers de Chez Nous", A Description of Over 250 Apple Cultivars Grown in Eastern and Central Canada Including 400 Coloured Photographs of the Fruits, Flowers and Leaves. Publisher Shahrokh Khanizadeh, 260 p. Ed: S. Khanizadeh. ISBN .

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