Hi everyone. I am new here. I have home orchard experience in N Florida (which surprisingly is in the same 8b planting zone.) I started gardening in Portland last winter.
After some clearly incomplete research I planted a Liberty, a Dolgo crabapple, & a Tydeman's Late Orange. I did get some fantastic apples from the Liberty & the Dolgo (what a great crabapple). No Tydeman's so I began to research further.
It turns out I made errors in my selection. The Liberty is a triploid & needs 2 pollinators. The Dolgo is one but the Tydemen's is too late to be the other. The Tydeman needs it's own later blooming pollinator so I need to swap the Tydeman's out for an early blooming, good tasting, diploid apple that will pollinate the Liberty. I see some listed at some links, like Crimson Crisp, and Alkmede that should do it but I have never tasted either of those.
HELP -Does anyone have any advise for me on what apple to replace the Tydeman's? Thank you so much!
Beka
Howdy -
We've got Liberty, Enterprise, Hudson's Golden Gem and Pristine grouped together. The Liberty was our most productive apple this year! All four a great apples, but a word of caution regarding the Pristine... It's a great apple if you're into the tarter varieties, and it is AWESOME to have a July apple, but... much, if not most, of what we eat of them comes off the ground as they drop just before you'd want to pick them. We're OK with picking them up and cutting away bruises, punctures, etc. because, hey... July apples!! But if you've got hungry animals around and/or can't pick them up daily, you'll be frustrated.
Mitch
Beka -
Happy to help...
The Enterprise is a good apple with an acidity that reportedly mellows in storage (we haven't harvested enough to have any stored for long, plus we dry, etc.). On a scale of 1-10, I'd rate the crispness at around 8, where you might have a Honeycrisp at 10. It just doesn't have the 'snap' of a Honeycrisp (what does?!) as it's a little more dense-fleshed. Given a choice, I'd take a Liberty or William's Pride over the Enterprise. But if the Enterprise was my only choice, I would happily eat it.
The Hudson's is one of my favorite apples. Really dense flesh, so a little less crisp than the Enterprise, but not at all in a bad way. Outstanding flavor - ours taste like a cross between apple & peach/apricot. Very, very cool fruit.
Fruit set on both of these was disappointing this year, I think a combination of aggressive pruning (still training young-ish trees) and crappy weather at just the wrong time. And I had a some bitterpit on the Enterprise, so will probably add some foliar calcium into the spray routine next year.
FYI, all of our apples (8 total) were chosen with flavor, texture and timing in mind and with disease resistance being the tie-breaking characteristic.
- Mitch
Liberty is an interesting apple. It's often described as triploid, but chromosomal analysis showed it to be diploid. Maybe there are multiple strains out there. The recent POM news features Liberty as well, and has an article on Triploid fruits. I wrote that one 🙂
Assuming Liberty IS tripoid - I'm not convinced it is - then the reason you need 2 pollinators is so they pollinate each other, while one of them pollinates the Liberty. If Liberty isn't really triploid, then you only need one pollinator, and Dolgo should do the job. I have Liberty near a Jonagold, which is definitely triploid, and the Liberty over-set fruit every year and needed a lot of thinning. They are delicious, I think.
To complicate things further, some sources describe Liberty as self pollinating.
Tydeman bloom time is described as mid to late season. And partially self fertile. Dolgo is also considered partially self fertile. If there are other neighborhood apple trees, and bees around, you may not need another pollinator.
I think I complicated things for you.
This discussion is not nearly complicated enough.
I really like Enterprise. It's a great keeper and has great flavor-somewhat tart. It tends to be disease resistant.
I wish I liked Hudson's GOlden Gem better. It's an Oregon heirloom. However, the flavor is quite bland. It's hard for me to get excited about mild, sweet, bland apples. I don't find it to be a good keeper.
Liberty isn't a great keeper, but it has a full taste, is a good cropper, and it is disease resistant.
Dolgo is a tart crabapple. Crabapples are the most nutritious apples. I like it and it pollinates well. It is partially from a different species, so it may add even more diversity/gut microbiome/nutrient health.
John S
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