I've been visiting my parents over the holidays, and it suddenly dawned on me that I have no idea what the apple tree near their house is. My knowledge of apples is limited mostly to a handful of commercial cultivars and whatever random bits and pieces I pick up here and there, so I'm hardly the most qualified to make an identification, and I was curious if any one has any guesses. Here's what I know about it:

- It's a minimum of 40-years old, but judging by the size now (and in earlier photos) it's probably not too much older than that...maybe 50. I think it's a little small for a tree that age, but maybe it's on a semi-dwarfing stock or neglect has retarded it's growth.

- The people they bought the house from claimed to have planted it, so it seems likely to me that it was a cultivar and not a seedling (though they could well have planted a seedling, but it seems like you're going to plant one apple tree right by the house you might want it to be a good one.)

- It has small/medium sized green-yellow fruit (I've never even seen a blush of red or orange), which is rather high acid but fairly sweet. Makes wonderful applesauce.

- It's very early: late July in western New York.

- It's fairly self-fertile. I don't know of any other apple trees anywhere else nearby, and it consistently sets quite a heavy crop (I suspect fruit size would be better if it was thinned somewhat).

- It appears largely impervious to disease. In the 25 years I've been paying attention, I have no memory of it ever having any sort of disease on the leaves or shoots, just a few assorted rots on the fruit, generally associated with bird peck damage. The lack of disease may be associated with the lack of nearby apple trees, but I still think it unlikely that a tree could go unsprayed for half a century and not get something if it was susceptibile. I've seen horrifying fire blight develop under similar conditions.

- I don't see any sign of a graft union, but it's not that surprising it's hard to find on a 40+ year old tree.

Anyway, any thoughts? I don't have any pictures, or I'd show them to you, so I don't really expect any definitive answers, but I'd welcome suggestions.