Apple Scion Order for Spring 2019

One of the great things about multigraft trees is, if you do't like a variety, you can remove the limb or graft others onto it, and still be ahead of removing or replacing a whole tree.

I'm not happy about Chehalis, which for me has given large, tasteless apples and not many, despite the branch being very vigorous.   I also have doubts about Akane, which has not produced apples despite other branches on the tree being productive.

So, next Spring I want to cut those two branches short, and graft something different.  I'm choosing mainly disease - resistant, PRI varieties.

PRI stands for "Purdue Rutgers Illinois" apple breeding program.  They interbred exce;lent apple cultivars with a disease resistant crabapple species, Malus floribunda, then crossed other apple cultivars, and tested them extensively.  Most of these are scab resistant, although there is change happening in the scab disease so that is not as sure as it once was.

Regardless, I've grown Priscilla and Pristine, and they were both excellent apples.  The Pristine branch broke, but is still partly connected to the tree.  So I will see if that has some viable scion for grafting in the late winter.  Most, but not all, PRI varieties, have the letters "P", "R", "I" somewhere in their names.  Often consecutively, such as in Priscilla and Pristine. 

Meanwhile, I want to try others.  I chose:

Prima - Early Fall, red disease-resistant apple. 

Goldrush - despite no "PRI" letters, except "r", a PRI variety.  A long keeping golden, disease resistant apple.  Heavy cropping, has Golden Delicious and Rome Beauty in its ancestry. Sweet, very late season, keeps 3 months.

Williams Pride.  Mostly red, disease resistant apple.  Early maturing, tart fruit.

Honeycrisp is also scab resistant.  Most people know Honeycrisp.  I have a tiny tree on ultradwarffing M27 rootstock.  The tree is 3 feet tall and had 5 apples this year.  I want to add that to a more vigorous tree.  I have other grafts of Honeycrisp but jot far enough along to harvest more scion.  I think Honeycrisp is not very vigorous anyway, so needs a more vigorous rootstock. 

For what it's worth, the PRI varieties have all been disease resistant in my garden, and the apples from each of those varieties have been very good to incredible (Pristine).    My Winecrisp tree, also a PRI introduction ("cRIsP" does have PRI in its name) has not borne a crop yet.