Apples and Their Trees

The apple can be described as a complex, complicated fruit. The complexities and complications can be guessed from the apple's diversity in:

• Appearance;
• Fragrance;
• Taste;
• Texture.

For example, an apple can have skin colors of:

• Almost brown;
• Bright green;
• Golden yellow;
• Lush red;
• Muted.

It may have fresh fragrances that foretell tastes as:

• Bland;
• Sour;
• Spicy;
• Sweet;
• Tart.

Apple insides may range from a firm texture that packs a crunch or a soft consistency that crumbles. They may show flesh colors of:

• Cream;
• Green;
• Pink;
• White.

But apple characteristics can be changed or maintained depending upon propagation method. For example, apple trees that are propagated from seed and, therefore, called seedling trees, have no guarantee of turning out like the parent. In contrast, apple trees that are propagated by grafting produce predictable characteristics according to rootstock and cultivar or rootstock, interstem and cultivar.

Not all grafting demands an interstem. But interstemming is a technique of particular interest to small-scale orchardists. Specifically, an interstem will be grafted onto the top of the rootstock and the bottom of the cultivar to:

• Reconcile incompatible rooting and fruiting varieties;
• Restrain above-ground growth.

For example, apple trees can be grouped according to mature height:

• Standard, at 30+ feet (9.144+ meters);
• Semi-standard, at 18 to 22 feet (5.49 to 6.71 meters);
• Semi-dwarf, at 14 to 18 feet (4.27 to 5.49 meters);
• Dwarf, at less than 11 feet (3.35 meters).

Each category needs to have at least the equivalent of its height in space between it and other structures, be they buildings, driveways, or trees. Under adequate growing conditions and with sufficient space, a standard-sized apple tree may be expected to produce 30 bushels each year for 70 years. In the way of comparison, a dwarf-sized apple tree may be expected to produce 10 bushels each year for 30 years. But each individual apple from both the dwarf- and the standard-sized apple trees should be similarly sized.

Other factors that also affect apple cosmetics nevertheless can impact upon the size of the mature apple. The following three emerge as among the most important of such factors:

• Pollination;
• Stress;
• Weather.

For example, potential productivity is met when at least 8% of an apple tree's blossoms set. But setting occurs in response to adequate pollination and specific temperature ranges. Specifically, the resulting apple will be irregularly shaped if even one of its five core compartments is seedless. The resulting apple likewise will be unappealing in consistency, look and size if it even survives the internal damage wreaked by freezing temperatures and frosts.

Because of the tree's yearly chill temperature requirement of 300 to 1,700 hours at below 45°F (7.22°C), the apple can be grown throughout the temperate zone and within the cooler highland enclaves of warmer regions. Such a large area of potential cultivation unfortunately exposes the apple to the environmental stress of bacterial, fungal, and insect pests, all of which leave calling cards in terms of impacting the apple's mature look:

• Bacterial: Fireblight;
• Fungal: Cedar apple rust, powdery mildew, scab;
• Insect: Apple maggot flies, codling moths, European apple sawflies, plum curculio.

Traditionally, apples that are not going to be immediately baked or served fresh are the less desirable, small-sized fruits. A popular processing of such apples and of unexpected leftovers is canning by:

• Boiling metal snap-lidded Mason jars for 20 minutes;
• Dipping peeled, cored ¼-inch (6.35-millimeter) slices into lemon juice before drying between cheesecloth on dry, sunny table;
• Filling jars;
• Ladling into jars, with stainless steel spoon, boiled syrup of 40% honey to water from stainless steel saucepan;
• Sealing;
• Storing in cool dark place.

Apples can be harvested late in the year. Specifically, the harvest can be just before the leaves drop from the trees in mid- to late fall. The gathering of apples indeed tends to involve the last of the year's fruit to be harvested.

Apples grow on deciduous trees. The word deciduous means “that which falls off.” It traces back to the Latin word deciduus. The Latin word in turn tracks back to the Latin verb decidere, which is formed from the suffix de- (“down”) and the infinitive cadere (“to fall”).

Falling leaves can be the most obvious sign of a tree shutting down for cold winter weather. A deciduous tree without leaves indeed is a tree that is heading towards becoming dormant (from the Latin present participle dormiēns, “sleeping”). An apple tree going dormant means that the tree needs downtime to focus on other life-sustaining processes.

Cultivators and gardeners can benefit from the slow season. They can structure the downtime into key life-support functions for their apple trees. They thereby will ensure the beauty, health, productivity and usefulness of their trees in spring, summer and fall months of the next year.

• Specifically, the first important autumnal task involves removing fruits and leaves from the ground below their apple trees.

Leaf litter may decompose into natural fertilizer for soils. But in terms of apple trees, fallen leaves also will attract unwelcome attention from avian, bacterial, fungal, insect, mammalian and viral pests in search of forage and/or shelter. These autumnal activities will compromise an apple tree at its most vulnerable when it is shutting down defenses and turning towards more passive, storage-related endeavors.

• A second important autumnal task is a soil moisture and temperature check.

This means making sure that the soil is not dried out when the desiccating winter months begin and the ground freezes. Prevention requires identifying and protecting the tree's drip line.

The drip line can be identified by plotting on the ground the reach of each of the tree's longest branches. The connected points form into a more or less perfect circle. The distance from the tree trunk to each drip point signals the tree's critical area in terms of beneficial or harmful impacts upon growth above and below ground. The ground will have to be kept clean throughout its entire area as well as moist 1 to 6 inches (2.54 to 15.24 centimeters) down, with the depth dependent upon:

• Atmospheric moisture;
• Environmental temperature;
• Soil drainage and fertility.

• A third important autumnal task connects to the above-mentioned soil moisture and temperature check.

It involves a monitoring of the ground cover beneath the apple tree. Gardeners oftentimes like to have growing beneath their apple trees grass or such attractive shade-tolerant plants as:

• Azaleas (Pentanthera spp);
• Currents, gooseberries (Ribes spp) and raspberries (Rubus spp);
• Hosta (Hosta spp);
• Pansies (Viola spp), peonies (Paeonia spp) and tulips (Tulipa spp).

The above-mentioned plants can maintain acceptably low levels of competition with apple trees for heat, light, moisture and nutrients. But the best situation involves a 2-inch (5.08-centimeter) layer of compost or organic mulch to:

• Conserve moisture;
• Discourage weeds;
• Even out temperature extremes.

It requires mulching from 1 inch (2.54 centimeters) of the trunk to throughout an entirely unplanted drip line or to within a 1-inch (2.54-centimeter) ring around each of the plants in a drip zone with scattered plantings.

• A fourth important autumnal task can be carried out in fall on an emergency basis.

But it is preferable to carry it out in ending weeks of winter. The apple tree will be pruned or trimmed of damaged, dangerous, dead, decaying, diseased, dying wood.

In the early nineteenth century John Chapman, known popularly as Johnny Appleseed, planted nurseries of apple trees in a swath across the central United States, from the Midwestern state of Illinois eastward to the South Atlantic state of West Virginia. The trees took root in the soil and in the hearts of Americans, who have joined worldwide appreciators of the tasty fruit, with its legends stretching back to antiquity, to Greek mythology, and to the Old Testament.

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

"Apples are an all-American success story-each of us eats more than 19 pounds of them annually.": Scott Bauer/USDA Agricultural Research Service, Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Apples.jpg; via USDA ARS @ https://www.ars.usda.gov/oc/images/photos/k7252-65/

"Potential health benefits of apple consumption.": Mikael Häggström, Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Health_benefits_of_apples.png

"Cultivation of Apples" by Gunnar Magnusson: Skånska Matupplevelser, CC BY-ND 2.0, via Flickr @ https://www.flickr.com/photos/matupplevelser/4644484944/

honeybee with apple blossom: Eric Hoffmann (One Speckled Frog), CC BY ND 2.0, via Flickr @ https://www.flickr.com/photos/speckledfrog/140421392/

Codling moth (Cydia pomonella): Olaf Leillinger (Olei), CC-BY-SA-2.5, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Cydia.pomonella.7162.jpg

C.V. Riley and L.O. Howard, "The Plum Curculio." Report of the Commissioner of Agriculture, 1888: 57-77; Plate I, between pages 144-145: Public Domain, via the U.S. Department of Agriculture's National Agricultural Library Digital Collections (NALDC) @ https://naldc.nal.usda.gov/download/CAT40000931/PDF; Not in copyright, via Internet Archive @ https://archive.org/details/CAT30951786026/page/n143/mode/1up; Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archivo:Plum_Curculio.jpg

apple (Malus domestica Borkh.): Carl Dennis, Auburn University, Bugwood.org, CC BY 3.0, via Forestry Images @ https://www.forestryimages.org/browse/detail.cfm?imgnum=1203162

"Basket of Apples" by Gunnar Magnusson: Skånska Matupplevelser, CC BY-ND 2.0, via Flickr @ https://www.flickr.com/photos/matupplevelser/4644491476/

Wisbech St. Mary, Cambridgeshire, East England: Mark Shirley (scrumpyboy), CC BY 2.0, via Flickr @ https://www.flickr.com/photos/75976021@N00/2197193325/

mulch: Mangrove Mike, CC BY 2.0, via Flickr @ https://www.flickr.com/photos/8632225@N08/6785759963/

"apple tree": liz west (Muffet), CC BY 2.0, via Flickr @ https://www.flickr.com/photos/calliope/54070473/

"The Garden of the Hesperides": c. 1892 oil on canvas by Frederic Leighton (December 3, 1830 – January 25, 1896): Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Frederic_Leighton_-_The_Garden_of_the_Hesperides.jpg

apple cultivar 'Limoncella': Galloramenu, Public Domain (CC0 1.0), via Wikimedia Commons @ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Melo_Nano.JPG

Iduns Jul-Nummer (Christmas number) 1901: Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Carl_Larsson_Brita_as_Iduna.jpg; via GUPEA Göteborgs universitet Göteborgs universitetbibliotek @ http://hdl.handle.net/2077/50085

Bennett, Jennifer. The Harrowsmith Book of Fruit Trees. Willowdale, Ontario, Canada: Firefly Books, 1991.

Blackburne-Maze, Peter. Fruit: an illustrated history. London, England: Scriptum Editions, 2002; Bufffalo, NY, USA & Toronto, Ontario, Canada: Firefly Books, 2003.

(Brita Larsson as Iðunn by Carl Larsson). Iduns Jul-Nummer (Christmas number) 1901.

• Available via GUPEA Göteborgs universitet Göteborgs universitetbibliotek @ http://hdl.handle.net/2077/50085

(Brita Larsson as Iðunn by Carl Larsson). Jugend: Münchner illustrierte Wochenschrift für Kunst und Leben. 1905: Band 1, No. 6.

• Available via Universitätsbibliothek Heidelberg (Heidelberg University Library) at: https://digi.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/diglit/jugend1905_1/0108

Fruits and Berries. Mount Vernon, Virginia: The American Horticultural Society Illustrated Encyclopedia of Gardening, 1982.

Johnson, Fred; and A.A. (Alexandre Arsène) Girault. "The Plum Curculio (Conotrachelus nenuphar Herbst.)" The United States Department of Agriculture, Bureau of Entomology. Circular no. 73. Washington DC: April 14, 1906.

• Available via Internet Archive at: https://archive.org/details/plumcurculiocono273john/page/n6/mode/1up

Riley, C.V. (Charles Valentine); and L.O. (Leland Ossian) Howard, "Miscellaneous Insects. The Plum Curculio. (Conotrachelus nenuphar, Herbst.) Order Coleoptera; family Curculionidae." Report of the Entomologist: pages 57-77. In: Report of the Commissioner of Agriculture, 1888.

• Available via the U.S. Department of Agriculture's National Agricultural Library Digital Collections (NALDC) at: https://naldc.nal.usda.gov/download/CAT40000931/PDF
• Available via Internet Archive at: https://archive.org/details/CAT30951786026/page/n143/mode/1up