malus Sieversii (kasastani apple)

12 years ago

Some of you may well be aware of the research done awhile back looking at "primative" apples. Stock that was growing as wild old growth in the mountains of kasistan.

Well I guess that material ended up with researchers from cornell. Cummins nursery has a few extras of some of the preferred selections. I was told they will have more again next year.

I was going to get one as an interesting specimen since I am so fond of apple trees, but I just can't justify the precious sun space we have left. So I thought I would mention it to others....I would love to graft some in down the road....

You can get small descriptions on some of the selections if you go to their "available 2012" apples and scroll down to sieversii.

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Comments (4)

applenut_gw
12 years ago
They've had these several years now; I believe Walden Heights Nursery in Walden, VT has grown out a few of them if you want to try some (he didn't seem that impressed with them).

Applenut

Here is a link that might be useful: Walden Heights Nursery
bob_z6
12 years ago
I too was very interested in these apples. I thought about it for a while and eventually decided that I should stick with (for now) apples with a know track record for eating quality. Eventually I may try to fit some into my limited space.

In the course of researching this, I put together this spreadsheet of info from the .gov site. It covers the 12 varieties which Cummins offers. #11 looked most interesting to me (reasonable size, semi-hard to firm, 2nd highest brix). #7 also looked interesting, though it was listed as very susceptible to fireblight.

There seem to be a few drawbacks-
1.) Many of the apples are quite small- I'm guessing that a 50g apple isn't much bigger than a large crabapple. "Normal" apples seem to average around 150g.
2.) The only disease resistance information relates to fireblight- nothing about scab or cedar apple rust. I did see from another article that many of the apples found there do have resistance to apple scab (27% per the article).
3.) Many appear to be tip-bearers- not a deal killer, but not good for small spaces.

Some potential benefits-
1.) Interesting to see if they really have insect resistance in our environment, as they seem to in Kazakhstan.
2.) Some of the apples are reported to have strange flavors not present in normal domesticated apples.

I'll definitely want one (or more) someday; if I had unlimited space, I'd put a few in now. For now though I'm going to watch and see which ones do the best for others and what useful crosses can be made. If anyone has any personal experience, I'd love to hear it.
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windfall_rob
Original Author
12 years ago
I saw these purely as specimen trees, not really something I would expect to harvest and enjoy bushels of.

That's why I was interested in grafting in just a branch or two.

But if one had the space and inclination, they would be interesting to play with..possibly experiment with some crosses.
Scott F Smith
12 years ago
I have been offered these several times. My feeling is they are very interesting but only for breeders - as it stands there is no way they can complete with hundreds of generations of domestication. On the other hand it would be very interesting to start to breed some of these into our modern varieties to add some new characters.

Scott

malus Sieversii (kasastani apple)

Comments (4)

applenut_gw

bob_z6

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malus Sieversii (kasastani apple)

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applenut_gw

bob_z6

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Scott F Smith

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