- Liberty Apple: Wanted Poster
- Origin and history of the 'Liberty' apple variety
- Liberty apple: characteristics and taste
- Special features of cultivation and care
- Harvesting and using the Liberty pen alty
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The 'Liberty' apple variety was created through targeted breeding and scores with very good cultivation properties and natural he alth. We present the young variety and its special features during cultivation and care.
'Liberty' is a young apple variety that has it all: It brings resistance to two important apple diseases - fire blight and apple scab. She is also only minimally susceptible to other diseases. The variety also has low demands on the climate and soil and the good taste of the Liberty apple also speaks for the cultivation in your own garden. The only drawback of this variety is the short shelf life. By December at the latest, the leftovers from the rich harvest should have been processed into delicious applesauce.
Liberty Apple: Wanted Poster
| Fruit | medium to large; dark red body color |
| Flavour | juicy, more acidic with a slight sweetness |
| Yield | regular |
| Harvest time | from mid-September |
| Maturity for pleasure | October to December |
| Shelf Life | bad; Can be stored until Christmas |
| Growth | medium strong; heavily branched |
| Climate | average heat demand |
| Diseases and Pests | Resistant to fire blight and robust to apple scab |
Origin and history of the 'Liberty' apple variety
The 'Liberty' apple variety comes from the USA from a breeding project at the Geneva Experimental Station near New York in the 1970s. It emerged from several crosses of the varieties 'Purdue 54-12' and 'Macoun'. The aim of the breeding work was to create an apple variety that is highly resistant to the bacterial apple disease fire blight (Erwinia amylovora). This is exactly what was achieved with the breeding of 'Liberty': Even with comparatively high infestation pressure, the variety is still resistant to the feared and notifiablefire blight. 'Liberty' is also recommended in Switzerland, Austria and Germany for growing in regions prone to fire blight.
Liberty apple: characteristics and taste
The fruit of the 'Liberty' apple variety is medium-sized to very large and has a flat-round to conical shape. The base color is yellowish, but hardly visible under the dark red top color, which usually covers over 90% of the surface. The stalk is short and the stalk and calyx pit are slightly russet. Inside the 'Liberty' variety there is yellow, light and juicy, rather sour flesh that is rounded off with a slight sweetness. The taste is described as good by international pomologists.
Special features of cultivation and care
The 'Liberty' apple variety has a medium heat requirement and is moderately frost hardy in terms of blossom and fruit. It makes rather few demands on the floor - depending on which underlay is combined with it. Any normal garden soil is suitable, only very light and sandy locations as well as particularly heavy, clayey soils have a negative effect on the 'Liberty' variety.
The growth is medium strong and there are plenty of branches. The crown is rather overhanging, especially with heavy hanging. Due to the pronounced branching and the hanging growth, an annual apple tree pruning is absolutely necessary. The crown should be thinned out and branches that are too hanging shortened.
'Liberty' can be cultivated very well as a standard tree on a vigorous rootstock. Since large trees can only be pruned and cared for under difficult conditions, the apples tend to be smaller due to the large amount of fruiting wood and the plentiful fruit set.
'Liberty' can also be trained to a small tree on a slow-growing rootstock , which then also entails a higher editing effort.
The flowers appear early to mid-early in large numbers. If the tree is not exposed to late frosts, it blooms at roughly the same rate every year, with no fluctuating yields. The prerequisite for this is that it is not thrown off balance by pruning too hard.
The flower itself provides plenty of pollen for insects and is used, for example, by the varieties 'James Grieve', 'Reglindis', 'McIntosh ' and 'Alkmene' reliably fertilized.
The 'Liberty' apple variety is, in accordance with its breeding objective, resistant to fire blight and very robust to apple scab.Powdery mildew and fruit tree canker can occur on sites that are too wet and very clayey soils, but the susceptibility to this is also low.
Harvesting and using the Liberty pen alty
'Liberty' is a typical autumn variety: Depending on the weather, it can be harvested as early as mid to late September. The harvest window for the Liberty apple is quite short, because the apples all ripen almost simultaneously and then soon fall to the ground. The variety develops its best flavor between October and December. Unfortunately, they cannot be stored longer than Christmas, but the apples are ideal for direct consumption or rapid processing into mush or juice. They result in a pleasantly fine, pink-tinged apple sauce.
'Liberty' and all its pollinators belong to those summer or autumn apples that hardly store. The situation is different for winter apples such as the 'Ontario' or the 'Rheinische Krummstiel'. If you grow early and late-ripening varieties together, you can enjoy apples from your own garden for several months.