There is no 'best' variety of apple tree.
Every variety is different. It depends a great deal on what you want from an apple.
We did some research on this when we were first drawing our future orchard. If you use dwarf fruit trees, you can plant them closer together, and therefore plant more trees in the same space.
However when viewed in a square-foot context an orchard of dwarf trees will produce 60% of the fruit harvest that you would get from full-sized fruit trees. So for planting, watering, and pruning more trees you get less harvest.
We decided to go with full-sized trees. Granted you end up planting less trees, but your harvest is much more.
First we planted 16 apple trees.
I planted our apple trees in raised beds due to the high moisture in our forest.
I selected our apple trees first by harvest season; one group of trees that ripens mid-fall, and a second group that ripens in late fall to early winter.
Secondly we selected one variety in each group that produces an apple known for high sugar content, and two varieties noted for tart or acid content.
Our hope being to spread out the harvest a bit, so as not to over-load us with apples all at once. And also to provide two different blends of apple juices for fermenting cider.
Following is the list of what apple trees we planted. The number of trees, and then a description of their fruit.
We avoided all of the summer varieties, and tried to avoid having all apples coming into harvest all at once.
4- 'Sweet 16 Apples': harvested Early Fall. Whenever anyone eats a Sweet 16 for the first time, you know they will be surprised. Fine-textured crisp flesh contains an astounding unusually complex combination of sweet nutty and spicy flavors with slight anise essence, sometimes described as cherry, vanilla or even bourbon. Truly excellent fresh eating, although it is too sweet for some pallets. Round-conic bronze-red medium-sized fruit, striped and washed with rose-red.
2- 'Prima Apples': harvested Fall. Medium-large roundish fruit has rich yellow skin with a striking orange-red blush. Mildly subacid juicy white flesh provides excellent eating and makes good cider. Keeps a couple of months.
4- 'Minnesota 447 apples': harvested Fall-Winter. Developed at the University of Minnesota before 1936, but never introduced. This massively flavored dessert apple—not for the faint of heart—provides a whole new level of culinary experience. Likely the most distinctive and unusual apple I’ve ever tried. Astonished friends have described its flavor as strange, molasses, olives, fabulous, sweet, complex and sugar cane. The roundish fruit is medium-sized and entirely covered with dark bluish-purple stripes. The aromatic crisp crystalline flesh is an apricot-orange color with occasional red staining, so juicy it’ll run down your hand. Years ago David Bedford of the University of Minnesota said they would never release it because it didn’t taste like an apple. Joyfully they changed their minds.
2- 'Cortland Apples': harvested Fall-Winter Medium to medium-large slightly ribbed dull red fruit with a purple blush. Excellent eating and cooking. Slow-oxidizing white flesh is very good in salads; fine-grained, crisp, tender, juicy. Produces a surprisingly delightful cider, fresh or fermented, in a mix or even on its own. Vigorous tall upright spreading tree with reddish bark. Annual producer of heavy crops.
2- 'Esopus Spitzenburg apples': harvested Fall-Winter. Without peer in flavor and quality. A choice dessert and culinary apple, mentioned in nearly every list of best-flavored varieties. Slightly subacid, crisp and juicy. Famous for being Thomas Jefferson’s favorite apple. Medium-large bright-red round to mostly conic fruit, covered with russet dots. Excellent acid source for sweet or fermented cider.
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