Disease Resistance with Taste!

In my last post I wrote about the difficulty involved with growing organic apples in Pennsylvania. The research being done on organic production involves disease resistant varieties. These varieties have genes that help them fight off disease without the use of chemicals more effectively than traditional varieties. Traditionally, most of these varieties have been referred to as “spitters” in that when you would take a bite of the apple you would immediately spit it out. However, more recently, much better tasting varieties have been developed.

For example, GoldRush is a variety that has considerable disease resistant properties yet can hold its own in the taste category with any of the traditional cultivars. It had always been my contention that GoldRush had supreme eating quality and my thought was confirmed the other night when I brought a couple of local GoldRush along with me to a dinner party. My friends were all raving about how good it was; it was definitely a hit. This is a variety that many growers may start planting even if they don’t intend to be certified organic. It simply makes economic sense to grow a great tasting variety like GoldRush without having to spend as much time and money on spraying certain chemicals.