From the Living Museum
Liberty
- Origin
- New York State Agricultural Experiment Station, Geneva (Cornell); from a 1955 cross (Macoun × Purdue 54-12) using Purdue disease-resistance stock; introduced 1978
- Era
- Released 1978
- Type / use
- Dessert · Fresh eating
History & Stories
Medium red fruit with crisp, juicy, good-quality flesh. Unique as one of the earliest high-quality scab-resistant (Vf) varieties that made low-spray and organic production more practical while still delivering decent dessert quality.
Folklore & Name
New York State Agricultural Experiment Station release (1978), bred with scab-resistant pollen from Purdue's program 1. Named for the ideal of liberty (disease resistance allowing freer, lower-spray growing). One of the first practical scab-resistant dessert apples of good quality.
Digging into the History
Below my own notes, here is what the old fruit books and today’s collections record about this apple, kept apart from the stories people tell.
What we know
Liberty was bred at Geneva, New York, at the state's agricultural experiment station, which is part of Cornell University. The station's 1978 bulletin announcing it says it came from a 1955 cross of Macoun with Purdue 54-12, using pollen sent by Dr. Ralph Shay of Purdue University in Indiana, and that its scab resistance traces back to Malus floribunda 1. Of 261 seeds from the cross, 38 scab-resistant seedlings were grown to fruiting. One of them, NY 55140-19, became Liberty 1. It was introduced in 1978 1.
What we think: stories & traditions
Bred to need less spray. The bulletin opens by noting how much labour and pesticide it takes to control apple diseases in New York 1. Liberty was the answer: an apple whose resistance to scab came from a flowering crab, Malus floribunda 1. The pollen parent came from Purdue University's disease-resistance work 1.
The name seems a fitting one for an apple meant to free growers from constant spraying, though the bulletin doesn't explain the choice.
Sources
- R.G. Lamb, H.S. Aldwinckle, R.D. Way and D.E. Terry, "Liberty, a new disease resistant apple," New York's Food and Life Sciences Bulletin No. 73 (New York State Agricultural Experiment Station, Geneva, August 1978). ecommons.cornell.edu/server/api/core/bitstreams/df23bb1a-03c3-4be1-a791-d1517d86dec9/content
Curious about Liberty?
Email us at drgoss@honeytreeorchard.com.