"Cortland" is a hardy variety that was introduced in 1915 and has been a popular variety since. Known for its red fruit that is juicy, sweet and crisp. Making this variety great for both fresh eating and cooking. This variety is great producer once it is established. For best results some extra care such as pruning and use of Dormant Oil is required. 

Fruit: The skin is red and the flesh is white that is juicy, sweet and crisp with a slight tartness and slightly acidic. 

Uses: Fresh eating, cooking

Pollination: Pollinating varieties for Cortland are: Freedom, Gala, Golden Delicious, Golden Russet, Honey Crisp, Liberty, Lodi, Melba, Red Delicious, Yellow Transparent, Haralred, Haralson, Sweet Sixteen, Wolf River

Harvest Time: October

Height: 12'-15'

Width: 12'-15'

Light: Full Sun

Soil Type: Loamy, sandy can tolerate some clay, but must have good drainage

Pruning: Late winter to early spring

Zone: 4

Pruning Apple trees: Only prune 20% of your tree a year, do it during winter and when you cut near the truck do not cut the ‘collar’ of the branch off.

Pruning Apple trees is an important part of keeping your tree healthy and producing good fruit for a long time, as well having good air flow and light reduces pests and disease problems. The end result is a tree with open branches that lets air flow through and allows light into the middle of the tree.

Getting started; prune fruit trees in winter while tree is dormant and clean your pruners, loppers and saws with bleach solution. You will need pruners, possibly a hand saw, a ladder depending on size of tree and for safety reasons let someone know if you are going in the tree or up a ladder.

Looking at your tree you need to decide if it needs ‘thinning out’ or needs to be ‘headed back’ . Thinning out refers to taking out complete branches. Headed back refers to making branches shorter.

You are looking to remove branches that are:

Dead: branches that are not living they will not produce leaves, blooms and may cause disease or rot problems.

Damaged: branches that have broken, have welts or major cuts, extreme bark loss due to natural human/animal causes

Diseased: branches that have cankers, abnormal secretion or odd growths. These branches may be showing signs of disease and should be removed before it affects the rest of the tree.

On old fully grown apple trees that require more difficult pruning such as; taking a scaffold branches (large main branches), Sail branches (looks like another tree on the tree), or water sprouts (straight up branches usually caused from improper pruning). Some of these branches require 3 cuts to remove the branches without damage to the tree. Ask one of our professionals at our store for more information on the more difficult pruning.