Backyard apple breeding

Apple: Wijcik McIntosh

Shane Gadsby -

A chance mutation of McIntosh that first introduced the world to columnar apples!

  • Vigour: Medium
  • Precociousness: Medium
  • Resistances: Resistant to rust, and mildew
  • Size of fruit: Medium
  • Flowering: Early
  • Fruiting: Early
  • Cropping: Medium
  • Ploidy: Diploid
  • Fruit colour: Red
  • Flesh colour: White
  • Leaf colour: Green
  • Parentage: Sport of McIntosh
  • Descendants: Bolero
  • Biennialism: Commonly observed in McIntosh, data unknown for Wijcik sport
  • Growth habit: Columnar
  • Self-fertile: Partially

Discovered as a chance sport by Tony Wijcik in 1963 in East Kelowna, British Columbia (Canada), growing among his McIntosh orchard.
It was very visibly columnar, and so was grafted out to rootstocks where it continued it's columnar behaviour.

It is a smaller tree, consisting of a single trunk that prolifically bears from hardy spurs. It rarely grows wider than 1 - 1.5 metres, and usually no taller than 3 meters.

Due to it's compact shape and naturally dwarfed height, and columnar growth habit, the Wijcik McIntosh has been used on-and-off for intensive retail apple breeding programs.
Most if not all columnar apples descend from this incredible variety!

NOTE: I have yet to try this apple directly, and so have relied on others for information related to this variety.
This entry will be updated if I manage to procure a tree.