Grow Your Own Fresh Fruit Trees! ‘Anna’ is a very early season apple variety, noted for its very low chill requirement of less than 300 hours. ‘Anna’ is large and has light greenish-yellow skin with a slight red blush. The ‘Anna’ Apple fruit is sweet, slightly tart, crisp with a creamy white flesh. ‘Anna’ Apples are a good southern choice for fresh eating, applesauce, or homemade pies. ‘Anna’ is a very early-season apple, ripening in late June/early July. It bears fruit early in the life of the tree and the fruit stores very well. Pollinator required. ‘Golden Dorsett’ is a perfect pollinator for the ‘Anna’ Apple tree.
The ‘Anna’ Apple Tree is a Golden Delicious-style apple, developed in Israel specifically for cultivation in “low-chill” areas where winter temperatures rarely drop to freezing. Most apple varieties require 800 hours or more of winter temperatures in the range from about 6C / 45F down to freezing, in order to become dormant, which is an essential part of their annual cycle – this is the “chill requirement”. ‘Anna’ has an exceptionally low chill requirement, and will thrive even in climates where temperatures dip towards freezing for only 300 hours or so each winter. This makes it ideally suited to climates such as southern California and southern Texas, which are in USDA zones 8-10.
Apple trees are the most popular and widely grown fruit trees in America. If the proper variety is selected, one may grow apples in any one of the lower 48 states. Apples have long been considered a fruit for northern states only. However, there are several apple varieties that will produce delicious apples in the South as well. Most apple trees require cross-pollination or the presence of a crab apple tree to bear fruit. There are literally hundreds of apple varieties, so we have selected the top choices for home gardening. Also, many of our selections are well known commercial varieties that most Americans have come across in their local grocery.
