A very early, yellow apple, Pristine is a tasty, somewhat tart/sweet apple with some astringent notes of spice, banana, and green apple. It was named “pristine” because of its disease resistance; resistant to scab, and some slight resistance to powdery mildew, fire blight and cedar-apple rust. Researchers at Perdue-Rutgers-Illinois essentially bred a much more refined 21st century version of Golden Delicious. The books say that Pristine does not store well, which is the case for most summer apples, although we have been able to keep it in the fridge after harvest for about a month without any signs of breakdown. Again not bad for a summer apple. A final thing to note is that if you are in an area of Montana, Alaska, Wyoming, Idaho, Minnesota, Wisconsin or anywhere that can see below -40F (which is the limit of Pristine), then look to other summer apples that are way more adapted to severe cold temps, such as Norkent, Prairie Sensation, or earlier apple crabs like Rescue.

These bare root trees are roughly 5-7 ft tall and are grafted onto M7 rootstock, which is also only cold hardy to -40F.