Most of my experiences with apple trees have involved running across an orchard ripping off articles of clothing as yellowjackets stung the crap out of me. I know that isn't what you were looking for but yellowjackets do love to live near apple trees.

My grandfather had some trees but he never did much with them. The yeilds were small and the apples were mediocre. Someone willing to devote a little more time/effort could probably have much better results though.

I haven't even thought about yellowjackets being attracted to my apple trees. Now that I think back, I do remember some type of bee like animals (probably yellowjackets) always around the fallen apples in my grandfather's yard. I'm not really looking forward to having to worry more about getting stung.

Who else has good news for me? LOL

ArkBlack will make beautiful apples that taste like cardboard - but they will keep for a long, long, time under refrigeration.

I'll recommend:
Centennial Crab
Kerr Crab
MonArk - big, early(mid-late July) apple with good disease resistance, released by the UofArk apple breeding program, with crisp white flesh - great for eating out-of-hand and for cooking, keeps 6-8 weeks under refrigeration - which most early apples won't.
I know the two crabs above will perform well for you in a zone 6-7 setting, and they are really good for fresh eating.
Gold Rush, while susceptible to CAR, is another 'disease-resistant' variety that will make a good addition to any z6-7 orchard.

I've heard that Arkansaw Black actually tastes pretty good after being stored for a while. Is that true? Also, what's the deal with "greasy skin" on this apple? I wasn't sure of what to make of that description.

I considered Gold Rush, but decided to pass on it. CAR will likely be a problem. My area is covered up with J v and I don't plan to spray any more than is absolutely necessary.

I just tried to find something out about the disease resistance of Centennial and Kerr crabs, but didn't have much luck.

Does anyone have any experience with bagging apples? I wonder how effective that is on various pests.

Brandon,
I don't spray anything. Some years Gold Rush looks like a canary, it's got so many CAR spots on the leaves, but most years, it doesn't look much different from the Liberty tree just down the row from it.
I've not encountered any fungal problems with the fruits on those two edible crabs(aka lunchbox apples), and minimal insect pest damage, as well.
The 'Colonial J-spur' strain of ArkBlack, which is probably the most widely available selection anymore is notorious for having virtually no flavor - beautiful apples, but no taste. Will they improve somewhat after about 6 months or so in the cooler? Yeah, probably. It's an exceptional storing apple - I've seen 'em look 'good as new' after a year in cold storage, so long as you keep humidity levels up. They have a thick, tough, very waxy skin - that 'greasy' description is pretty much dead-on.

Bagging is THE way to go, if you're averse to spraying, and it's quite effective if done at the appropriate time.

Brandon I had the three you have. Did not do to well for me. My favorite is Gala. Maybe the others would have done better, if I had a spraying program, but I am lazy, and don't like poison. Sometime you have to use it in order get fruit.
Norm

Norm, what happened to them? Arkansas Black, Freedom, & Liberty are supposed to be resistant to just about all major apple diseases. Did insects cause the problem?

I would have thought that Gala would be higher maintenance because of it's lack of disease resistance. Are you saying that it does better for you than the other varieties? Do you not have to spray your Gala?

Brandon I don't know if it was desease or insects. After a few years I removed the Ark. Black and Freedom. Liberty remains. Sometimes it has a decent crop. Gala has been good every year except last year which was a zero for everything here. I do not spray, maybe I should start.
Norm

This fruit tree business is pretty complicated. Almost every piece of advise I've received has been contradicted at least once. Just when I think I am starting to understand something or accept something as fact, I see reports of the opposite. I'm beginning to think that there really are no answers and you just have to go with what works for you. It's kind of flustrating because I like to plan things out and try to avoid mistakes. I don't like the idea of having to remove a tree in 5 or 6 years and waste all that time, but it seems that that is my only real option. I just have to take my best guess and see what happens.

When I started my home orchard 13 years ago, we went WAY overboard planting apples - at one time I had upwards of 50 varieties - many selections made based on catalog descriptions (beware! Don't believe anything(or, at least, not much) of what you'll read there). Many were inappropriate for my hot zone 6 setting, and very few had much in the way of disease resistance. Many have fallen by the wayside through the years, and there are a significant number that I'll be removing this spring - and I'll either NOT replant those spots, or I'll put something dependably productive that doesn't require spraying or much other care, like a pear, persimmon, or blueberries in those spaces.

Apples that will remain are pretty much limited to MonArk, Lodi(I'd prefer Yellow Transparent), Kerr crab, Centennial crab, Chestnut crab, Wickson crab, Callaway crab(a large-fruited ornamental with good disease resistance) and Hampshire Red(a seedling of Hampshire, with a red-fleshed crab pollen parent)

Well, practically all my first dozen apple trees died and I planted a second batch. The second batch refused to grow till I learned that southern red clays are short of boron. After adding boron two winters, the trees started to grow a bit. Pears have grown MUCH faster and done better overall, so I had decided to plant a lot more pears and let the apples sink or swim as they chose. Then I talked with a few people. Our neighbor said there were lots of apple trees in our area, that there was an orchard of very large trees in sight of our property. He said he doesn't know why people can't grow apples now, maybe it's the rootstocks. Then someone in California told me that clonal rootstocks are very sensitive to viruses. My first set of trees were all antique varieties on clonal rootstocks, probably at least a few of the antiques were carrying viruses. But more important, he said cover all of the clonal rootstock, that the burs on the M111 would attract borers. I now know to get down on my knees and dig the dirt away from the trunk with a stick to look for the reddish frass that the borers extrude. We've dug in the dead bark with a small screwdriver and hopefully have killed off the existing borers. Even a few of the smooth skinned seedling trees had borers in them. Next I need to wrap all the trunks about 2 ft high with some tree wrap I have. I've had most of them wrapped with metal window screen, it seems to have protected most of them. I thought it was voles getting the trees, but now I think most of them were killed or stunted by borers. The paper/plastic wrap should be sufficient for dealing with borers.
Our very dense clay with low fertility, poor aeration, practically devoid of soil life past a foot deep, these are all problems that apples don't like. Someone in Virginia told me an interesting story. They bought 3 apple trees and planted them in the front yard. The trees grew like crazy and cropped very well. Year after year they had bumper crops of beautiful perfect fruit. The neighbors all wanted to know what they were doing, some people even went and bought the same varieties. No one else's trees did anywhere near as well. This lasted 15 years. Then they discovered their line to the sewer was leaking, and they fixed it. That was the end of their terrific apple crops. Someone else commented that they had a couple of mulberry trees in their yard up north. One grew huge but never cropped till one summer their kid wanted to try a gadget that did "deep fertilization". That turned that tree to cropping, and it was so big already that they had to resign themselves to having their whole yard purple for a month every summer. So if you have poor soil, there are apparently tricks to deal with it. Because really, you haven't made bad selections, all you need now is to get them to grow really well, and keep the borers from killing them. I know someone with a small orchard (15-20 trees), his soil doesn't look a bit better than ours, and he doesn't spray, yet he gets good crops of fruit most years. So it can be done, even in Tennessee. Donna