Breeding for columnar apple varieties has been carried out at FSBSI All Russian Research Institute for Fruit Crop Breeding since 1984. By now, adaptive and productive columnar varieties having fruit of high quality have been developed (‘riokskoye’ ‘oezia’ ‘ostorg’ ‘irlianda’ ‘rlovskaya Yesenia’ ‘Sozvezdie’, etc.). These varieties have immunity to scab (Vf). ‘Zeliony Shum’ and ‘Priokskoye’ have the most vigorous habit; the height of 6-year trees of these varieties on 62-396 rootstock is 205.8 cm and 201.9 cm, respectively. ‘Girlianda’ (0.8 cm), ‘Poezia’ (0.9 cm), ‘Orlovskaya Yesenia’ (1.0 cm) as well as control variety ‘Moskovskoye Ozherelie’ (0.6 cm) are characterized by the least quantity of lateral twigs per tree (≥15 cm in length). ‘Orlovskaya Yesenia’ and ‘Sozvezdie’ have early fruit-bearing among columnar varieties; three years after inoculation they bore yield 84 centner/ha. During the fi rst four years of fruiting ‘Orlovskaya Yesenia’, ‘Girlianda’ and ‘Priokskoye’ were the most fruitful varieties with the average yield of 259 centner/ha, 228 centner/ha and 224 centner/ha, respectively, while control ‘Valuta’ and ‘Moskovskoye Ozherelie’ had authentically lower yields (165 and 141 centner/ha, respectively). (‘Priokskoye’, ‘Poezia’, ‘Vostorg’, ‘Girlianda’ and ‘Orlovskaya Yesenia’ are characterized by a complex of valuable commercial traits (adaptability, early fruit-bearing, high productivity and scab immunity) and are worth of wide production trials. The establishing of columnar apple orchards contributes to the improvement of the environment in the orchard since it decreases the use of toxic chemicals per area unit, provides more comfortable work conditions in the orchard, signifi cantly reduces the pre-fruiting period of the orchard and gives the possibility to obtain high yields of highly qualitative apples.