Any suggestions for a variety that ripens between Golden Delicious and Cameo?
I need something productive that will grow in my piedmont NC climate and is good, but does not need to be great. Here are some apples from Adams County Nursery that hit this window: Empire, Freedom, Johnagold, Johnaprince, Shizuka. I need to order from ACN to get my quantity discount.
Jonagold is the tastiest of the bunch, but may be disease prone.
Freedom is an āokayā apple in my book taste-wise. It is disease resistant.
I agree with Matt, I grow Jonagoldās and it is my second favorite apple. First of all it is a huge apple making it very dramatic. It is one of the best cooking apples I have ever grown and eaten! My favorite tasting apple is āMott Pinkā. You can grow that one as well. It has been said it is a āmiteā magnet but in six years I have had no problems. What is also interesting about the tree itself is that its leaves are a silver gray. Very nice.
No, because she is close to the ocean her lower temps put her well behind my Z6, at least with things that ripen after July. The later any given variety ripens the farther the cooler sites tend to fall behind.
The other interesting thing about ripening things further north is that longer days also seem to accelerate ripening of many varieties. This can go a long ways towards making up for fewer growing days and later springs.
So I thought I would give an update, I placed an order for rootstock Thursday and I included one m111 for the cabin. I plan to plant a seedling also. I guess we will see how they each grow.
For whatever itās worth, my experience with Enterprise is significantly more fireblight (mostly just one bad year) than with any other apple Iāve grown. I have close to a dozen pretty random varieties, and I donāt feel like Iāve had very bad fireblight on any of my other apples. (Pears, on the other handā¦) And my impression after extremely limited fruiting so far is the opposite of MrsGās as far as size: I think of it as possibly the biggest apple I grow, but maybe it wonāt stay as big, and maybe the others will size up better as my trees get bigger.
Blueberry, what do you think of Cameo?
Cameo is a tasty apple IMO. Here it seems to tend towards biennial bearing, fruits big and is a sweet, crunchy apple with enough acid to keep it from being insipid. Itās a pretty tree that grows nice spreading branches and is a moderately precocious bearer of fruit. It bears with Red Delicious and tastes like Red Delicious should taste like, but doesnāt.
Agree completely with Alan. Its being promoted as the replacement for RD
BT, I probably should have given you the chance to answer the question. Iām that kid in class that always raises his hand.
Matt- How does Freedom taste to you? I grafted it but no fruit yet. There is a great difference of opinion on this one- some nurseries rave about it, others promote it simply to pollinate Liberty. Is it crisp and tart?
Itās curious to me that I donāt hear more talk about cameo, particularly on this forum. I hear lots of talk about gold rush, honeycrisp, fujiā¦ Come to think of it braeburn is another common enough commercial variety that I donāt hear much talk about here. But cameo really wowed me once. Iāve had three memorably outstanding apples in my life. I remember the first time my dad brought home fuji apples (in the 80ās), which no one in my family had ever heard of before. We all thought they were incredibly good, but Iāve since had them numerous times as an adult and have always found them fairly average. And then one February about 10 years ago I had a locally grown (Brushy Mountains) cameo that had been in unsophisticated cold storage. And then just this fall I had a yellow apple straight off a tree that I planted myself at a friendās house that would have had to be either a gold rush or a golden delicious. Iāve had all these varieties at other times without the wow, so I donāt know if I was just really in the mood for an apple those times or if those particular specimens were just that outstanding, but I definitely believe cameo has the potential to be outstanding.
Ham,
Like I said, Freedom is just āokayā to me. I think it is a step up from Liberty. On average, Freedom apples are larger and taste a bit better. Simple red apple flavor. Not particularly sweet, but not bad.
Distillery Lane Ciderworks of Jefferson, Maryland (near Burkittsville) grows this variety. If you call ahead, they can sell you some apples right off the tree in Sept or Oct, if youāre willing to make the trip out there. Personally, I donāt think theyāre worth it. But the place has lots of varieties to purchase in Oct, which might make it worth the drive.
Freedom apples look nice on the tree. They come through prolifically without showing much disease.
By the way-- Freedom is moderately crisp but does not keep well. It is not tart.
I am starting a small home orchard and looking to put in 4 apple trees (maximum) on my property. My priorities are, in order of importance:
I am trying to distribute the production over the main apple season, stating in September. I am in zone 6b, pretty much right in between Adams County and Cummins Nurseries. For those of you with experience with some of the varieties I am considering below, please provide your opinion as it relates to the criteria above.
Early-Mid Sept: Crimson Crisp, Fuji (Daybreak sport), Liberty, Pixie Crunch, Sweet Sixteen (Pomme Gris looks good too, but I only see it in dwarfing rootstock from Cummins, and I am looking for semi-dwarfing)
Late Sept-Early Oct: Fuji (Rising sun or BC#2 sports), Galarina, Grimes Golden
Mid-Late Oct: Arkansas Black, Black Oxford, Enterprise, Fuji (Nagafu 12 sport), SunCrisp
November: GoldRush, King David
Last thing, the trees are going to be planted to the east side of my 2 story house, which means that a couple will get intense direct and indirect light in the morning and will be in a well lit shadow of my house in the afternoon. I was thinking of putting the late maturing trees in the areas with the most light (light most of the day), and the early maturing tress in the area that would be more shaded. Am I setting myself up for failure in the spots without direct light in the afternoon? Feel free to make suggestions! Thanks in advance!
I have reason to believe that Fuji BC2 and Suncrisp would both do well for you, and they both taste great, and are good keepers if put in the fridge. Suncrisp keeps until Jan. Fuji BC2 keeps until March. Boyerās Nursery near Gettysburg sells an excellent Fuji BC2. Adams County Nursery and White Oak Nursery (Strasburg) have Suncrisp.
Goldrush is a great apple, and keeps until May, but it can go biennial, and it needs a long hot summer to ripen. There may be the occassional year that it punks out on you. Cummins has it.
Black Oxford might work well for you too, but I have no first-hand experience with it yet. Same with Pixie Crunch and Sweet Sixteen. I just grafted Sweet Sixteen into my collection this past spring.
Your general scheme of apple placement seems reasonable.
Where in NEPA are you? I grew up in Scranton in the 80s and 90s.
Welcome to the forum.
Post-script: If I were you, I would be tempted to try the Karmijn de Sonnaville apple of the Netherlands. Cummins sometimes carries it. Reports say that it has an in-your-face flavor. @marknmt has had success with it in Montana. It is supposed to do best in nothern climates and areas with cooler summers. I am shy to try it down here south of the Mason-Dixon as I fear our steamy hot summers might turn it to mush.
Are you going to spray insecticides, fungicides? How close are the nearest Red Cedars? Only half day sun makes me nervous but Iāve never tried to pull that off. I would make at least one of your four an old variety-call it history, nostalgia, rescuing rarities, teaching opportunity for kids.
I might try MonArk early; Grimes; Smokehouse (great old Pa variety); Goldrush (unless you have a bad Red Cedar problem). Thatās two old, two new, something borrowed, something blue. Smile.
Ham,
Has cedar-apple-rust been so much of a problem that it ruins the quality of your fruit? Or is it merely a cosmetic nuisance to the foliage?
Matt- Has not fruited yet for me. Of the 30 varieties I grow, Goldrush has by far the worst rust, really nasty. Will know in a few years how it effects fruit. Maybe itās just cosmetic but the leaves look weak, sick vs robust, vigorous.
Matt: Thanks for your reply- it was very helpful. I am in Bloomsburg, which is about an hour and a half south of Scranton. I do not know much about the different fuji sports, but from what I could see BC#2 sounded like the best of those I listed. After taking a closer look at Karmijn de Sonnaville, I do have some potential concerns: scab, triploid, and my climate (I am not really in a similar moderate environment of the Netherlands). The taste sounds out of this world, and a good keeper as well. Is it a good cropper? I would like to find another apple option that has a Cox lineage besides SunCrisp.
I really do not know where I fit into the northern/cold vs southern/hot weather spectrum. I feel like I am somewhere in between. I was wondering about sweet sixteen this as some people consider it an apple that may do better in ācolderā weather.
Hambone: Thanks- you provide a good rationale for your choices. MonArk sounds like a great apple, but it is earlier than I would like. I think Grimes and Goldrush are great options. Smokehouse has my attention now too. I had written it off since Adams describes it as more of a processing apple, but it really does seem to fit what I am looking for!
I intend to spray the trees and bag the apples. I would like to work toward a minimal spray schedule. I am happy to eat imperfect fruit.