Wickson is an amazing apple. The only drawback is the small size, with heavy thinning I can get them almost to racketball size.
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Wickson didn’t do well for me again this year. They split badly and yellow jackets tore them up. Basically a small, Dolgo sized, intensely sour/sweet, apple. This is the 3rd year of bearing and I had really high hopes for them. They very well may make a good cider apple but eating them fresh is frustrating. A surprisingly better apple was the Muscat de Venus. Almost as grapey flavored as those apples sprayed with the grape flavored syrup. Not quite as good as Chestnut but definitely worth eating. I’m grafting my Wicksons to MdV and Chestnut this spring
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Wickson is a week grower and somewhat susceptible to fire blight. Yummy little morsels though.
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On my multigraft tree Wickson is one of the most vigorous branches, along with some triploids.
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So people, we are in the heart of apple eating season- what are your best apples now?. As I always say, it isn’t so much how an apple tastes off the tree as how it tastes after about 2 months of storage and beyond. My Spitz are getting a bit soft and grainy but Goldrush is perfect. Pink Lady is very good also, but ripening season was a bit short here, so only the ripest apples made the grade. I have to go through my entire collection but the funny thing is how a variety can vary so much in its storage ability from apple to apple. A couple of weeks ago I ate a perfect Baldwin, but all I’ve had since have been grainy and too soft and only good for cooking.
Alan, check out the thread on that topic going now –
Re: Wickson, I don’t know if I have heard a strong positive on anyone growing it for 5+ years that is not in the northern tier or western US. Yes it tastes very unusual but you need massive yellowjacket traps, splitting, it gets extreme CAR, etc etc. Not a good apple for most of the US. I loved it for a few years due to the unique flavor but every year it got less interesting as I fought with it, and I finally took it out.
Hey @derekamills, put up your taste test results here! Enquiring minds want to know!
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I have tried out several different apples and there are several I haven’t tested. For me Pink Lady and Goldrush are at the top of my list for late season apples.
I just got my first taste of the new Evercrisp apple. It was really good. Tasted like a cross between Honeycrisp, Candycrisp, and Fuji. Excellent texture. Juicy super sweet yellow flesh hiding funny candy-like flavors. I really enjoyed it. I’ll post pics later…
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If you have any extra MdV wood, I’d certainly love to rehome it!
Don’t know if I have anything you’d like in trade though.
Wickson, here in Northern California near it’s birthplace and very similar zone is a strong upright grower. The taste is phenomenal at it’s peak and pretty unique, though there are some similarities in related apples. It cracks badly, it’s major downside here.
Muscat de Venus is very sweet, has some similar flavor to Wickson, or at least it would seem they are related. I’ve never had it taste like grapes. It is a low acid apple, so it falls a little flat for me. I always think I should love it, but I just don’t quite. I crossed it with some other apples last year, so maybe those will inject some life into it. It seems like it has high potential for breeding. Vixen is quite similar to wickson, but a lot bigger, verging on normal size at times. It is not as rich and intense, but it still is both. Amberoso, another from that etter group has fallen flat for me. It has some interesting flavorsm again similar to the etter/wickson group, but it just doesn’t appeal that much in the end. I have one Wickson seedling BITE ME! , that is quite good, but it got scab very bad this year, so that may end up being it’s downfall. We definitely don’t have as much disease here as a lot of folks back east do.
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Your BITE ME! scions took here in humid Maryland so we’ll find out!
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I like that name much more than Candycrisp, but I doubt it would encourage mothers to buy the fruit for their kids. Could market it as a beer snack apple, though.
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Reporting only on what I’m growing, Fuji best for eating…and a red fall apple that was supposed to have been MacIntosh but isn’t – is best for pies (I prefer it to granny Smith). Unidentified…but firm yellowish flesh, deep red skin. (Almost reminds of Arkansas black, but isn’t).
I mentioned this today in another thread on apples still in storage (started and referenced by Scott a few posts above) that Suntan was my best apple this year. It was high sugar, high acid, rich and quite intense, probably the most intense apple I’ve eaten, though that is difficult to judge across the years. It was certainly my most intensely flavored apple this year. If you like highly flavored apples, have some summer heat and disease pressure isn’t too high—it’s a Cox offspring, and though less difficult to grow than COP, it does have some issues—I highly recommend it.
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I just did some research on Evercrisp, and wouldn’t you know: it IS a cross between Honeycrisp and Fuji. It is just like its parents. Amazing.
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Ha, yeah, maybe, but you never know. The generations are always changing, Gen X would probably buy that for their kids. It’s not going to make it to the big leagues anyway. It was more of a political statement and it makes me laugh 
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Taste is subjective depending on who is doing it…but a seedling of a red delicious isn’t likely to win any taste tests…no matter what name you call it! Don’t know that I have a favorite…but of the modern apples, I’ll take a Honeycrisp or a Fuji. And I wouldn’t want to have to live on either of those every day.
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SouthEast Michigan here. Wickson crab grows great, produces a good crop (grafted onto B118 in 2013) of profoundly different apples…intense sour/sweet. I hope to convert some “not so interesting” trees or rootstock on over as I think I need a lot and want to ferment them out stand alone. No cracking here, actually beautiful little apples. The tree produces what maybe too many laterals, I may have to thin them out (branches) and they are very upright which I trained them all down - this is one of my favorite of my 30 varieties even though it is more labor than say… Liberty.
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More Evercrisp. This thing is no joke. If I had hundreds of extra dollars in my budget, I’d buy a tree right away. It is only available through the MAIA.
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