There where so many positive comments about Hawkeyes in the thread Death of Red Delicious: Premium 'Club' Apples Are Taking Over . I thought I would ask about peoples experience with the original Yellow Delicious. Does anyone grow the original tree how is it different from all the sports?
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Alan has mentioned several times having multiple old trees he manages and that the older strains of gd are much better fruit…apparently most or all grocery fruit is low-russet sports of the original and inferior in all ways non-cosmetic
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Yellow Delicious properly tree-ripened is a good apple. I think folks here have talked up Hooples Antique Gold (a GD sport). I’m a fan of Smoothee grown here in IA, which is a sport that is supposed to be highly russet-resistant. I believe it often goes by Improved GD, because apparently the name is trademarked, but by who, I don’t know.
I have Mullins, the original Yellow D. It has not fruited yet.
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My Mullins came from a old local orchard. They let me collect scion in exchange for working a day. They had an impressive collection of apples. It was especially impressive because they were planted before the internet. I have 3 or 4 sports of Golden D. Delicious is not the most exotic thing you can grow but, they tree ripened fruit is hard to beat.
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Yellow Delicious is probably one of my most asked about varieties. It’s hard to tell people that they should try something they’ve never heard of versus a great apple they grew up with. My father always loved Yellow Delicious, so I tracked it down for him.
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I would like to find an online nursery that sells the original Hawkeye and original Mullins Golden Delicious apple trees not just the scions. I tried looking at several sites but none mentioned being the Hawkeye or Mullins varieties.
Thank you ahead of time for the help and information.
Century Farm Orchards shows inventory of Hawkeye and Hoople’s (or “Hopples”), which is a fully russeted GD sport, on M.111. Some of the forum members really like Hoople’s. I’m not sure if anyone sells Mullin’s.
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Turkey Creek Trees shows 5 Hawkeye on M111 still available.
Apple Trees for Sale | turkeycreektrees
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It seems 39th Parallel Nursery is the only one has both Mullins and Hawkeye. I don’t think he has any Mullins or Hawkeye trees available for next Spring, but you can special order benchgrafts or 1 year old trees for the year after.
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I did look at 39th Parallel Nursery first. I did not see any trees there. I thought Grandpa’s Nursery had the Mullins GD tree but when I looked they did not have it either.
I will contact them about getting trees for 2024 season perhaps.
Actually, Mike will graft and ship it this season if that’s what you’d like. I had him do 10 grafts for me a few years ago with great success.
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Thank you for that information. That is really helpful.