Tony, that would probably be Kidds Orange Red. Many of the older apples are not so crunchy which rules them out. For example Mother is even more fragrant than Kidds but is not particularly crunchy. Kidds is a parent of Gala and is somewhat similar.
Scott,
After reading reviews on Wickson on other sites I am thinking about growing one. Do you think it is worth growing here in Maryland? Also there seems to be confusion between the naming of Wickson and Crimson Gold. Who would be a reliable source to get Wickson from? I see Cummings carries Wickson.
Funny you should mention that⌠I just chopped down my last Wickson tree last night. On some thread here I posted pictures of my Wickson this year, let me find it.
They crack like this fairly often, and most of the crop was ruined this year. It also is highly prone to cedar apple rust. I donât think it is good at all for Maryland. Even when they were good I didnât find much to do with them, they do have a unique taste but are very chewy so after an apple or two they are not so exciting for fresh eating. They probably would be a good pie apple, but they stay extremely firm when cooked and may stay too firm. For cider they certainly are good. I could have used the above guys in cider but the bits of rot will put an off flavor in cider if there is too much of it.
Thanks Scott, That certainly saves me some trouble. I will try something else.
Scott,
Thank you for this personal report on your varieties!
I live in Georgia, zone 8a, so Iâm sure the info doesnât translate perfectly, but itâs a lot closer to my climate (hot, humid) than many lists Iâve seen.
I was thinking about a Goldrush, and your positive experience confirmed my decision to order it. Easy to grow and great tasting sounds like a winner.
(I also ordered a Galarina, which you havenât grown, just because everyone in my family loves Galas.)
And finally, I was going to play it safe and order another of the newer disease resistant varieties, but I decided to order a Rubinette instead, thanks to your glowing reviews. Hopefully it gives me some good fruit, but Iâm much more excited about trying this than ordering, say, a Liberty (which you say is a bug magnet anyway) or an Enterprise.
The other apple I was thinking about ordering was an Akane (for early fruit) but your experience steered me away from that. I can imagine your problems with it would only be magnified here.
And now, Iâm also thinking about a Black Limbertwig. I had thought about it (having a native Georgia apple tree in my landscape appealed to me) but never knew anyone who grew it, and didnât want to buy it without some reports on it. But now, Iâm thinking maybe I might try to find some scion wood of this and see how it goes.
Thanks again for sharing your experience! It is very helpful.
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I donât have any particular reason for the most looking forward to trying a winesap, perhaps its the name, elegance sounding but it peaks my curiosity. It will be probably at least 2019 before I taste one but am a bit let down you didnât get to taste this one. I feel robbed⌠LOL! 
I should add that I immensely enjoyed this read as again I love everything apple. Though Iâm in W Michigan, Iâm happy to hear your thoughts in & around Maryland.
I have a Winesap tree that I got from Loweâs last year. It was about 6ft tall when I put it in the ground in May. Soon after that, it got its leaves stripped up to about 4ft up and some branches damaged by a deer, so I put 4ft fencing around it and all my other fruit trees. But it recovered nicely over the summer and grew almost two more feet, and put on some new branches.
Since itâs so big now, I might let it set a few fruit next year; none of other apple trees are that big yet, so no fruit for them next year. My next tallest tree is a Grimes Golden, at about 6ft, but doesnât have many branches.
I did sample some Winesaps from a local orchard, and they were in my top 5 out of maybe 30 varieties that we sampled. Big fruit, slightly crisp, but juicy with a good sweet/tart balance. They donât keep a real long time, but thatâs OK. Now whether my Winesap produces similar fruit weâll have to see.
BTW, there are other Michiganders on this forum, @Drew51, @chartman, @Sue-MiUPz3 and @Chills are just a few, so they could offer some comments on your choices.
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Matt_in_Maryland
Mar '15
Scott, you might consider trying the Pink Lady âMaslinâ strain. It is supposed to ripen a few weeks earlier than the original âCrippsâ variety. One of the local orchards here grows it, and it tastes great at November harvest. The apples are a bit smaller, but I think they have a superior flavor & texture, and keep better in cold storage. Sometimes Willow Drive carries it.
Thanks Matt, Iâll add that one to my queue of varieties I want to try.
Scott
Did you end up adding that variety Scott?
No but its on my list. In the past I grafted too many apples to the same stock so now I just âvirtually addâ them, I put them in the queue and they eventually make it to the top as I remove other varieties. One advantage of this is I often get overly excited about a variety, now instead of already having that guy grafted when I cool on it I can just delete it from the queue ⌠a lot less work overall 
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So your saying you have like a apple netflix exchange.
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I donât have a winesap (in fact never tried one either)⌠Add it to the list eventuallyâŚ
I only have a honeycrisp (poorly sited has bloomed but not fruited yet,
A Liberty ⌠Fruited 2 years much better last year than its first
A Sweet Sixteen⌠Fruited in a pot ( I kind of forgot it) hasnât fruited since I severed the roots and put it into the ground. It gave us 3 of the best (and largest) apples Iâve ever had.
And a Gimes Golden that is horribly sited and has never bloomed or fruited (and its 8 years old). After all that time, itâs still only about 6 feet tall too.
When I got into this I focused on things I couldnât get in stores and that wouldnât likely require spraying (hazelnuts, pawpaws, mulberries, etc)
My wish list for apples is small right now, I have had limited success with grafting (persimmon last year) and I would like to add Rhode Island Greening to my Liberty. Why that variety? Simple, Iâm originally from Rhode Island (though I cannot recall ever having tried one)âŚanyone got one of these?
Scott
I grow it as well as get some off old trees at a local orchard. I like it. As a baking apple, it really excels, but I enjoy eating them out of hand, as well. It does not have the complexity of flavor of, say, Ashmeadâs Kernel, but it is a good to very good tart dessert apple. Itâs been disease free for me. Compared to what is said online about it, I have found a little less of an tendency to be biennial, but not as long a storage life (I may be picking them too late, though, as I let them ripen on the tree for fresh eating).
I wondered if it was less likely to be targeted by insects and diseases, or if it was able to be grown without modern pesticides and anti-fungals only because the vectors for such things was decreased in the past ( due to smaller orchards and less pressures from fewer introduced issues. ( many pests we battle are from elsewhere now a days)
Scott
My Rhode Island Greening is productive and fairly disease resistant thus far. I use it for pies. I usually just use Surround soaked footies although I got hit hard from caterpillars last season. I will look at scions possibilities. I usually let it over produce and get scrappy scions. It is on B9 in a container. I picked it initially as Greening is an old family name of mine.
Reading through your experiences, Scott, Iâm thinking I will look into try to get and graft Hooples Antique Gold, Rubinette, and maybe Kidds Orange Red onto existing tree(s). I was already planning on adding Williams Pride. I know WP has some disease resistance; do the others as well? We will be doing minimal spray/as much organic as possible so Iâm trying to avoid bringing in anything very disease prone. (Right now we have Liberty, Sundance, Pristine, Gold Rush, Pomme Gris, Dolgo Crab, and Honeycrisp. . .the last is my husbandâs favorite so we have to give it a try. We also have a big unknown apple that we want to graft other varieties to.)
How has Pitmaston Pineapple handled disease pressure? I saw you said some English apples didnât work for you. My climate is probably pretty similar â Shenandoah Valley of Va.
I like most apples. . .I like everything from Golden Delicious to Gala to Pink Lady. But I definitely prefer the flavor and sweet-tartness of apples like GoldRush and Pink Lady.
In my orchard I find the varieties touted as disease resistant are not all that much better overall. So, WP was officially bred as disease-resistant, but it got bad water core so I didnât keep it. The primary goal of the disease resistant breeding programs is scab, but I donât have much problem with it â it gets hot early here and the scab usually fries in the heat.
The ones you mention have all been pretty reasonable for me. About half the English apples I tried were not good but the other half were good. Pitmaston Pineapple I have had bad luck on rootstock so I donât have all that many years of fruiting on it but when it did fruit I had few problems with it.
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Scab isnât too big a concern for me unless a variety is super susceptible. Iâve seen CAR destroy a tree though, and of course fireblight is a concern.
I just donât want to bring in something that will be very likely to fail, or worse, be an infection harbor. You always seem to note if something gave you a lot of trouble so thatâs why I asked about those varieties specifically.
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@scottfsmith, any more experience with American Summer Pearmain?
My graft took on a tree of mine, still waiting for fruit. Slow grower, spindly growth.
We waited nine years, only to discover it wasnât actually an American Summer Pearmain (why we donât use Antonovka for our own grafting and no longer buy from nurseries that only use Antonovka). Nothing three years after we planted a replacement on B9, so we, too, are waiting. However, I think we might have a better experience once fruiting starts here in the Finger Lakes than Scott has in his location.
At some point I removed most of my summer apples, I realized I didnât need too many as they are just for immediate eating. I removed ASP then. Looking at my logs, the main downside was it never set a lot. The flavor was good, what I call âcreamyâ, also aromatic and sweet. But it was also not consistent in quality from fruit to fruit. So I pulled it out. The only early apples I have left are Pristine, Ginger Gold, Early Joe, and State Fair. The first two (P/GG) and the second two (EJ/SF) are sort of similar pairs so I really could be OK with just one of each of those. All of these four I like a lot. I also still have Laxtonâs Fortune, Goden Nugget, MonArk, and Cherryville Black, those are several weeks later though.
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