Not sure, Mike, I’ve not kept them very long as I gave them away to pie-making friends. The flesh is firm and low-moisture so I would guess with the right conditions, they would last a good while. Many of them had few blemishes I was surprised to see; in previous years I had quite a bit of worm damage and some scab. I did have that black smudge this year, but that scrubbed right off for the most part. I’m wondering if weather patterns affect apple quality. Like some hard rains after the fruit set, things like that. We did have very different weather last spring than normal. We’ll see how my old girl does this year! Heading out soon to clip scions off the top, this photo was taken after a professional pruning. It now has quite a few scions bristling all over the top again. Here are the apples halfway grown
In NY 150 year old trees are no oddity and I work on scores of them. If I managed a Wolf River I would quickly graft it over to another or other varieties- who needs hundreds of pounds of big, bland fruit every year- OK they do have some tartness like many of the cold hardy, early Russian types but besides sauce and as baked apples they aren’t particularly useful according to my palate.
I planted one in my own orchard more than 25 years ago, tantalized by its reputation of disease resistance- it now holds Whitcomb crab, Jonaprince, and Honeycrisp. I do love certain heirlooms which are on other trees in my orchard- Spitz, Newtown and King David especially, but many of the heirloom varieties in orchards I manage are not highly prized- maybe because people don’t dry or make butter out of apples as much as they used to. Early ripening heirlooms in particular tend toward tart foaminess and are pleasing to only a lucky few (they can have as many of them as they like!). Most no one bothers to harvest.
Incidentally, I think the dude is far too conservative in pruning methods and is mistaken to cut back annual shoots half way instead of either cutting back to 2-year wood or complete removal. Cut back annual wood half way and you create a Medusa’s head situation with the heads being numerous vegetative shoots that block the leaves that are feeding fruit. In healthy, vigorous trees you usually eliminate the most vigorous annual wood entirely and than pick and choose the shoots of moderate growth for spur renewal- there will be more than you want. Many varieties produce their best fruit on the 2-year wood of moderate shoots. Wolf river can also fruit on the tips of one year shoots (tip bearing) as made evident by pairs of short shoots on the tips of last years shoots shown in the video. The shoots are short because most energy went into the apple.
Learning how to prune free standing trees is getting difficult- you used to be able to check out commercial orchards to see how open the trees should be, but now must of them grow apple bushes (dwarfs) that require much less pruning and are difficult to compare to vigorous trees.
OH, NO! I live only about 85 miles from Fremont, WI, where Wolf River was found. It’s a local favorite and is at it’s best around here (full sun, sandy soil), which I suppose is the reason for its initial appeal to collectors way back in 1875, so I feel bound to stick up for it.
The apples are dry, not bland. They are huge but light weight, which means they soak up whatever flavors they’re cooked with, and, I suppose, would be great for drying if anyone ever did that anymore. People do still bake pies though, and nothing (with the possible exception of Northern Spy) makes a better pie. You need only two.
Which means foamy to me. However, I can see that I’ve trudged on some important nostalgia here and regional loyalty. There are some people who also love Yellow Transparent, another foamy apple. However, in the orchards I manage, it is the apples that taste great right off the tree that tend to be most popular and less likely to go to waste, which is what I really hate.
I eat raw apples every day but divide culinary usage with a wide range of fruit species. Of heirlooms in NYS it is Spitz that is often considered the best of cookers with RI Greening running second. I love both right off the tree. Both are reasonably dense apples and high brix. To may palate, high brix and high acid ls the holly grail.
I actually love the “foamy” textured apples. I understand they aren’t popular, but they just taste good to me. I have a super “foamy” seedling tree. The apples from it are perfect for drying and nice to eat fresh for the very short time they are at prime condition (they don’t store well in the fresh form).
It’s also possible to love ‘Wolf River’ with no regional nostalgia associated as I love it and am from no where near where it originated. I think what’s important to remember is some of these old apple varieties stick around because people actually do like them even if they don’t meet mainstream (or your personal) preferences.
I have one client that loves foamy apples- she is originally from Russia and grew up pretty poor. Those foamy apples were a luxurious treat for her. I grew up in CA and Newtown Pippins from the Santa Cruz area were my favorite apples as a boy. To me, the density of their flesh is just perfect. Tastes in food is often strongly related to early experiences.
One joy of having an orchard is you can grow the types you love- the downside of liking foamy apples is that they probably don’t store well.
Yes! I have fond West Central Indiana memories of my Mom’s Yellow Transparent apple sauce. During the multi-year process of selecting a couple dozen varieties for my back yard in Wisconsin, Tony Demski (maplevalleyorchards.com) was not forthcoming about planting Yellow Transparent here. I suppose he felt there wasn’t enough daylight although Yellow Transparent is an early season apple.
… and so it is with Wolf River in Wisconsin and Yellow Transparent in Indiana. It’s all about terrior.
Wolf River is a dry apple to begin with, so juice, jelly, and sauce are not — IMNSHO — optimal uses. You have dispensation to slip a slice or two into the pan with your breakfast bacon though.
Heirlooms tend to be more finicky about soil and climate and their relation to quality of the apples- there is no sense in patenting an apple that only produces popular fruit in a narrow regional belt.
I still would be surprised to learn that Wolf River is a top seller at farm markets in Wisconsin, or YT in Indiana- but then, Honeycrisp is no big thrill to me in spite of its popularity. I suspect its quality is consistently higher in northern climates where it ripens towards the end of the season instead of our warm, early Sept. There is now an early HC sport, but I’d be more interested in a later one that would ripen here under cooler temps.
You’re probably right. There’s no overwhelming demand for wholesale quantities. That doesn’t mean roadside stands here and there don’t do a land-office business, catering to a handful of loyal customers with peculiar tastes. My impression is that old folks go out of their way to locate Wolf River in season. That they do so out of habit notwithstanding. Girls won 4-H prizes back in the day for Wolf River pies, which needed only two or three perfect apples that wouldn’t cook down to mush.
I know my Mom sought the Yellow Transparent “falls” from a local orchard every year because they were cheap and made a light-colored sauce. The pigs and the chickens got the scraps and the fibrous pomace.
I do not see any local orchards around my area ( or even within an hour of me) that grows Wolf River apples. I would be interested in trying a bag full of them. Not sure they would do well here so perhaps that is the reason the Wolf River apple is not grown here. Even though I have seen the Wolf River apple trees being sold at the big box stores in my area.
I picked the variety for my first ‘frankentree’…have kept a couple limbs…and someday I’ll get an apple or maybe a half dozen. (And if they’re no good, graft over the rest of the limbs.)
How long has it been growing. My recollection is that WR is reasonably precocious. Here it bears well before I start thinking about baking apples or storing them at all. That is part of my fall.
