I’ll admit my farm is in flood plain heavy clay wetlandesque soils… everything I do pretty much gets built up on mounds just to get it out of the water. It always presents somewhat of a challenge.
In that case, forget I suggested MM106
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PM Sent
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If 39th doesn’t have it, The Temporate Orchard Conservancy does:
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I’ve not gotten into cider making. But, I do have Campfield as well as Redfield…so it has occurred to me.
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I have the "api étoilé ’
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I did manage to find some Scion from one of the vendors suggested thank you everyone! I’ll be sure to let everyone know how the grafts take. If they fail I’ll be sure to revisit this thread! Look forward to seeing everyone on other threads.
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I keep coming back to this thread to look at the pictures, I really just want to run my hands over that apple! I risk sounding like a weirdo for sure, but much less so here than anywhere else. 
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They are beautiful!
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When you say you enjoying breeding apples, do you mean you are experimenting with growing trees from seed and finding out how they turn out?
Some of us are experimenting with growing seedling fruit trees. Some people are at the point of getting fruit from their new varieties, while others aren’t as far along (e.g., I just started my first seedlings this spring).
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Shame the sternapi is all looks but no taste from what I’m reading.
Just market them as apple pumpkins and they’ll be a winner 
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In terms of apple breeding, I’m just starting to get the source materials for my program. But in terms of other fruits, I’m much further along with some that I consider my main projects. I’ve been doing some since I was 16 (I’m now 28) 
. But I have some specific goals in mind for apples 
.
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Dustin,
From what you’ve said, you may want to stay quiet about your work.
However, if you are interested in talking about it a bit more, it would be interesting to hear what other types of plants you’re breeding and how you are obtaining source material for apples.
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Apples I don’t mind sharing considering I’ve just recently started. Most of my sourcing is from public swaps, private collections, and occasionally I’ll dip into the public domain of buying things. The other stuff as you’ve said are rather closely guarded. I’m well aware of plant breeding wars. Most likely won’t be sharing any of that… unless I’m either dying or patenting it 
.
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I will say though Che has recently been on my radar to consider starting. Seems China has the US slaughtered in that race, but who says we can’t catch up considering how long importation takes and don’t get me started on the red tape around it ugh 
.
Recently have considered breeding my own “Apistar sternapi” considering it’s patented from a German company. However, the crab apple cross it started from with Api etoile is known and certainly piqued my curiosity. Working on tracking down said crab apple. You cross that crab apple to get the star shape and include something delicious in the genetics, you’d be rather rich after you survive the wallet beating it takes to patent something in the plant world. Also would take a lot of luck or I’m sure it would’ve already been done. Wouldn’t be shocked to hear that there’s seedlings in some experimental orchard already.
I’d love to figure out the mystery behind “Cotton candy” grapes 
if anyone has seen those or heard any starting points there. Made my own raisins with them in my dehydrator, darn were they good!
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Dustin, while I certainly don’t want to rain on your parade, I’m not sure it’s quite as simple as that.
A lot of the newer commercially successful apples became successful in part due to large advertising budgets. Sure, it was necessary to have a good apple - but I’m not sure just having a good apple by itself was enough.
If you come up with something really good and patent it but have limited financial means beyond that, your best bet might be to license your new variety to nurseries for a royalty payment of two or three dollars per tree. If people like it and it does well, you might make the equivalent of a good salary for the next 20 years or so from the royalties.
Now, let me point out that my knowledge of this area is limited and could be completely wrong, so take this with a grain of salt.
You have obviously spent a significant amount of time learning about the apple market and know far more about it than I do.
I’m just cautioning you that succeeding in that market in a big way may take significant capital. However, if you find a good way to win substantial market share for a new apple at a much lower cost than it has typically required in the past, then you might end up doing very well. This might very well be possible thanks to social media, crowd funding, etc.
Something I can tell you is that in some very different areas (certain technologies and types of products, for example), there’s a lot of stuff that is better than what we have that never makes it to the market (e.g., there isn’t anyone with the right skills and the financial to champion it and make it into a commercial success) or ends up getting beaten in the marketplace by inferior products for one reason or another.
This isn’t meant to discourage you. Actually, from what little I’ve heard about what you’re doing, I think it’s great. It’s just that it’s good to understand what hurdles you may face so that if and when you run into them, you don’t get discouraged and give up. Knowing about likely hurdles also gives you the opportunity to try to “think out of the box” and see if you can find ways to go around the hurdles (thus avoiding them) instead of running straight into them.
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