I bought some russet apples(tagged as russet, no variety name). Did googling to try to figure out what variety. It’s kind of like razor russet or hoopoes antique gold. The apple is big. Flavour is stronger than GD. Flesh is coarse.
Scott, any clue on razor or hooples?
Thanks
It looks like Razor to me, Razor can have little bumps on the surface and I think I see some. Hooples is more smooth. Also Razor has more coarse flesh than Hooples. It does look like one of those two for sure.
Thanks. I am relieved！It’s not hooples! flavour and texture don’t meet my expectation for this apple. I have planted 2 hooples last year based on reviews. Hope hooples wouldn’t disappoint me.
I wouldn’t judge any variety on one batch of apples, especially if I didn’t know the growing conditions.
No I do not but have read about it.
I went through some of my varieties ending at Coe’s Golden Drop the last time here are a few more observations.
Cornish Aromatic (Cornwall 1500) - Medium size fruit, late season. Excellent HQ dessert variety. Dull scarlet, netted pattern on skin, russetted, very crisp and aromatic. Would keep until about March but we eat all of them. Light but regular cropper so that is a drawback but once they bore for the first time last year I grafted more trees of this variety this year.
Court of Wick (England late 1700’s) - Medium size fruit that ripens late. Crisp with rich, sweet, yellow flesh. The ripe apples have a complex acid drop flavor. The skin is splashed red, with gold russetting. Thought to be a Golden Pippin seedling. Acid drop flavor is one of my favorite attributes in an apple.
Devonshire Quarrenden (Normandy 1678) - One of our best early apples, with medium fruit of stunning deep red. Fruit has a strawberry flavor and are sweet, juicy and crisp.
Discovery (England 1949) - One of my favorites. Early dessert variety that is medium sized with bright red flush. Great tasting flavor, red fleshed, and stays crisp longer than most early apples.
Esopus Spitzenberg (New York mid 1700’s) - Not so unusual but a great tasting variety. Medium size fruit ripens mid season. Mottled orange red skin with excellent flavor. Always a top rated variety in our apple tastings.One of the favorites of president #3.
Etter’s Gold (California) - An Albert Etter variety, one of my favorites of his many named seedlings. I always take this variety to grafting classes I teach. Fruit is round, large, and golden yellow. Ripens over a long period and the trees are exceptionally heavy bearers.
Golden Harvey (England 1600) - Also called the Brandy Apple, as it makes very strong cider due to the high specific gravity of the juice. Fruit is small and uniformly golden, and has an intense sweet flavor when ripe in late October.
Hen’s Turds (England) - a bittersharp cider variety. What a bizarre but cool name for a cider variety. Haven’t had enough fruit from this variety yet to make into cider but they are bittersharp like Foxwhelp and Kingston Black.
I always liked the name Ashmead’s Kernel, but Hen’s Turds is the first variety I’ve ever heard of that would be worth growing just for the name.
I agree w/ alan…how productive, disease resistant, etc. would a nice hens turd be?
That’s up there with “Slack Ma Girdle.” Old English cider apple.
I googled hens turds and found an article on rare english fruit that also mentioned “shit smock” plums…even better.
Since you brought it up, how about Goose’s Arse, a rare Welsh apple. As an added bonus, the website actually has a photo that shows how it does look like its namesake 
Posting about growing Hen’s Turds had me go through my list of other oddly named apple varieties that we grow at our Hocking Hills Orchard and they are:
Bloody Butcher
Bloody Ploughman
Catshead
Coeur de Boeuf (Heard of the Bull)
Duck’s Bill
Forty Shillings
Hangy Down
Hoary Morning
Lady Finger of Bledington
Lady Finger of Offafaly
Minkler Molasses
Nodhead
Nonnetit Bastart
Pig Aderyn (Bird’s Beak)
Puckrupp Pippin
Sheep’s Nose
Silvercup
Sops of Wine
Tarbutton
Teton de Demoiselle (Woman’s Breast Apple)
Trwyn Mochin (Pig’s Snout)
Coeur de Boeuf is Heart of the Bull not Heard of the Bull!
Not a great year for apples in our orchad. Honey Crisp, McIntosh and Cortland all had big time Coddling Moth issues. I should have sprayed more but got lazy due to all of the dry weather (scab wasn’t an issue for a change). Next season everything stays on a strict spray schedule. Cortland was the best producer out of the 3 this year. Most of my trees in production are standard size in their 6th growing season.
Seven winters ago I began scooping out the wood chips and manure from the duck shed and spreading it among the raspberries. The vines grew to 10 feet long and the crops got big. It has been four years since a family of raccoons chewed through my little flock. No more manure-laced chips. The vines grow to about 5 feet, but the crop is still abundant: 12 gallons in ziplocks in the freezer, besides all those we ate fresh over breakfast.
In the meantime, several apples were eliminated and the next wave is coming to bear. Bardsey is an excellent tree and fruit - I just have to leave most of the tips on it so I’ll get crop next season. Sturmer Pippin got more calcium and the fruit came through just fine in its second year of any fruit. Winekist surprised me by blooming in its third leaf and so I left two fruits on it to clinch ID. Yep, ripe at the end of July, 2 inches tall and wide, red as a beet within and 12 Brix. I can hardly wait until it has enough fruit to make a Tarte Tatin! It should be stunning and tasty.
The Rambour Franc continues to gain height and breadth. It has excellent branch angles and gives me hope for debut fruit next year.
D’Arcy Spice bloomed again near the top and all fruit fell by the morning after we hit 90F in the end of June. Three years running. Since it is a light bearing tree to begin with and this has become a pattern, even in a wet and cool summer by our standards, it needs replacing. I will try another small vigor variety on the Bud 118 root stock.
Both red fleshed apples (Winekist and Redfield) appear to be slender stemmed and likely to droop onto pedestrians on the sidewalk and vehicles driven by. Without space in the yard to place them, I’ve talked to neighbors who agree to allow them to reside on their lots - neither will require any help against disease or insects and yield lovely crops as they mature.
Eight apples are too young to fruit, but a couple of them may start next season.
Oh, and a whip I bought as bench graft for a sister I just learned is not at all welcomed by her husband. Will ponder how to fit it into this yard, as I want to know how Wynoochee Early will handle Spokane summers. It should ripen at the same time as Rambour Franc. Which will be best?
This was first year of good production on my 2 4 year old apple trees. I have a bunch of grafts on them but so far the ones that impress me the most are honeycrisp (very susceptible to moth unfortunately), I think my new fav Shizuka (apples are huge!) and my fiance loves Pixie Crunch (kinda like honeycrisp, but apples half the size, great snack size for kids).
This year was a bad apple year for me (established trees overproduced last year) and I don’t have much in production yet anyhow. Next year will be better and I should be trying my first homegrown Goldrush and several others. We usually have plenty of apples from 5 mature standard trees (though not exciting varieties) so I was looking forward to really sampling through some of the 100+ at our local orchard, but due to an unexpectedly busy fall we never made it out even once!
All this means I’ve been exploring grocery store apples again this fall. Not so disappointing as it once was (though commercial Honeycrisp seem to keep getting worse and worse - I’m usually a Pink Lady kinda guy). Tried several new varieties, some of which are quite promising. Jazz and SweeTango didn’t overly impress me on flavor but they probably weren’t great examples. A couple varieties worth mentioning are Green Dragon and Opal. Green Dragon is a light green apple with prominent brown lenticels and has the same parentage as Mutsu and Shizuka (Golden Delicious x Indo) and was bred in Japan in 1920 but more recently trademarked and grown in the US. It is crunchy but not hard, definitely a sweet apple with little acidity (I prefer sweet/tart) but was very aromatic and had an interesting tropical pear/honeydew flavor. I enjoyed them for their uniqueness.
I found some Opal at Trader Joe’s a few days ago. It is a modern Czech variety and is a cross between Golden Delicious x Topaz (which has Lord Lambourne and James Grieve in its parentage). The ones I had (see photo below) were very large 10.5 - 12oz each with a beautiful, even golden color. It was crunchy and soft in texture with pretty extraordinary flavor - very aromatic with peardrop, tropical punch and a hint of green Jolly Rancher (my wife didn’t taste the latter). I don’t like artificial flavors but rather than being off-putting, I found the flavor overall to be complex and intriguing (I appreciate intensity in flavor - exercise for your tastebuds!). Unlike Green Dragon it had some balancing tartness though still leaned toward the sweet side. I think there’s only 1 licensed grower in the US so I don’t suppose I’ll be getting a hold of scionwood anytime soon (sigh).
Considering the strong resurgence of cider in recent years and interesting dessert apples becoming more common in commerce I’m starting to think perhaps the Golden Age of American Apples is yet to come…
Cheers,
Kirk
I agree, Opal is a top apple in my opinion. It has a really unique flavor and has been talked about here often. Wish I could get some scionwood. lol
I had the same experience with Honey Crisp and Pink Lady this fall. We used to flock to this apple when it became available in local Supermarkets, but this year every time I shopped I would buy a few and every time I was disappointed. Lots of juice but no flavour. What has happened to our favourite apples? Pink Lady at least was suppose to the the cream of the crop of Cripps Pink.
I understand that as northern people we get our fruit after shipping and storage, but even so, these two apples were very good in the past. Enough so that we would share the info on where to buy the good ones with our friends. Not this year.
