Try Orin and otherJapanese varieties. Your wife is likely to enjoy it.
It’s the Crunch a Bunch which are 14 brix (at least some of them). I haven’t seen a Goldrush above 11 brix this year. Maybe it had some leaf issues, but I don’t normally have pristine apple leaves, so I didn’t notice anything too bad. I think the bigger issue was that it was massively overloaded. I’ve been leaving them on hoping they would sweeten, but I tested again today and they are still 10-11 brix and most of the leaves have now crisped or dropped, so that’s probably as good as they get. Maybe I’ll see if my parents want them for applesauce. I don’t see any other use for them, though if I tell my wife that she would insist on eating them to avoid the waste.
It sounds like in addition to thinning better next year I should hit them with at least a spritz of fungicide when I spray the peaches for brown rot (alternating Indar and Luna Sensation this year, though I should have done 1 last spray as my latest season peaches rotted). The tree isn’t that big, so it would be 15 seconds well spent…
My trees are still loaded with healthy leaves and green Goldrush kept getting sweeter turning yellow as we had plenty of sunny days in the '60’s through the first half of Nov. Apples hanging in parts of my nursery not adequately protected with fungicide suck but even where not adequately thinned the quality is still good where leaves remain on trees.
The most valuable lesson I learned this year aside from the apparent efficacy of two summer fungicide sprays was that if you can’t thin early, thin late. The sweetness of the fruit is decided late and ratio of leaves to fruit matters the most then for brix- in the month before harvest. There just isn’t enough photosynthesis happening on the fruit itself, even though it has functioning chlorophyll.
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I have had GoldRush massively overset and produce garbage apples. My guess is that is all that happened here.
Have you had any problems with early defoliation? Just wondering the range of experiences your guess is based on.
Not usually. This year I did though, the cicadas made a few trees very unhappy and they never really recovered. My GoldRush were tasty, all two that the deer left for me.
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In my area I’m seeing an increasing problem with early defoliation, which I presume is from Marsoninna leaf blotch and I believe when it happens well before fruit is ripe, quality suffers a great deal. I haven’t studied the issue close enough to entirely trust my evaluation and early defoliated trees are often also overloaded with fruit, especially this year.
You are lucky not to have this problem there…yet.
Bob- Did you produce those apples without sprays? Steve
This may have played a part- my Golden Russet are still quite good 16-20 brix, even though I probably under-thinned a bit (not as bad as Goldrush though).
Now, Golden Russet still has some decent leaves:
Goldrush on the other hand only has crisped brown leaves:
I’m not sure when they got that way. The last pic I could find was from 8/31, and while it was dark, it seemed like the leaves were OK.
No, it just looks that way 
I didn’t do any summer sprays, which is why they look so bad. The apples got:
5/17: Avaunt, Actara, Luna Sensation, and Tactic sticker (early stone fruit got Avaunt and Infuse a couple weeks earlier)
5/31: Avaunt, Actara, Indar, and Tactic sticker
I also sprayed stone fruit on 6/9 and 7/11 with fungicide. I may have hit a few apples too at the time. I should have done another fungicide spray in early August, at least for the late peaches and probably for apples too, just to make sure they keep their leaves longer.
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I think that will likely be very helpful.
I sprayed fungicide 3 times before bagging. The last spray was some time in June.
The fruit all look good. The leaves got various fungal diseases, I believe. They defoliated by early Oct. The older trees got worse than the newer ones.
Pink Lady. I took the bags out recently.
Suncrisp is relatively new tree (3years old). The leaves look the best.
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@mamuang Someone here suggested a September fungicide to hit Marssonina Leaf Blotch. I’m going to try it.
Yes, I plan to do additional spray of fungicide, one in mid summer and the other in late summer.
@BobVance’s pics also showed us how sooty bloch and fly specks could do to apples, the fruit. Fungicide will help, too.
I had the defoliation on one tree. Young apple trees with no fruit still have their leaves. I’ll spray fungicide next year and see what happens. Fortunately I don’t mind tart apples so I can eat the gold rush that are still green with medium brown seeds on November 20. Even though not sweet the flavor is strong.
I’m mad that they called it “Baker’s Delight”. It implies that it isn’t great for fresh eating, but sounds like it is.
It is very good if you like apples on a sweeter side. It was mediocre the first year setting fruit but its quality has much improved the second year and there after.
Never mind the name Baker’s Delight, they do Crunch A Bunch injustice for giving it such a silly name. This apple is as good as Gold Rush.
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Baker’s Delight is as good as Gold Rush?
No, not Baker’s Delight. It’s the Crunch A Bunch that is as good as, if not better than Gold Rush.
I like Crunch A Bunch more than Gold Rush because the texture is lighter, not as dense as GR and it ripen a few weeks earlier. In my zone 6a, Crunch A Bunch ripens in time. Gold Rush often does not ripen in time before it gets too cold.
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Glad to hear your rave about Crunch a Bunch. Gurneys lists resistance to scab and blight, which probably means not resistant to rust. I’m looking to graft over my Goldrush and eliminate spraying for rust and the new Leaf Blotch fungus. So I guess CAB is not the answer unless it gets only a mild case of rust vs Goldrush’s horrible susceptibility.
I had only about 2 years to compare Marrsonina leaf blotch between my Gold Rush and my Crunch A Bunch. Both received the same fungicide treatments 2 sprays of myclobutanil and 2 sprays of Indar. (Last spray in early summer)
Gold Rush defoliated badly both years. Crunch A Bunch was minimally affected. Then, last year, I learned from @alan about myclobutanil plus Captan for summer spray against Marrsonina leaf blotch. It appeared to work.
This year I have planned to spray the same mix but, so far, rain has not stopped. It has rained a lot and often.