Unfortunately yes, not available in any nurseries
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Anji: my experience with russets has not been heartening. Am eliminating two that have created wooden golf balls for years. Unless you have a north facing slope, or someone with near desert conditions like ours has succeeded with something other than Hunt or Rosemary russets & will say so, I’d look to something else.
If you like lots of flavor, Lamb Abbey & GoldRush have done very well for me. Lamb Abbey ripens about August 25 in Spokane & may keep to Christmas. Maybe this year I can keep a couple of those apples until they go bad to find out.
Gold Rush comes ripe October 15-24 and may keep until May or June. I’ll be able to say how long this year. Lamb Abbey blooms mid-season and Gold Rush mid-late.
If you have Orléans Reinette, looking for a fairly late bloomer would be wise. OR is a triploid, so it won’t supply viable pollen for another crop set. Gold Rush might supply that need, if its bloom continues long enough to overlap that of OR.
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With you Orleans and Gravenstein being triploid, you really need another diploid variety.
Your Granny Smith alone may be be able to do the job cross pollinating the two tripliods you are growing.
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the granny is older and flowers already since two year, the other two are newer and just tried to blossom last spring. I may try the lamb abbey if so, I do like storage time
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I used to have Gravenstein grafted among 15 plus apple varieties on a tree. It bloomed abundantly and beautifully with other varieties. It set one fruit!!!
Typically, a triploid needs two other diploids to help it set fruit.
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Why would it need two if one diploid has appropriate pollen for it?
Of course, there is the problem with just one diploid getting its pollen if the other tree is a triploid.
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It shouldn’t, but unless the diploid is self-fertile, you’ll need two different diploids to ensure that they’re pollinated. The triploid won’t contribute.
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Well, I have three triploid trees (Red Gravenstein, Old Fashioned Winesap and Stayman) with just two diploids (Honeycrisp and Braeburn) and I have no pollination problems. Plenty of other problems though. Namely worms and varmints.
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That’s consistent with what I said. One diploid can supply pollen for one or more triploids, but unless it’s self-fertile, you need a second diploid to supply pollen for it. You do, so they all bear.
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If you are certain that there are no other crab apples or other apples trees in the five mile radius of your orchard, then you are fortunate.
Bees can travel far esp. honey bees.
I was not that fortunate. My Gravenstein with all blooms but almost no fruit set. It was in the middle of many other diploid blooms in my yard.
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I’ll admit, I have no ready explanation for that failure. Perhaps the difference in our climates is a factor. My Grav, like all of my triploids, is a heavy bearer. I do have a ton of diploids here as well, and there are many others in the area surrounding my orchard.
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What disappointed me most was that Gravenstein bloomed profusely. I thought it would set a good number but one fruit!! Varieties surrounded them were mostly diploids. The only “reason” I could think of was that it was the first year blooming.
Even my Red Bleinheim, another triploid, set a bit more fruit while having fewer blooms.
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Hope that it behaves better for you this season. It’s a lovely apple.
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I removed two multi grafted apple trees and about 30 varieties including Gravenstein that went with them. I don’t remember if I re-grafted it to other apple trees.
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I just now heard on the TV on an old western that it “only takes one worm to spoil an apple”. Haha - if that is true all my apples that I had in the fall were spoiled. The worms must have tasted okay because I either ate them fresh or made applesauce.
Well, back when I planted my triploid trees about 12 years ago my uncle who lived just across the road from me had Arkansas Black and Yellow Delicious apple trees. The Arkansas Black died, and the Yellow Delicious was cut down for unknown reasons. It is nice to know that apple trees within a five-mile radius will pollinate because I have two deer apple trees (Fuji and Yellow Delicious) at my deer hunting spot which about a half mile from my at-house orchard. I don’t know of any other apple trees within 5 miles although I’m sure there is.
However, I don’t see many honeybees around my apple trees. Mostly bumblebees. Do bumblebees travel far?
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Google said bumble bees can travel several hundred meters.
Around my area, we have crab apples in every neighborhood. Cross pollination for diploids is not an issue. Triploids are not as easy.
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Some apples can store conventionally for 6 months or more and still be good. But with one worm they won’t last weeks.
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I’m late arriving to this thread, but if you’re still looking for a second russet, I might have some recommendations. I, too, grow in the high desert, although I’m in the western Great Basin at double (or more…4700’ here) your altitude. It’s also hotter here, and if your soil is similar to what @NuttingBumpus grows in, yours is sandier than my clay-loam. I’m growing/have grown a number of russets. They aren’t easy for us, as many don’t like our low humidity coupled with daytime high heat.
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Rosemary Russet, which Nutting claims grows well for him, set its first crop for me this year on a third year graft. It set only a handful of fruit, but all are a flawless, beautiful dark russet, probably the prettiest russet I’ve ever grown. I don’t know how it tastes yet or if it will regularly produce such beautiful apples, but so far I’m impressed.
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Pitmaston’s Pineapple also makes pretty apples, and it tastes great. It has cropped several times for me now, so I’m more confident with this recommendation.
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American Golden Russet/Bullock crops well with few ugly apples. It also tastes excellent. Here, it’s everything I see written about Golden Russet of Western New York (English GR). EGR is a cracking, rotting, and generally dense, juiceless sugar bomb out here.
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Nonpareil (I have it as Old Nonpareil, but am confident one can drop the “Old”) makes small but very tasty apples. I’ve now cropped it twice and love it.
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Herefordshire Russet might be the best tasting of all the russets I’m growing. The tree is precocious, productive, and the apples are the juiciest of the russets I’ve tasted thus far.
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Roxbury Russet will deliver the cleanest batch of apples I’ve ever had from it within the next couple of weeks. I’ve had it for 13 years. It’s a regular producer, but most of the time it cracks a lot and tastes good, but not great.
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Winn Russet set its first crop this year (4th yr graft) atop my Roxbury Russet tree, and most apples look good, although not nearly as beautiful as Rosemary. Can’t comment on the taste yet.
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Swayzie. It hasn’t been a regular bearer, but when it does crop, the apples are fairly dense, fairly juicy, and quite flavorful. They aren’t as sharp as most I’ve commented on, but still have decent acidity and taste good.
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Razor Russet. Set its third crop here this year, and the first one with apples of decent size (RR has a reputation of producing small apples the first several years it crops = confirmed). It wasn’t pleasant the first two seasons, but this year holds some promise.
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Hoople’s Antique Gold. Like its sporty sibling, Razor, the first two or three seasons’ apples have been small and not very good. This year’s crop has better size. I hope that translates to better flavor and texture, as several growers here wax eloquently about HAG.
In the not fully russeted russet category, the following are setting their first small crops for me:
- Norfolk Royal Russet - beautiful pallete of colors plus russet. Just cut into the one pictured below. It’s complex with high acid and high sugars (19 Brix), but the starches aren’t fully converted. After a month in the fridge, I’d expect it to mellow a bit and deliver at least three more Brix. Still have several on the tree sugaring up. Notably, many Claygate Pearmain (CP) apples have a similar, if not quite as pretty, appearance. CP’s sugars and acids are similar, although the taste is somewhat different. It is bulletproof here and, apparently delivers for Nutting up there in your neighborhood. I probably should have started with CP, as it’s in my top 10 in every way (flavor, productivity, regular bearing across 15 years), but it’s not fully russeted. It even stores until Christmas in plastic under refrigeration. It is unusual in that it produces a couple or three different types of apples, so uniformity isn’t a given. You can do a search for it here using my name and should come to a post where I delve into far greater detail on this variety.
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Hunt Russet. It’s gaining russet by the day, but is still mostly green. Few cracks and no rots. We’ll see about flavor in a few weeks.
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Grandma Robinson’s Seedling. This is a find from a gent names Ted Swensen, as detailed by Ken Priddy on his Wordpress page (I believe he misspelled Robinson): Grandma Robison Seedling – Ted Swensen found it in his grandmother’s yard in Monmouth, OR. Spectacularly delicious: High flavored, sweet and acid, with lots of character. I got this from Ken in 2020, and it’s producing its first crop this year. To my surprise, it’s mostly russeted. I’ll know more about it in a month or two.
I may have forgotten another russet or two that have performed okay here. I have a list at least this long with russet failures. The jury is still out on Ashmead’s Kernel, as I’ve had trouble growing the actual tree across a decade, and not always the tree’s fault. I have a couple other somewhat obscure russets I’m trialing that haven’t produced yet, otherwise if you don’t see a russet apple you think you want to try in the Spokane or any other high desert area on this list, it’s likely I’ve tried and failed to grow it here. This doesn’t mean you can’t, but probably means you will struggle with it too.
Finally, Keepsake was mentioned repeatedly in this thread. My two cents—grew it on G30 for around 15 years. The tree was beautiful, it reliably set fruit each year for at least 10 years…and dropped every single apple it ever set before they were ripe. What a difficult variety. I topworked the tree four years ago.
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Herefordshire- where did you find scion for it? I would love to give it a run, it sounds perfect.
I like me apples sliced with good cheese slices mixed in, so the high sweetness isn’t what I prefer. I love strong flavors
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I traded for Herefordshire Russet years ago and don’t recall who I received it from. I lost the multi-grafted tree it was attached to several years later. Fortunately, I’d sent it out to several others in the interim, and was able to acquire it again. My small, 4th leaf HR tree has about 25 beautiful fruits on it this year. Message me sometime in the cold months and remind me I’ve offered you a stick to graft next spring.
Re sweetness, apples in my orchard generate far higher Brix than the same varieties in most other areas of the country. It’s a product of the local growing conditions plus not delivering excessive water via my drip system. Fortunately, the balancing acid these apples produce also seems elevated. I’ve never measured acids, but my palate tells me it is so. I’d guess that your growing conditions will produce lower sugars based on Nutting’s reported Brix measurements, so you should have a good shot at growing most/all of these apples to your tastes.
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