Chris- please describe Sundance taste: crisp? where on the sweet/tart spectrum? Thanks.
Chris
Sorry to hear about your FB problem last year.
My epidemic was the year before but I had none last year!
I going to have to learn to manage the FB anyway, so I added the Pink Lady to my order.
Hambone, from my recollection, the taste is a little on the tangy, acidic side with a nice crunch
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Pristine is one of the few apples I have managed to fruit. It fruited in its third leaf on g11 rootstock. It produced a heck of a crop for such a small tree so many in fact that I was actually able to get fruit off of it before the squirells ate them all. Mine ripened around July 4th and mine were sweet also. Had a nice enough crunch and I was very happy with the ones I was able to beat the tree rats to. Kiddos loved em as well. I think I may have left too many on the tree for its first crop because it didnt bloom at all this year. Anyone else have this problem with Pristine? Goldrush also produced a big crop that year but because it ripens so late the tree rats got em all before I could taste a single one. I’ll be ready for em next time. Goldrush did bloom for me this year a really nice bloom but it didnt set at all I presume because it didnt get polinated by Pristine. There are no other know apple trees for quite a ways in my neighborhood. I would bet my Dallas climate is similar to yours in the Atlanta area Beechwreck.
Yes, I had the exact problem with my Pristine. I thinned very well the first year it bloomed. I only had 22 apples but the tree also was only three years old. The next year I had seven apples and far fewer blossoms. The tree is now 9 years old and I thin it hard. The apples are twice the size and delicious. I get a steady rate of about 60 apples every summer. I keep the tree pruned to 8-9 feet tall. Its a beauty and a great August apple.
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Okay Chris in Ga,
I will take your advice and look for something that is compatible for our area. I don’t want to waste money, so I will listen and do what you suggest. Hopefully, when I come and visit your orchard in 2016, I will see your Pink Lady thriving with no more FB! Thanks everyone for great advice. My brother loves apples so I am doing this for him, hopefully I will be successful with apples in the long run.
Thank you everyone, I appreciate the discussion.
Alan, I expect you’re right on the McIntosh. The current tree is a one year old container grown, recently planted. Should I give it a chance or graft the Liberty on it?
Chris, interesting information on the FB. I’m not familiar with Sundance but the descriptions sound great. Williams Pride and Goldrush will be added for sure. Pink Lady too.
Hambone, great suggestions. I was not aware of Winns Mill Nursery. I’m going to see if I can swing by there this winter, I can ask a lot more questions face to face.
Most of my plantings will be grafted by me with an occasional pregrafted purchase. I can afford to plant a lot more trees this way.
Second vote here for MonArk - hands-down, the best early season apple I’ve ever encountered. Ripe here, on the KY/TN line, in early to mid-July. Big flat/round red-over-green apple with crisp, white flesh - great for eating out of hand, cooking, drying; will keep for 6-8 weeks in the fridge without going mealy. Only ‘knock’, if there is one, is uneven, prolonged ripening/harvest period - which, for most home orchardists, is a desirable trait - or, at least, it is for me. Reportedly good disease resistance, and I will say, I’ve not had any fireblight in it in the nearly 20 years it’s been growing here.
Lodi…it’s bigger than its Yellow Transparent parent, but it’s inferior to YT in all other respects, IMO.
Years ago, when I was looking for good apples to plant in my dad’s orchard at Auburn, AL, Ed Fackler recommended Lady Williams, based on whatever criteria I’d set out at that time - I probably was looking for a late-season, tart apple, as that’s what Dad would likely have preferred.
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Beachwreck, you said that you’ve chosen G41 as your preferred rootstock and have been using G11. You also said that you intend to graft your own trees. Do you have a source for your rootstock? Almost anyone here is farther along the learning curve than I am on these things, but I haven’t found Geneva stock available. So, I’m interested in what your plan is on that.
Muddy,
Cummins Nursery of NY has them.
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A nice thing about the English rootstocks is they can easily be propagated. One could easily create their own stool bed.
There’s a small commercial grower near here (in zone 7b) that grows Gala, Galarina, Fuji, Crimson Crisp, Ginger Gold, Pink Lady, Goldrush, and probably some others I’ve missed using an IPM approach. http://www.localharvest.org/beech-creek-farms-M18493
I’ve eaten a lot of his fruit. The Ginger Gold has been the most disappointing, never tasting great and with a soft texture, though they always look great. The Goldrush range from o.k to fantastic. The Goldrush really seem to benefit from hanging on the tree until they are truly gold. For some reason he picks many that are still green, and they just don’t compare, no matter how long they sit in storage.
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I couldn’t agree more about Goldrush. The funny thing is that commercial growers don’t have good information about when to harvest late varieties, as far as temps they can tolerate. I searched the internet for how cold of temps an apple crop can take without being damaged and there seems to be almost no information.
What I know is that the higher the brix the more cold they can take, and they will keep getting riper and sweeter and sustain their texture at least until the seeds become dark brown.
This year I harvested my best Goldrush on the second week of Dec. and they had been subjected to 20 degrees F. 2 or 3 times.
I’m in Z6 NYS, but further down you get shorter days until Sept 21st and this appears to delay ripening for some varieties, in spite of the greater heat and earlier springs. The later varieties of peaches are especially affected by this, but I expect it is true of late apples as well.
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I agree with everyone here. Goldrush very much seems to need to be left hanging pretty much as long as possible. One strange thing I’ve recently discovered, the brix of mine are actually falling in storage. They taste better and sweeter than ever, but when first picked I tested some that I think were near 21. The last few I’ve checked have been in the mid to upper 18’s.
I’ve also discovered that, for me, they really need refrigerated storage in plastic Ziploc bags. They store well in this manner, but left on the counter they shrivel rather quickly compared to other apples.
I theorize that the lack of “wax” on the skin and the seemingly porous skin type allows dessication. Those that I’ve kept bagged in the crisper have remained almost the same as when first picked.
That’s strange- how can sugar evaporate? Seems like the brix would rise as apples dehydrate and starches convert to sugar.
I also don’t understand how brix could drop. It could be something to do with when the different apples were picked.
@Appleseed70, I agree they need some protection when stored. I left one unprotected in the back of my fridge and when I found it in march it looked like a 90-year old. It still tasted fine when I peeled the skin.
Alan,
What do you mean by this?
Am having a brain fa_t and can’t figure this out.
Mike
Longer days means more light reaching the leaves and more energy to produce sugars and apparently to accelerate the ripening process. Olpea’s early peaches in KS ripen almost two weeks before mine. By late mid-season mine catch up and by late season they pull ahead.
I know, it makes no sense. Unless it is just very coincidental and the later tested fruits just happened to have lower sugar from the outset. There really were no shaded areas or anything though, so I dunno.
In some stone fruit, nectarines and pluots for sure, brix can vary by 50-100% between fruits on one tree. That is some fruits can be double others. I haven’t measured enough apples to know if they vary a lot.