I was trying to obtain this variety but the nursery I called said most growers are staying away from Maslin because apparently it reverts back to the normal Pink Lady ripening time after awhile. 
Thus he said Barnsby was an alternative that did not have that issue. Looking forward to a taste and photo comparison to Cripps this fall on this forum 
Hmm it looks like Maslin has vanished from all the listings so it sounds like you have the scoop there. The Barnsby low acid aspect also doesnāt sound so good to me though.
Even if Maslin ends up being a week early it will be a big help to me, the regular strain is nearly there in my orchard.
Complaining about weather is the norm here as well (we had only about 3 inches up till now). Every grower complains about the lack of water here, summers are especially bad.
Interesting news with Maslin,
@Matt_in_Maryland, do you have the same experience with Maslinās ripening time reverting back to original Cripps Pink?
I am even tempted to try Sundowner or Lady Williams here. On really good year you can harvest raspberries up till Christmas time so there might be chance of ripening them here (when the temperatures donāt go lower than ~25F).
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Iām not a biologist, but that doesnāt make sense to me. A clone is a clone and shouldnāt revert to previous genetics in a consistent way, by my thinking (ignorant farmerās common sense).
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I agree - it doesnāt make sense to me either, just reporting what I was told. He sounded like many farmers were avoiding that variety though.
Not sure if the reversion is true, but the salesman at ACN told me the same thing several years ago.
Waffler Nursery in NY seemed to be unaware of the problem and were positive about Maslin about the same time.
Itās hard to know the real truth.
I grow the traditional Cripps Pink Lady and this will be my first big harvest year. All of my customers are asking for Pink Lady. Based on a few of my PL apples I ate last year and several bags from the supermarket grown in different parts of the county, Iām not sure what all the fuss is about. Give me Goldrush and keep the Pink Lady!
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Pink Lady has an unusual texture that I find appealing and is easy to manage as is Goldrush, both being precocious and naturally spreading trees, although PL is more generous in providing secondary branching. It also has a very appealing balance of sugar and acid and looks beautiful. I suspect you find your own apples far superior than what you have sampled.
One thing it has over Goldrush- less susceptibility to sooty blotch and fly speck.
It doesnāt replace Goldrush, but if I have an early one, it may be better than GR on short growing season years.
Also, if you believe in anti-oxidants, there is its highly colored skin.
Yeah, they are not giving the details. They make it sound like the whole tree is suddenly changing back. As far as I know, a genetic reversion is mutation that only effects new growth going forward. Itās basically a sport of sport that returns to a characteristic from a previous generation. If you can identify the point of genetic reversion, you can prune it off. Of course, it would be nightmare to manage this in a commercial orchard if the reversion rate is high.
The thing is that we grow very many sports- probably thousands, and Iāve never heard of this happening before. If it happened with some Red Delicious clones it would be cause for celebration.
If I hear it from a botanist, I will take it seriously. Maybe the clone has always been unreliable in ripening early and it puts the nurserymen in a better light by saying itās something that happened after the purchase of the trees.
Yeah, many traits are highly dependent on environmental conditions. We already know lots of apple varieties behave differently when environmental conditions differ substantially to the ones they came from.
I have both GR and Pink Lady fruited last year. Both are too late apples for me in most years. With both were not fully ripe, GR in my garden tasted better. Pink Lady did not have anything memorable last year.
However, itās the first year of Pink Lady but the 2nd year of Gold Rush. I sure hope Pink Lady will get better with age. I have one cluster of blooms of PL this year. None from GR (going biennial)
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It is four years later now: Does anyone have comments on the Barnsby Pink Lady?
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It is a truly great apple for those without the length of season to adequately ripen the original. Great, if you like the special texture of Pink Lady and its particular balance of acid and sugar, which of course varies somewhat by season and site- especially on the eastern side of this country where growing seasons are especially variable.
I was pulling good apples out of my fridge of this apple this following summer when Goldrush had dehydrated to leather encased, shriveled worthlessness.
This season will be an excellent test of how it performs under the influence of excessive rain, which has been relentless. I will know in 2 or 3 weeks how it has fared.
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Itās Nov 20 and Iām still waiting for my Cripps Pink (Pink Lady) to sweeten. Only 6 hrs sun might be a problem. Perhaps Barnsby Pink Lady wound be a better choice for me. Howās yours doing?
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Both my Goldrush and Pink Lady apples did not hold up well to all the rain. Just didnāt get up the brix. Only the fruit on my nursery trees did- probably because of much less developed root systems. I will eventually write up a page on which varieties performed best though this extremely wet summer. One of them was old strain Yellow Delicious, surprisingly enough.
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Reading up on Pink Lady I found this quote indicating long storage of 60 to 120 days can improve Pink Lady: āSourness, vegetative aroma and chewiness, which characterised the fruit at harvest, decreased after 60-120 days of storage and during ripening at 20Ā°C, leading to a more balanced fruit flavour and less hard texture. Fruit quality declined after 180 days of storage, due to loss of juiciness, crispness and fruitiness and increase in mealiness.ā
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That all seems to comport with my experiences with grocery store Pink Lady.
It is one of the better bets for getting a good apple, at least if I can find one with good color. More than most apples, color seems to correlate with good eating for that variety here.
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Actually, I have never stored an apple that is so unaffected by 180 days in refrigeration. I was eating mine into early summer and they never became mealy last year.
Somehow, very limited research when put to print becomes authoritative, especially in horticulture and agriculture. My very limited experience completely contradicts that leading statement, the rest of you will have to find out for yourselves.
Incidentally, in spite of dropping to 21 degrees the other morning, all my remaining apples are still crisp. I cannot be sure of the exact temperature in the trees, however, but drops and fruit on the trees are still crunchy. I probably shouldnāt have harvested my latest apples as I did 10 days ago and at least left half the crop on the trees to do a better job of evaluating late ripening. I didnāt think weād get enough warmth to ripen the apples further.
Both Pink Lady and Goldrush might have improved with more time on the trees.
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Alan, (I) interpreted danzebās post to suggest that Pink Lady gradually improves over the first 4 months of storage, then stays at its prime for about 2 months, then I assume a gradual decline - not dropping of a cliff of palatability.
Meaning a 5 month apple may still be at its peak but a 7 month not quite as good.
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And Iām saying that isnāt my experience with it and suggest that others evaluate the variety with their own trials. It is impossible to easily evaluate how varieties store because there are a great many variables. Why would one assume west coast PLs have the same storage tendencies as on the east coast or Midwest? Why would anyone assume a Washington state one have the same qualities as one grown in CA, even?
In the humid region growing seasons vary a great deal- it takes 10 years just to reliably evaluate how a variety performs right off the tree.
I am always skeptical because over the years so much literature has contradicted my own experience. For just one example, Spitz is supposed to be far too tart off the tree but excel after a few months in storage, however, to my tastes and anyone Iāve offered it to, it is a great apple off the tree but really doesnāt hold its texture very long in common storage.
That said, Iām not an expert on the storage qualities of PL- I havenāt been growing the Bansby strain very long and the original PL has only fully ripened for me on a few seasons. However, I do know that on a good season it has a great texture and taste right off the tree as grown here.
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