Best tasting apples

[mamuang]

I don’t think I mind much if it is a 50 or a 100 years old tree. I just hope I would say “Wow” when I bite into it.

[scottfsmith]

The “Gibson” sport that is by far the most common one today was discovered in 1958 so you want a tree about 60 years or older to pre-date that. This strain was specifically selected because it doesn’t russet much; any strain that is russeting some is probably a good one.

[markalbob]

anyone tried the seargeant russet on the germplasm list? another sport of GR, similar to razor I guess

[alan]

Won’t take much sweetening if I receive a stamped, addressed envelope. I choose not to be as generous as some on this forum so that I can afford the time to help more people. Even pulling the correct varieties out of my scion storage and sticking them in an envelope adds up to real time for me. Of course, in an exchange I trade straight up/

I tend one orchard that is 100 years old with a couple of YD on it that never get sprayed- the owner hasn’t even had me prune them for quite some time. Another orchard has just maybe 40 year old YD trees, but they are just as good fruit and the shoots are healthier. That is where I harvested wood from last year- although I ended up not using it. I’m running with a pure russet variety whose identity I can’t identify with any certainty, but it has performed well in a site that gets no spray and with the Russet you don’t get sooty blotch or flyspeck.

[BigApple]

EGR is spur type, very productive

AGR is tip bearer, looks bushy and bears moderately

[BigApple]

AGR is easy to find, but EGR is very hard to source in US and Canada. AGR has many variants. Those variants may be strains or seedlings. So they have lots of commons with slight differences. I visited bunch of orchards in the last few years and found 4 different golden russet. One of them is pretty tart, other 3 are sweet.

[Vohd]

Heres my current faves list. Its ever-evolving though…

. . .

10. Reine des Reinettes

Scott, in the ARS collection there are two ‘Reine des Reinettes.’ PI 279325 and PI 279326. Do either of them appear to be what you have? Thanks.

[scottfsmith]

I think the “x” in the name means its a cross, so neither of those is RdR.

[castanea]

I used to have a source for Esopus Spitzenberg apples for 6 or 7 years. When you eat it at its peak it is awesome. For me it’s definitely in the top 3 of all the apples I’ve ever eaten. It’s normally too sharp to eat fresh off the tree and needs to be stored for awhile, but you can’t store it as long as the true storage apples like Arkansas Black. I look forward to having my own tree some day so I can pick lots of them and make it easier to find one that’s at its peak.

[NuttingBumpus]

If you find Kingston Black wanting someday, you might consider Campfield as a back up. I tried KB and it did poorly here. Now I’m trying Médaille d’Or and, if it fails to thrive and produce, Campfield is next in this lot.

[Tunamelt]

ARS also carries King of the Pippins, that might be the one you are looking for. It is synonymous with RdR, but I am unsure if they are 100% one in the same.

[Vohd]

I think the “x” in the name means its a cross, so neither of those is RdR.

ARS also carries King of the Pippins, that might be the one you are looking for. It is synonymous with RdR, but I am unsure if they are 100% one in the same.

Perhaps I should have added this to the original post, but I’m not sure if it clarifies or muddies things because, while most authors that I have seen use King of the Pippins as a synonym for Reine des Reinettes as @Tunamelt notes, that is not universal. Anyhow, if one looks at the marker data that GRIN reports for "Reine des Reinettes x * " PI 279325 and PI 279326 and for King of the Pippins, PI 589676, you will note that the markers are identical for King of the Pippins and PI 279326 (Reine des Reinettes x 1700). In particular, the marker data reported for all three is:

						Marker
Accession	GD12A	GD15A	GD96A	GD100A	GD103A	GD142A	GD147A	GD162A
PI 279326 	155 155	146 146	183 185	228 229	84 110	139 145	139 141	219 230
PI 589676	155 155	146 146	183 185	228 229	84 110	139 145	139 141	219 230
PI 279325	153 159	146 146	157 187	230 242	110 126	147 151	143 151	219 219

So it may be that what ARS distributes as King of the Pippins is in fact PI 279326 (Reine des Reinettes x 1700). The photo of King of the Pippins may look more like that of PI 279325 than PI 279326, however. Perhaps Long Ashton, the source for King of the Pippins, has Reine des Reinettes x 1700 and incorrectly believes it is the true Reine des Reinettes. Or maybe it correctly believes what is labeled Reine des Reinettes x 1700 is the true Reine des Reinettes and identical to King of the Pippins and “Reine des Reinettes x 1700” is not a cross. Or maybe it is and they may be different and the markers do not adequately pick it up. Or other possibilities.

I was assuming that what circulates as Reine des Reinettes ultimately traces back to ARS but am not sure how much stock to put in the name identifiers (see above). I’m still curious whether or not something in ARS is recognizable as the esteemed “Reine des Reinettes”. Maybe my assumption is wrong though, and a better question would have been, do you recall the source of what you reviewed as Reine des Reinettes?

[scottfsmith]

The British firmly believe RdR and KoP are the same, see the National Fruit Collection listing. I usually treat them as synonyms for that reason, until there is firm information to the contrary emerging.

Re: the genetic info above, I don’t at all understand what the “x 1700” vs “x 82” means now, but the 1700 one appears to be the real thing based on the genetic analysis. The fact that germplasm from France has a 100% match with the KoP sourced from the UK is another sign the two names are synonyms.

My RdR came as KoP from Southmeadow 20 or so years ago, it is probably identical to the KoP (and the x 1700) at Geneva.

[Chikn]

I have both grafted on G41. I will let you know in a couple of years.

[NuttingBumpus]

What we may encounter in RdR and King of Pippins may simply be bud sports - same DNA yet slightly different expressions.

I was intrigued to read the data from the DNA analysis of the RHS collection at Brogdale, done 8-10 years ago. For instance, Queen Cox is a bud sport of Cox Orange Pippin. It is less vulnerable to disease, ripens a bit earlier and yet DNA analysis could not separate the two. Both are in that collection.

A few other original and sports showed up on the list and when I compared the results were the same. Looks as though there is room yet to perfect DNA analysis or some other minutiae to make ID easier to clinch.

[Vohd]

I don’t at all understand what the “x 1700” vs “x 82” means now,

I have both grafted on G41

After some further investigation, based on the marker data, ‘Reine des Reinettes x 82’ appears to be the same as the ‘Margil’ accession PI 2264558

[scottfsmith]

Thats interesting. Margil is purported to be the same as Reinette Musquee in France and it has been in France a long time. I think I saw that match before in the following paper: http://journal.ashspublications.org/content/137/5/333.full.pdf but somehow this paper did not make the KoP - RdR x 1700 match. Where are you getting the full marker data from?

[Vohd]

Thanks for identifying that paper.

this paper did not make the KoP - RdR x 1700 match.

It is curious why it does not report PI 589676 and PI 279326 as “duplicates.” I do not have a good explanation.

Where are you getting the full marker data from?

The marker data in my earlier post came from what GRIN has on its website, e.g.,for King of the Pippins, PI 589676 it is at the bottom of the page in the horizontally-scrolling frame under the heading “Molecular Data.” If you follow the link for “Detailed Accession Observation Page” a bit higher up, that page also has the marker data (again under the heading “Molecular Data”) but it is presented in a more usable way, or you can export to CSV. It would be nice to know if there were other genetic data that called into question the apparent match in this GRIN data–the photos and other observations for the two do vary.

I’m not aware of GRIN having a public interface that allows one to query the marker data, though. So, if one wants to ask if there is a “duplicate” for the apple ‘Foo,’ as far as I know, a bit more effort is required (in lieu of what is in the paper). Fortunately, a simple query via Google that includes the marker values from ‘Foo’ will hit on accessions with them (in just a free text sense) and false positives are easy to eyeball and eliminate. For example, this query with the raw marker values for ‘Reine des Reinettes x 82’ from the earlier post identifies ‘Margil’ and only one spurious hit.

[applebacon]

Hi Ya’ll I’ve been lerking the shadows for a bit and have looked at lots of conversations on here. I became obsessed with apple trees and grafting about 2 years ago. Luckily I have family land & they have let me install an orchard that in the end will be around 100 trees, it’ll be mostly apple with a single line of pears for fun.

I don’t have any particular rhyme or reason for what varieties i’ve decided to use other than I’m having a ton of fun. They are all extremely young non fruiting trees at this point. I can say that so far my personal favorite apple is a Cortland however i’ve yet to try 99% of the apple varieties I’m growing, so its going to be such a new experience once these start to fruit.

My current growing list so far include (* means I have tasted this variety)
20 0z
Adam’s Pearmain
Arkansas Black
Ashmeads Kernel
Black Oxford
Blacktwig
Brushy Mtn. Limbertwig
Centennial Crab
Chestnut Crab
Cripps Pink (Pink Lady)
Dolgo Crab
Empire
Enterprise
Florina
Freedom
Frostbite
Fuji Red Sport 2
Geneva Crab
Goldrush
Grannysmith*
Holiday
Honeycrisp*
Jonagold
Kentucky Limbertwig
Kerr Crab
King David
Liberty
Myers Royal Limbertwig
Novaspy
Pink Pearl
Pinova (Pinata, Sonata, Corail)
Pristine
Roxbury Russet
Spitzenberg
Viola Crab
Wickson Crab
Williams Pride
Winesap
Winter Banana
Wolf River
Yellow Transparent
Zestar!
Flemish Beauty (Pear)
Magness (Pear)
Potomatic (Pear)

I will be grafting this year:

Egremont Russet
orleans reinette
Kidd’s orange red
Black Gilliflower
Pitmastin Pineapple
Transcendent Crab
northwest Greening
Shafer Crab
Keepsake
Hawkeye
Haralson
Imperial Stayman (late)
Lord Lamborne
Pumpkin Sweet
Priscilla
Weidners Goldreinette
Trailman Crab
Fletcher Sweet
Red St. Lawrence
Washington Sweet
Hayford

Dayton 590183
Blue Pearmain 590180
Slor 613832
Grimes Golden 588791

Basically in a few years i think my favorite will probably change a few times.

[northof53]

What a wonderful list, you have everything you need.