Yeah, I understand that, but sometimes it’s difficult to actually look up when the patent was issued… at least for me it is.
1 Like
Well, you’ve come to the right place, Rob 
If you have troubles looking up a plant patent, just ask. There are a lot of very experienced folks who can help you find the patent you’re looking for. Not just provide you the link, but let you know how they found it, too.
1 Like
Thanks for surfacing this @NuttingBumpus and @Matt_in_Maryland. It was interesting to learn the methods used in that field.
For those without crops last year, thinning early may be very important to break a pattern of alternate bearing. I’m seeing very heavy set of flower buds on apple trees everywhere cropping was light or non-existent last year. If you don’t intervene, it could take years to balance out.
6 Likes
Alan,
Never considered a bunch of those apples going into a biennial cycle. That makes sense. I also had not considered your apple crop sense things are so dicey here nothing is a given at this point. The weather may well thin the fruit for us.
In the humid region the weather is always more important than people realize. When you get the right combination and timing of sun and rain after bloom it can lead to the huge crop we got in 2015, where so many flowers not only set fruit, but produced relatively large fruit. Part of the disaster of last year was the overcropping of the preceding one, leaving even the late flowering varieties depleted, but most people entirely blamed crazy 2016 weather.
3 Likes
The first set of flowers have formed on my own small Stayman Winesap tree. If these turn into the same Stayman apples I buy every October here at the local farmstand, then I’ll be a very happy guy!
13 Likes
That’s a Kansas apple Matt glad to hear it works ok there.
I love Stayman, too. It’s a really healthy, vigorous specimen here in Northern California.
2 Likes
Good going you!!! Finally, but you’re getting there with your young, fab, orchard!
1 Like
I really like the taste of Stayman but I always have a problem with my apples cracking. I have the problem even in years without abundant rain before harvest. NO cracking on other apples.
If I have the cracking problem again this year, the Staymans are going away!
Stayman is famous for cracking. I also lost it to fire blight.
Wish I knew that 6 years ago before I planted my Stayman trees! I could handle the cracking if it only occurred after huge rainfalls, but it happens every year on almost every Stayman apple. I’m going to cut off the drip irrigation on the Stayman row this year and see if the splits are reduced.
That may well help. Here in the summer-dry West, we’ve seen very little cracking.
I did not know it when I planted my trees, but a lot of commercial growers in the east removed their Stayman trees after the growth regulator Alar was banned.
1 Like
I may have mentioned this last year re: our trips to Reed Valley orchard, but they had cracking issues as well on a lot of their Stayman trees. We sampled them as well as the Winesap’s and the reg WS just tasted better to us. Fruit is bigger than the Stayman’s were, too.
Lowe’s had some Stayman trees for sale, but that was over a month ago. If they go on a big sale, I might be tempted. We planted a big WS from Lowe’s last year, hope it might give us an apple or two this year.
1 Like
I also have found Winesap a tastier apple than Stayman, but both are good. I am only growing Winesap now. Usually Stayman is bigger than Winesap but maybe they didn’t thin their tree enough.
1 Like
Which type of Winesap are you growing Scott?
Our little Stayman tree had 5 apples last fall and I think 2 of them cracked. I also bought 2 bushels from a local homeowner with a really nice Stayman tree among the 4 trees he sells from. He had sorted his Staymans cracked and uncracked he only had one good bushel left but even the cracked bushel was great and I pressed 'em all for cider anyway so no real problem to me. We almost always get at least one early October rain storm, and last year was no exception, so I can probably always count on some loss but I still like the apples and the tree. Productive,lots of sugar, and great flavor, long live Stayman!
2 Likes
The old one. I think some people call it Old Winesap, or Original Winesap, to me its just Winesap. Old Fashioned Winesap is a different apple, adding to the confusion.
1 Like