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If you want to measure brix in fruit, use a refractometer. There are many kinds with various prices to fit your preference.
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Crabs as pollen parents have produced some awesome seedling trees. Crabs can supply the acidity and complex flavor that modern apples are often completely lacking. Two of the best apples I know, Etter’s Gold (Wagener X Transcendent Crab), and Alps Otome (Fuji x unknown crab), had crabs as pollen parents.
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I second the opinion on Ashmeads Kernal. Fabulous eating apple with complex aromatics that makes a good addition to cider sd well.
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Red Canada and Winesap are my current favorite fresh eating apples now that it is February and we’ve used no better storage than a poorly heated back room. Northern Spies aren’t so good for fresh eating but still bake into a great apple crisp.
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Right now, the best apple to me from my storage refrigerator is Newtown Pippin. Goldrush didn’t achieve highest quality this season, I assume because of a late and cool and wet spring. Same deal with Pink Lady. Suncrisp is also good. Goldrush, maybe a bit behind.
Every season is different.
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Anyone care to comment on Spartan apples? I was considering doing a graft of this variety, and was wondering about its growing habit, flavor, texture, storing properties, etc. I understand it’s a Mac & Newtown Pippin cross, but have never tried one. Sounds like an appealing apple, though. Thanks.
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Put it on a multi-graft tree if you are running out of room.
I grafted it, but the little tree hasn’t grown a lot, and certainly won’t bloom this year.
Sounds like a good apple, but have never tasted it.
I’m asking because I’m going to a grafting class, and they’ll have several varieties, includng Spartan. Any comments on Melrose or Dayton?
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I just bought a bag of Pink Lady apples…meh. They are OK but nothing special. Still like a good Honey Crisp the best.
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Just got back from the grafting seminar. Since there weren’t that many people there, we were able to choose 4 scions.
I picked Spartan, Dayton, Melrouge (a better tasting, deep red sport of Melrose), and Loriglo, which is a Jonathan sport developed in Kentucky. I didn’t graft them there, I wanted to bring them home and take my time grafting them. Prob do that Monday.
After class we had some chili and pimento cheese sandwiches, followed with some apple cobbler with a side of vanilla ice cream. Yum.
All in all, well worth the $10 admission price.
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$10 for all that? It cost me at least $30-35 just to register around here.
I love the sound of Melrouge. Have to keep that variety in mind.
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Too late to help you decide on Spartan (but sounds like you didn’t need to anyway), but finally got some Spartan apples last fall for the first time. I am not entirely sure that the scion I got was right, but the apples were good. Dark red in color, good taste but not as tart as I remember mac’s being. We liked them, but I was expecting them to be more mac-like in shape and taste.
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@mamuang, yes it’s a great deal, even it took an hour over there, and 37 miles. Not many straight line roads here in the hills.
Yeah, I never heard of Melrouge, I asked the professor about them, he said it’s very good, with a good size to it. The Loriglo sounded intriguing, it’s a Jonathan sport from KY.
@steve333, thanks anyway about Spartan. It was one I wanted to try before I got there. I like Mac’s, and have several Mac offspring (Macoun, Cortland, Liberty). I wanted some Liberty wood, but they didn’t have any, but I guess I can get some off my own tree.
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I was wondering what your Spartan tree’s rootstock and age is. And did you get any other apples to fruit?
It is about 5 or 6 years in the ground now. I believe it is on B118. Also did about a dozen or so other apples back them. Most are just getting to the fruiting stage Got some Winooche (sp?) and a few of the red fleshed ones are flowering, but have not ripened any.
Is it a pretty goid sized tree, compared to others of the same age? I will be putting mine on M7, so prob not a good comparison with your rootstocks. Isn’t B118 basically a cold hardy standard size tree?
Had any bear or moose attacks on your trees lately?
Not bad. Had some winter kill on some branches a few years ago, but it’s ~7’ tall, which for my climate is doing OK for that age. And yes, B118 is roughly 80-90% of standard, but in cold areas like here, that becomes more like a semi dwarf or smaller.
No deer or moose attacks since the fence has gone up. Hopefully no moose will decide he just has to get inside, cause I am sure he could if he really wanted to.
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@BlueBerry, or anybody else, have you heard of Loriglo apples? It was a patented variety, found on a Jonathan tree in Whitesville, KY. It’s now off patent, and not really grown much anywhere, except an orchard in TN grows them. I picked up a scion of it yesterday as it sounded interesting.
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Sorry, don’t know. Would speculate that like many ‘improvements’ it wasn’t significant, wasn’t heard of widely, or wasn’t worth the royalty charge vs the original Jonathon. If you like Jonathon, and I do like it, but don’t love it…then you’ll probably like this “Loriglo”.
Multi-purpose apple.
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