You’ve got a point, Blueberry. However, an average North American can grow apples pretty easily. They hawk acai, noni, and other exotic stuff because they know you CAN’T grow it. They get all the profit. So in many ways, apples are cheap, delicious, convenient and portable-comparable in convenience to and much cheaper than potato chips. Calville Blanc D’hiver has more vitamin C than an orange! Crabapples and small apples have more nutrition, because almost all of the nutrition is in the peel. No corporation wants to know how much nutrition is in a crabapple until they sell it to you in a pill. They don’t make $ off of it. They are more expensive to sell, because it takes more labor to pick small apples. But if you’re relaxing after a hard day of work by eating one in your yard, it’s a form of therapy, that they make no $ off of.
John S
PDX OR
I bought a Kandil Sinap tree last year and have noticed that it has extremely red bark. As red as the Red Devil tree next to it. Is this something other people see too, or is it likely I have a mislabeled tree?
I was wowed by the look and hadn’t read this thread about the taste.
Seeing your note, I went out back to look at Kandil Sinap: yep, mine is dark red young bark also.
I took a picture with my fancy gift phone camera only to find its cord lacks the connection to the USB port on this computer, so must go shopping to get that for future use.
Looks like a lot of spur buds this year on Kandil Sinap, a tiny tree - less than five feet tall.
I also looked again at the growth from last year: 4 or 5 inches. It seems I put it to a root stock that doesn’t like our conditions, for Shackleford grafted the same year on the same root stock (Gen890) is also showing signs it hadn’t grown in high summer last year, at less than 4 feet tall.
I need to dig these up & shift them to a higher, cooler environment in Idaho ASAP.
I am trying to grow Kandil Sinap and having pretty bad luck with it so far. I can’t say anything about the fruit because I haven’t had one yet but I found the comments above about the powdery mildew resistance… interesting, because my (very young) tree was absolutely decimated by it last year. Now also having read in this thread about the meh taste, I am on the verge of replacing the tree if the story repeats this year.
Thanks for checking that for me!! I’m glad to know the tree is consistent with kandil sinap, now I just need to hope it likes my climate and I’ll like the fruit. But if not I can graft something else to it.
Adding mycorrhizal inoculant to the root zone - I have taken a spade, and shifted it to spread soil & roots a bit, dropped the powder in and heeled it closed with success - is easiest when planting, but can still do the job, since trees send feeder roots close to soil surface. The fungus will spread once it gains root access.
I also recommend top-dressing with compost or manure & cover that with mulch this time of year.
Lastly, several sources mention Kandil Sinap doesn’t hang well, so putting it where it gets some shelter from strongest winds, or planting another cv. to windward is a worthy precaution.
Growing it near/in Redwood City ought to be prime for this apple.
Several people on this forum have used milk or whey (& garlic?) dilute in water to spray on mildew & found it helpful.
I cannot speak to it directly, for I have not tried it.
Well, my root problem with mildew is somewhat different and unrelated - I have an old big apple tree next to these young trees and it’s highly susceptible to mildew (I am in the process of removing it). Additionally, last year my area had a highly anomalous weather and fungal diseases ran rampant. It was an interesting stress-test and I was very curious to observe how different trees were reacting. Some shrugged it off and didn’t care, some were just a little affected, some were somewhat affected. Kandil was the only tree that was absolutely consumed by mildew.
KS seems to do better in drier conditions. Warren Manhart in Willamette Valley, writing “Apples for the 21st Century,” decades ago, never mentioned mildew on his tree. He found the fruit fascinating in form. Since he spoke so highly of Newtown Pippin, which could exhibit mildew issues for him, and never mentions the flavor of KS, it seems likely KS is acceptable in flavor & something of a curiosity.
He recommended stringent thinning to offset pre-harvest drop.
Oh wow I hope I didn’t set myself up for disappointment with this tree. I bought it in big part because Raintree describes it as “sweet-tart, complex flavor”.
The Redwood City slogan “Climate best by government test” appears to have been a marketing fiction, however for an amateur fruit grower the climate is pretty great. Fingers crossed for Kandil Sinap.
I have 3 Kandil Sinap on G.890, grafted in 2021. They are of incredibly low vigor but seem to handle my Z4b winters without issue. Hard to imagine when they’ll fruit, they’re so small, but interesting to read they’re precocious.
I’ve been intrigued by what I’ve read about Kandil Sinap from the first, so when I could try it and a root stock that also looked promising, I jumped at the chance.
Moving this combination (KS/Gen890) to the uplands of Idaho will put it in an orchard where another on MM111 has already been planted. Someday I will get a chance to try it.