Last year I pollinated ‘Clark’s Crab’ with pollen from the red fleshed ‘Pendragon’ apple. ‘Pendragon’ doesn’t just have red flesh fruit, but also red blushed new foliage, red pigment in the wood and deeply saturated pink flowers. I got a lot of seeds from this cross and planted them in a community pot.
They’re sprouting like crazy now and a high percentage of them are showing red pigment in the stems which confirms the cross was successful (vs. accidentally pollinated by something else). These have been in a sheltered location which means the red is not at full intensity yet. That should happen once I can get some direct sunshine on them.
I’ll post updates as relevant. Feel free to follow along on this journey if you’re interested.
I forgot to mention… One of the reasons I’m interested in this cross aside from mixing the characteristics of both parents is that BOTH parents are very precocious and able to start fruiting at a young age.
Aside from both being quite precocious, these two varieties are very different from each other in many ways so the resulting offspring should have a lot of genetic diversity to pull from.
One of the seedlings (not shown) had been decapitated by an animal which confirmed it was red pigmented on the inside of the stem too. I’m keeping them better protected now, and that is the primary reason these are currently in a sheltered spot where they’re no getting enough direct sun to fully form their red pigments.
‘Pendragon’ is not overly sour like some red flesh apples. Just lightly tart and lightly sweet. Primarily though, it somehow has a taste which I can only describe as “floral”. It’s like if flowers were an apple.
I’ve been culling quite a few of these seedlings since I have so many. So far I’ve only removed the greenest of them, but even those had some red pigment inside their stems when pinched open for inspection.
I plan to do more culling still since this is way too many for me to grow out, but even keeping only the reddest of the red will leave me with quite a few.
Yes, the saving grace is that these are likely to have ornamental value so there might be one or more worth keeping regardless of whether any are impressive for their fruit. Ideally though, I’d hope to get at least one that is precocious, productive and tasty.
