Delcon and other Ben Davis x Jonathan from1916 Missouri

General Fruit Growing
#1

Look what a friend brought me today:

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. Has anyone grown or even heard of these apples?

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#2

Cool. No I have never heard of any of them. But I quick threw the Delcon and Missouri search terms through the googler and out comes this publication: https://mtngrv.missouristate.edu/assets/publications/MS21Web.pdf

It is great that many of these are still to be found. There are about a half dozen out of Iowa breeding efforts that I cannot find any evidence that they still exist. If I had more space I’d probably invest more time in tracking them down.

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#3

Got a Delcon scion from a trade this year. Never heard od it before.

Thanks you both for the info. Sound like avery good variety. Now I have to really find a good spot to graft it on.

#4

I hope they grow well and give you an abundance of tasty fruit.

#5

Nice! The Missouri state experiment station also has peaches, plums, grapes and a raspberry. I am glad to see some of the Midwest verietys being preserved. We have lost so much of our fruit growing heritage here.

#6

@39thparallel and @mamuang how have your Delcon’s done?

#7

It will be a while before I see fruit from them. This is the third year in the field on Semi Dwarf. They are growing in not the best soil. They say Delcon is very late to bloom and always misses the late frosts that wiped out 70% of my crop this year.

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#8

I grafted mine on a Honey Crisp in 2017. It had one flower cluster this year. I thinned them to one apple. I hope it will survive to maturity.

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#9

I went and checked on them the other day. Delcon seems to have nice branching structure.

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#10

Then again this part of the orchard was deer pruned a couple years ago

#11

Looks great Mike, never saw this section of your orchard, it’s nice! I had several trees pruned by deer last winter. Thanks for sharing the pic for me.

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#12

I have fruiting trees of all of these, except for wright, I lost that one early on. I think I grafted them all about 10 years ago. Good crop on them this year. what do you want to know.

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#13

I’m interested to hear anything you can tell me about taste, quality, productivity and any problems you have seen with them. My trees are still small. I got one apple off Conard this year but, it was a little green when I picked it. Jonathon genetics do well here. Not sure what Ben Davis contributes.