"Early Gideon" var. apple

General Fruit Growing
#21

I emailed with Jacob Mentlik of Fedco on this; his response (in short)…

Fedco’s ‘Gideon’ was gene checked by WSU’s program- it came out ‘Dutchess x unknown’ and matched their previous type match for ‘Gideon’. WSU has a separate listing for what they call ‘Gideon Sweet’, which is a late ripening variety. The ripening date for ‘Gideon’ is early- somewhere between Red Astrakhan and Mac’s, and more specifically in that window “after Dutchess has dropped”, so…‘Gravenstein’-ish(?). Jacob did say that they keep better than the description infers, “even into October with good storage conditions”.

I’m satisfied with that. Once we have some fruit, I hope someone will give an account of it.

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#22

Good info, thanks for sharing. I’ll be grafting Gideon Sweet from TOC this spring. Gideon from Fedco has been a vigorous grower grafted to Antonovka for me. I’m hoping for fruit in another few years

#23

my graft of fedco Gideon took well last year and is beginning to break bud now. it seems vigorous. I hope the fruit does keep pretty well as it’s going to come right when others do so may not all get eaten quickly

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#24

I chose it for its (hoped for) ripening period. We have a gap here between the true ‘summer apples’ (starting with Yellow Transparent and ending with Duchess types) and ‘Mac season’. I’ve got both Gideon and Gravenstein growing now, which will fill in along with my wild seedling Antonovka’s, which are perfectly ripe on September 1st like clockwork. With GoldRush and Winesaps for ‘last picked/last eaten’, I’m hoping for only an April 20- July 20 gap in the supply, which we can fill nicely with rhubarb and berries.

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