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.
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
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
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.
I didn’t take a pic of my Gideon from Fedco, but it bloomed and set a couple apples. Since it’s so young, I shouldn’t let it fruit. I may “forget” to remove all of the applelets.
I grafted Gideon Sweet from TOC onto a wild crab this spring. Looks like all four scions took (white line) I’ve grafted another wild apple variety on a couple limbs below (red lines)
Well, to add to Gideon confusion…I let my Gideon from Fedco set a few fruit. All but one dropped in early summer. I let the one grow until early this week. From Fedco’s description, I had assumed it was or would soon be ripe. It didn’t come off the tree easily, which confused/concerned me. I let the apple sit in a south facing window until a bit ago. I tasted it after cutting in half. I knew it wasn’t going to be anywhere near ripe when I saw the greenish flesh…and it clearly needed to stay on the tree for a good long while yet. I’d guess it wouldn’t be ripe until at least towards the end of September.
Ripening date always deserves some leeway, but those spots (lenticels), and the darkness of the red is definitely suss. Jacob Mentlik at Fedco is a very nice guy, and loves to talk apples, I’d let him know about this, firsthand.
Wait and see how the fruit looks in the future is the word. Makes some sense I suppose. Jacob has pics of a Maine grown Gideon from Fedco that look more like my apple than the pics from Fedco.
I imagine outside of me sending in a sample for DNA testing I will never know for certain.
I can deal with the dark red-ness in considering how much the bottom looks like a crab. We all know how much of Peter Gideon’s work (preferentially) went into crab hybrids, and yours certainly looks like one. The large white lenticels could also be partially due to being under-ripe. Time will tell.
I’m intrigued by the idea he had around 20 of his own varieties he felt were better than Dutchess and the ‘Russian’ varieties. Even with the two crabs named for his daughters, that’s only 5 we know of currently, by my count.
I checked on some Gideon Sweet (Temperate Orchard Conservancy source) grafts from 2024 the last two days. One was a top work on a wild crab with 4 scions bark grafted and the other was a cleft graft on a wild apple plug from the U of ID. All put on vigorous growth last growing season. The 4 bark grafted scions all were over 20" long, and the cleft graft was probably 30" or so. I have no idea how long it’ll be before I get to taste a Gideon Sweet, but I’m hopeful I’ll be able to do so at some point. I will be interested to compare TOC’s Gideon Sweet with Fedco’s Gideon (assuming of course that both are what they are labeled as anyway)
edit…to add to the confusion on Gideon and Gideon Sweet…this says the names are interchangeable…lol The pic included at Walden Heights sure looks more like the apple I posted pics of last fall than do the pics at Fedco.
I knew David many years ago when he was just starting out. I’m not sure that ‘scholarly work’ related to variety names and lineages is much of an interest to him. Just getting things to grow in that freezehole he found a home in would take a lifetimes work.
