Yes I also have those like said Karmijn for example great for stock. Yet here the supermarkets think different. And as much as i would like to have acres of land i have a few square meters ( price is -+ 2000 dollar per square meter in my crowded country. Im graftingg and grafting to make use of the space available but not enough to be self sufficient in my fruit:pensive:. Nowadays looks are more important as taste unfortunately. The only Apple im eating at the moment is delcorf from the supermarket, not my favorite at all but comes out of the freezing shait reasonably. Groninger Kroon 
is my favorite by far juicy, crispy and a perfect sweet/sour balance, ready for harvest end of august, storable until end of winter. Yet they never lived to see oktober:wink:
In my opinion pears have caught on this trend. I always just see Bartlett and Anjou pears at the store. You can get Comice but those seem to be reserved for more expensive things like gift baskets. I tried pears like Comice, Magness and Warren from online vendors and they tasted like sugar compared to my store bought pears.
From a home backyard perspective, growing traditional old English varieties is on the up and up. Especially those wanting to do home grafting and setting up private orchards.
New Community orchards are on the up and up, despite vandalization and subsequent neglect.
Restoring old neglected traditional commerical/village orchards is on the up and up, due to conservation, wild life habitats and habitat diversity. They are grown at about 150 trees per hectare.
Traditional orchards in the UK accounted for 24,600 hectares in 2006 and 16,992 hectares in 2011
Golden Delicious Effects on UK Apple Industry
Then came 1973 and Britain’s entry into the Common Market. Suddenly French apples began appearing in the shops. Because GD and to lesser degree the Granny Smith (originated in Australia in 1868) was released by the French on the UK public, approx 10 days earlier than Cox Orange Pippin became available, and due to the publicity. It decimated the UK’s apple industry, 60% of all UK’s apple orchards were grubbed up, often with EU grants that forbade replanting within 15 years. Kent, the Garden of England, lost 85% of its apple orchards. Hereford fared even worse, losing 90%.
Ironically, the Golden Delicious is an American apple, that came via Algeria to France. I remember buying these apples as they were boosted by a massive “le crunch” advertising campaign, they were cheap and all totally identical. No mention of flavor, as they did not have any. They were totally bland.
The fight back started in 1989 with the establishment of the Bramley Campaign. A year later the trade association English Apples and Pears was founded, and this then became British Apples and Pears.
However New commerical orchards (mono culture) are a different matter, and they only have a lifespan of around 20 years, and are grown, dependant on system being used at 2100 trees per hectare up to over 22000 trees per hectare.
Commerical orchards in the UK accounted for 15,000 hectares in 2002 then down to 14,500 hectares in 2012. Cider apple production accounted for 6,700 hectares in 2002 and 7,200 in 2012.
The 2 most grown culinary apples are Braeburn, Gala (and clones), with a downturn for Bramley cookers of 2,600 hectares in 2002 then down to 1,760 hectares in 2012. Other increases since 2009 is Jazz and Cameo. Strangley Kanzi has seen a reduction of 32%
Traditional varieties have seen a reduction by Discovery 11%, Worcester Pearmain 13%, Cox 6%, Egremont Russet 23%, Jonagold 10%
Since 2021, British apple growers faced 30% increases in costs of production and received just 8% increase in returns from supermarkets.
So the amount of varieties being offered at supermarkets is generally down, to only a few. It has been noticeable that the amount of UK grown apples is approx constant, but imports have changed from EU counties to South Africa and Chile.
But the amount of old UK varieites now being grown by home orchardists is increasing exponentially.
https://publications.naturalengland.org.uk/file/5579609236045824
Something weird has been happening with stores here. I guess to combat high prices they put packs of 3 or 4 fruits unmarked in a pack. Then let you buy so many packs for $10.
You could find marks on some with tiny little stickers. Bartlett was clear as with Comice. Pink Lady ans I think a MacIntosh type was the only apple. And some unmarked oranges.
Pretty sad I thought. You used to see whole bags of many types Pre-pandemic.
Plus they probably put out more of what they want to get rid of and limit packs of other fruit.
I’m happy for you.
Pears are slower here as most local varieties were selected for drying and distilling or they ripen in storage.
So you are lucky to get a Bosc or Conference or Williams(only seasonal) at the store instead of something in the shape of a pear with less pear taste than a kohlrabi…
The nurseries are better on that front but far behind apples.
Here we have a few varieties as you mentioned. To me the biggest downside of pears is on standard size trees they have super slow growth. My pears on standard rootstock is amount the same size as they were years ago. Another thing about pears here is many are eager to cut down and kill callery trees opposed to using them to propagate trees. People are see them as invasive and not a amazing rootstock for trees that pretty much cannot be killed if you graft on disease and pest resistant trees.
I guess it’s up to apple fiends like us to help save antique varieties.
I grow and appreciate the originals, but it’s also good to see that their genes are being carried on with newer varieties. Without even trying, I have probably accumulated a half dozen descendants of Cox’s Orange Pippin.
I know very little about English apples, but I did graft Dunkerton’s Late Sweet a few years ago. It’s survived a couple winters now. Anybody grow the variety?
But they have superb reason. No one is ever using all the dumb Callery pears that out compete native plants for ever decreasing available land. There are places you can drive many miles and see Callery everywhere.
I’m not giving it a foothold here. I’d rather use tough old Bartlett that is available cheap.
Some non-natives naturalize and are not that bad. Florida Sand pear is a nice little rough and tumble pear. Probably a hybrid. Fits right in with riparian zones without going wild like Callery.
But they are great cookers if you can pin down when they are ripe
My thoughts are if you are in one of these states with all this callery pear overgrowth why not make use of it. You could make a state program to graft disease resistant cultivar to them and once they get of age to fruit harvest the fruit and give the fruit to state residents. There are states that are overfilling with people and there are states with no one that this could be done. Kansas has under 3 million people but most of your driving if you drive from CO to the coast will be in Kansas. I think about 8-9 hours out of something like 23 or 21 hours to Charlotte from where I live would be driving from here in the Denver area to Kansas.
Well said about the taste spectrum of the newer apples. An apple cider orchard would be a risky venture for sure.
Because it is too invasive and has demonstrated it will harm native fauna. I like our native Mayhaw’s, Hawthorn’s and others it displaces. Callery represents a monoculture on steroids. Just Mother Nature brand. Where as 1000’s of wild plants it replaces equals lost valuable germplasm going un-tapped.
Which apricot variety did you experience that progression? Or do you find that with several. I planted an apricot this spring but a late freeze killed it. I am looking into other options.
We are losing an old orchard near me. His neighbor wants the land. The orchard owner is old and runs it by himself. He is tearing out the Arkansas Black. Says no one buys them. He makes excellent cider but may not be there .uch longer.
-
They were here before I got here, so I really don’t know what sort they are.
-
As mentioned, I think that happened because they had not been able to crop for 15 years or so, so all those years went in to that crop. lol
Here in CO we are having similar happen. There is becoming less and less open space and less and less land to build on. Orchards are starting to get relegated to the palisade area. There used to be lots of areas to pick pumpkins in the fall, apple orchards near by etc. Everyone is moving here and they are wanting to build everywhere in our case. We have tried to stop them by voting in to buy things like the applewood golf course on the Jeffco ballot but then they buy other areas/plots of land and build 4 right by each other with 1 road going through. People don’t want land these days. They want a mega mansion or a HOA to take care if it. My sister and her boyfriend just bought a townhouse because they don’t want to take care of the outside of the house. She could have got some property with some nice land as she is a pharmacist and her boyfriend works for the government.
This topic illustrates why I have tried growing heirlooms before US cvs. Many simply cannot hack conditions I must deal with, so Sturmer Pippin, Queen Cox (COP bud sport), Rosemary Russet (sigh) and more from Britain, Germany & France, no longer live here. However, I am delighted to grow & enjoy Lamb Abbey & Claygate. I hope to try a bud sport of Discovery (Rosette, by way of Derek Mills: thank you!) before too many years.
I am very thankful for the GRIN-Global website. The Czech plant germplasm section has many more obscure older apples then the USDA GRIN website. Found many more “Soviet” varieties then the USA website has. The same goes for a few of the other eastern European countries.
I also like their break down of category descriptions. For example USDA tends to just describe Fire Blight resistance for shoots and blooms. Global has Scab, Mildew and fruit blemish disorders, rot, watercore and bitter pit ratings{but not fireblight}. Plus other descriptors are more detailed.
In a perfect world USDA and Global could combine the categories together and unify the data.
Found an odd apple at USDA to put on my wish list of 10.
One of the legendary Frank Myer’s finds trotting the globe for the USDA. Found in China in 1911. And said to be a large fruited variation on a Malus Sylvestris he collected on the same trip. Sounds like a great breeder with global warming and whatnot:
From the USDA:
Comments: Said to be a large variety of No. 30309 (PI 30309). Fruit large, oblate to round; skin greenish yellow; flesh crisp, firm, subacid, tart when green with most of acidity disappearing when firmly ripe, juicy, fair to good quality. Tree: semi-dwarf, able to withstand drought, alkali and neglect, promising for hot regions under irrigation; sometimes used as dwarfing interstock.
I can comment on the apples in England. Growing up in a small town in Florida in the 1960’s, the only 2 apple varieties we could get were Golden and Red Delicious. I sure wasn’t eating the Reds, and learned to look for the most russeted of the Goldens. (Alas, they have selected out the russeting for most Goldens nowadays.) At age 22 I was in England as service wife, living in a village, not on base. I soon discovered the joys of apples in England, not only in the stores but also in a small abandoned orchard. I picked Brambleys and Claygate Pearmain, and ate whatever the green grocers sold, including the incomparable Cox’s Orange. However, there were a lot of shiny green-as-grass apples that I was told were French Golden Delicious. If that was truly the correct name, it was plain the French had no idea what G Delicious apples are supposed to be like. I doubt I ever tried even one. The baffling thing to me was how anyone who had the option of eating a good English apple would choose to buy those travesties. I was pretty poor at the time, doubt that I had much more to spend than the locals. .