It’s different from stayman, at least the stayman they grow in North GA orchards. OFW is smaller on average but still good sized, mostly solid red, firmer, and much more coarse grained, and later ripening. It’s several weeks later than king David in my yard so I wonder if it’s too late for your area? It ripens with goldrush here.
I have no idea how OFW would compare with the “traditional winesap” that @blueberrythrill mentioned. i thought that OFW and traditional winesap were the same thing, but I don’t really know from experience.
I’d be happy to share some scion but I only have one 3rd yr branch and it’s already spurred up pretty well so it does not have much good quality scion. But I could get you a terminal twig or two.
No, we usually have a long enough season to ripen Goldrush, Braeburn and almost Pink Lady. This year Arkansas Black ripened with plenty of ripening season left.
I will try to find some wood from someone with a vigorous tree, but thanks. I just don’t have time to deal with slow establishing grafts and little pieces often die on me because leaf hoppers kill them before they are plugged in.
Had great success the first year with no spray on OFW and a total failure the next year so we returned to a moderate spray program. We are scheduled to plant a bunch of new trees as soon as we can get them. OFW really is an excellent apple in my area and I’m not sure why it is not well known. What I called " traditional" Winesap is the type of Winesap you normally see which is smaller and earlier. One common version is called Virginia Winesap which originated in an orchard in Troutville VA. I had an interesting conversation with an Apple grower and cider presser in central VA a few weeks ago who had just custom pressed a trailer load of some modern winesap version that he said had no flavor. His Winesap trees are over 40 years and old and he said they originated from C&O nursery in Washington state. His Winesaps were awesome.
Research at NSCU showed that all varieties with a Golden Delicious parent are very susceptible to Bitter Rot and unfortunately many modern apples have a Golden Delicious parent in the mix.
I have found that research to be dead on. Bitter Rot is always a problem here even with fungicide but apple varieties without a Golden Delicious parent suffer a lot less.
Any experience with the Starkspur winesap strain? I’m getting my first crop this year. First impression: nearly devoid of flavor. A little acid, crunch, and that’s it. Maybe it’s too young or a bad year for it.
This old fashioned winesap is the one collected by Lee Calhoun, author of the book old Southern Apples. I’m not sure where or when he found it but I’d guess it’s an older strain. I think all those details are in his book.
This is one of the best apples I can grow in my yard, but that’s probably not saying much. The warn nights here do not seem favorable for achieving high brix. I’ve actually never measured it on my apples but I can assure you it’s not high. That said, OFW and goldrush are good eaters for me, but most everything else has been a fail in terms of quality here. OFW has great texture and a good sweet tart balance. It’s not a super red apple in my yard - maybe 75% coverage?
Winesap was very widely grown, and although most commercial growers now grow redder sports than the original there are still plenty of them around and they are available as trees from nurseries that specialize in antiques. I’m thinking it probably isn’t one of Calhoun’s rescues because it never disappeared- unless there is a separate variety actually called Old Fashioned Winesap, which is possible, but I’d like to see some record of that. .
My son has my book at the moment but I believe he mentions the source of OFW as someplace in the piedmont portion of NC, perhaps Alamance County. My OFW trees came from Century Farm Orchards. One of the few varieties that produced trees on B9 that reached the 8 foot trellis wire on my farm. Century Farm only sells OFW on M111 and B9 but he is custom budding 100 OFW on G41 for us.
Nobody sells the Winesap strain from C&O Nurseries as far as I can tell. I spoke to the owner of C&O which was located in Wenatchee Washington. He said he was retiring and closing the nursery down and did not know anybody selling the strain that he developed. ACN and couple of other nurseries I spoke with were not familiar with the C&O Winesap but several commercial Apple growers I know in central Va grow it and praised the Apple. I believe it’s called “New Red Winesap.”
My understanding is that Calhoun collected and passed some version of winesap to century farm and later to the Horne Creek preservation orchard, which is where I got mine. The way he wrote about it indicates that he named it old fashioned because he didn’t know the strain but figured it was an old one based on its provenance.
OK, I get it. I’m not really surprised that there are many different sports of Winesap, even from the 19th century, but I didn’t know it coming into this discussion- all I had read about it was that there were newer redder strains I assume bred relatively recently and the original that Burford referred to as “old strain”. He often preferred original varieties.