I’d think fans of Fuji should find enough similarity to like this apple.
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This was actually a pretty good year for apples. Codling moth and apple maggot pressure were lower than usual, maybe because last year there were very few apples.
I only have 2 mature apple trees, the rest are young, or small espalier. One of the mature is mostly Bramley’s and Hudson’s Golden gem, which I’m not much interested in. The other is 1/3 Honey Crisp which are also wasting space.
One of the things I did this fall, when I could have been giving attention to the orchard, was build this shelter for a portable generator that can run our house during an outage:
I stopped by the other Chuck’s and snagged some more Evercrisp:
Then couldn’t resist picking up a Newtown Pippin, some Smitten and a few Golden Russet from Hood River to compare to mine. They also were uncharacteristically missing most of the russet like mine did this year:
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Apples are running for 2.99 a pound here. Not much point in growing apples there if those 99 centers are of high quality.
I’m not sure about those ID’s though, Here Golden Russet is always a full russet. Those look like Newtowns.
That’s why I shared the picture. My Golden Russet looked like that too. For the first time, this year. Must be the weather.
Same tree that produced my fully russeted picture in the past.
Yes, $.99/lb is a steal if these Evercrisp are anything like the ones I bought from the same mini chain earlier this week. Smitten is also one of my favorites. I need to build a shop so I can have a 2nd fridge 
Here’s the Goldrush portion of my apple tree on Oct 20th. It’s the west 30% of the tree. Needs both limb and fruit thinning:
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I’m pretty bad at perpetuating thread drift. But to my thinking, if the OP is okay with it, then I usually am too.
Golden Russet 2017: Note, pictured side is fully russeted from sun exposure, the other side probably sparser. This year the russet was much less full. The Hooples were also sparsely russeted.:
I haven’t tasted the ones from Chuck’s yet, but I think the orchards that supplied these does grow it.
And from 2021, ignore the pear:
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I’ve always agreed with Scott that once a topic has been up for a few days it needn’t stay true to topic. I don’t care if someone rambles into another direction the first day, if the topic subject is interesting to other readers they will pull the conversation back to topic title.
You may have forgotten, but I started this topic over 3 years ago.
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If I find a topic via a google search, I don’t care how old it is, I’ll dump my thought in there.
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I bought a bunch of different club apples to sample today. After reading this I decided to retry evercrisp. I enjoyed evercrisp more than cosmic crisp and I enjoy the density for sure. I would agree it is a very good apple, very sweet. Wish I could grow it here in NY. If apples were my livelihood Id happily pay 100$ for the privilege of growing it
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At one point I planned to pay the $100 so I could offer the tree in my nursery, but I don’t think a single one of the varieties created in the last quarter century are All That. You might love them at first bite and think that they are superior to anything you’ve had before, but as the novelty wears off and you have access to all you want, they fade into the vast collection of wonderful apples already discovered and long past patent.
We are easily manipulated into wanting and craving new sensations and get bored with wonderful when it’s readily available. Our restless nature drives us to innovation but also makes us suckers for the next new thing.
Hey, I’m 71 years old, I’m now entitled to rattle on, waxing philosophic, even if I did the same thing in my youth.
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Good point there. Over in Europe a rebrand of Sunspark into Sprizzle with an exciting marketing campaign attempts to catch the consumer’s attention. A new taste sensation with champagne like mouthfeel. Although I am curious why it didn’t get attention as Sunspark if so great now?
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I had a quite good new crop Cosmic Crisp this week, but agree that it wasn’t as good as the Evercrisp. Both were way better than any Honeycrisp I’ve had in the last 10 years. I’m looking forward to my Cosmic Crisp finally bearing.
I didn’t bother to take a backup graft from it, because the fruit are commercially available. But now I wish I had, so I could compare home grown. My Crunch a Bunch backup has been fruiting for 2 or 3 years and the tree I bought, from which I took the scion, has yet to flower.
Just had another of the Evercrisp. Wow does it have a lot of sugar. On a scale of 1-10 I’d say 6 or 7 on the acid and 11 on the sugar.
For reference, on this scale I just concocted and going by experiential memory. Green Dragon is 1 acid and 10 sugar.
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The evercrisps were Organic NY grown so local crops and I assume from this year? Maybe the cosmic crisps were old crop so not the best example but I think the evercrisp would win out regardless. I would love to compare a NY cosmic crisp & evercrisp together but that wont happen for many years and by then as Alan notes im sure the hype will fade
Yeah it is a very decent apple but it is competing with other very decent apples that all have fairly similar tastes/flavors/features so its all kind of circular. The new apples always claim to be the best in certain categories but it seems to be just minute permutations of all the same qualities seen in spades in the apples already on the market. They are just that- novel tweaks of already very decent but somewhat homogeneous types of apples. But that is just my opinion.
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I can’t vouch for those “Golden Russet” They weren’t good. Seemed like maybe 12 brix, tart, and soft.
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Mitchell.
MAIA 1 is commercially trademarked as Evercrcrisp.
MAIA “Mitchell” (that’s the trademark name and may also be the patent name) was released to Midwest Apple Improvement Association Growers this year
There’s other details about it, such as it colors redder than Evercrcrisp and colors 4 to 8 weeks earlier than Evercrcrisp to get into.
Oh and a friend of mine who works for a large grower has early access to Mitchell because new varieties often get trialed in a number of locations before release…my friend says Mitchell really is a different variety than Evercrcrisp even though it’s being marketed as an Evercrcrisp sport. But I’m ranting and I’m exhausted. Never a good combination because I already realized I made a mistake… Mitchell’s being touted as the successor to Evercrisp.
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Great reply!!! 
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So, ‘redder apples’ are an “Improvement” eh? Shucks some food dye in the wax they coat apples in could have accomplished that!
(Just like the old red delicious or the old colorless Fuji, if my Evercrisp ever bears non-colored apples, I’ll be happy. For taste not looks is more important.)
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Commercially they are an improvement. Redder color does not at all necessarily mean worse taste- as long as breeders are making taste important as I’m sure these breeders are.
My favorite Jonagold is Jonaprince, which has beautiful color compared to the original. It is also somewhat denser fleshed and higher brix.
Red Delicious was always a bimbo apple IMO and I’m not even very impressed with the original beyond it’s beautiful shape, but some of the red strains have skin like cardboard.
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The 1930 Pennsylvania State Horticultural News surveyed growers. Many were replacing dull varieties with redder sports as the city markets were filled with shoppers who bought by sight and more spur of the moment.
Add in the fact that many turned red earlier and could be harvested firmer since not waiting on color to develop so close to being too ripe for shipping.
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Oh, you’re right…but since most of us aren’t growing for Kroger or Food City…should the home fruit lover pick red clones?
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Well, they just might contain more flavenoids. Anyway, for me, only if they taste better. They will also attract more bird predation.