200 of my 1,300 varieties are red fleshed and I always say Pink Parfait is one of my least favorites. Truly believe it is location, we are in SE Ohio (zone 6b) with hot humid summers that can have a lot of rain. Unless it is a nice cool dry fall then Pink Parfait just does not taste good here. For the rest of the Etter varieties that you mention Rubaiyat tastes alright at first but good when left to ripen as you said and ripens last for us. Grenadine is way more popular with our UPIc guests.
Pink Pearl was the first red fleshed apple I grafted back in the 1980’s and I used to say it was my favorite but it is suffers like Pink Parfait from too much heat and humidity. Red Devil, Alamata and Discovery are some of the favorite red fleshed apple varieties growing here, Hocking Hills Orchard.
We make cider every year from our red fleshed apples and on most of the them the color lasts from crushing, squeezing, fermentation to bottling. My basement if full of carboys of hard cider from my trees. Along with making single variety cider I try different combinations every year and Almata, Niedzweckyana, Clifford and Red Flesh are heavy producers that are used on a regular basis. Almata apples are so juicy that when you cut into them it looks like they are bleeding.
Baya Marisa struggles for me too and I am in zone 6b in SE Ohio so it is not weather. I grafted a couple new ones this year and will give them another try. The original trees I have of this variety out in my orchard were trashed by deer one year after their cages were knocked over and then cicada’s the next and have yet to recover. But the fruit I have had from them is good to eat.
I will send you a notice when we (Hocking Hills Orchard) are having our apple tasting in 2019 and if you are not too far away you should come try some. I typically have between 40 to 45 varieties for people to try, about 10 or so will be red fleshed. I used to try and let people sample everything that was ripe but have learned over the years that people’s eyes will start to glaze over after 45 apple varieties .
Have you considered cutting back your main limbs? Leave two or three buds of last year’s growth beyond the second year scar and see if that doesn’t trigger spur production. Redfield bloomed and set fruit the fourth year after initial graft (onto M26) in my case. When I re-planted it across the street, it went into shock. The following year it set a load of fruit - too much for its size.
I expect to thin it to maybe only 2 fruits next season so it will put strength into growing wood and spurs.
I’ve read Glockenapfel has a lemon component in its flavor profile. You might want to try breeding it with Bardsey and Limoni di Casina (new name to me.)
I get the impression Redfield has frost-tolerant blossoms, and you may be able to prove that this season. Redfield is first to bloom among 10 different cultivars growing in a one block radius.
MM111 is almost tardy to bear in comparison to others. I have had good experiences with Budagovsky118, which is about the same size around here as MM111, and much more precocious. I got mine from Cummins.
Yes, I may buy a tree or two on M111…but it will be because that’s the only option I can find if I want a new variety and don’t want to wait on grafting it. I’m getting too old to wait 10 years for fruit
I don’t exactly like the idea of having to put up posts and wires either. So, I am grafting to G30 again this year, and trying G890. Both are smaller than M111 and don’t need staking. And Bud9 is my choice if I’m wanting a dwarf and willing to stake it. (Like many others on here, I may ‘experiment’ with something else from time to time.)
As for Redfield blooming first? We’ll see. But, I have a fairly frost free location, so might not tell me anything about it’s resistance or lack to frost. (Frost free isn’t the same as freezing when temperatures drop into the teens everywhere.) Sometimes my mom less than 2 miles away in the valley has frost like snow…and my spot will be without any frost.
I’m also doing some G202 I have ordered from Cummins…forgot about that.
But, even though my ‘take rate’ wasn’t as good on G30, the size at end of a year was way ahead of G202 in my previous experience.
There’s a chance I’ll have a bloom or two on most any of my other red fleshed apples that are on B-9 that I grafted last spring…but I probably wouldn’t let any of them set fruit…they need to GROW.
Oh, I forgot completely, I have 4 red fleshed varieties on a ‘frankentree’…but since it’s a seedling in it’s 4th leaf in 2019, it’s iffy if there are any blooms there.
I’ve been bitten by the red flesh apple bug. My grafts of Airlie Red Flesh have produced fruit for the past two years. I enjoy the flavor. To me, it’s a nice balance of sweet and tart, and a little something more like berry. Im not a gourmet but I know I like them.
I ordered Redlove Era from One Green World this winter. It came about 2 weeks ago, nice bare root tree, lots of thick healthy looking roots. Now it’s planted among the other trees.
I have a minor thought of crossing the red flesh apple with one of the columnar varieties I already have, such as Scarlet Sentinel. Then maybe we could have a red flesh apple with pink flowers, in columnar shape. But first, of course, this new tree will need to grow, and bloom, and bear fruit…
Niedzwetzkyana is pretty upright…though not tight like a pole apple.
Deep pink flowers, red leave in spring, and orangish foliage in fall.
Apples aren’t very tasty though…
