I’d to start a “Fruit Ripening Order” data base for multiple locations.
What I mean is, when I look at the various fruit growers websites (Adams County, Dave Wilson, Orange Pippin, Bay Laurel, etc) I see a wide variance in ripening dates. A lot of the variance is obviously due to geography…Things in southern CA will ripen earlier than things in New England.
But I notice other differences in ripening dates when I compare my dates to, say, Dave Wilson’s dates. Some of my trees ripen a month later than DW’s dates, while others ripen a month earlier than DW’s dates. When I compare other site’s ripening dates it gets even more confusing. Needless to say, this makes planning where to put new scions difficult. (I’ve been trying to keep grafted wood and the host wood in the same ripening window I.E. Early scions on an early ripening tree)
What I’d love to have is a GrowingFruit.org database for ripening dates in various areas of the county or world.
I’m in the Mid Atlantic, not too far from Scott and Matt so I imagine their ripening order would be near identical to mine. I have far fewer varieties than them, so I would be able to look to their lists to see where best to graft a new scion. In other words, I wouldn’t have to take Dave Wilson’s word or the Orange Pippin site’s word that a certain apple (in this case) is “mid to late” season. I could check with other local “ripening lists” and see what that really means in my climate compared to the trees I already have.
For instance, my apple ripening order is:
Monark Arkansas
Ginger Gold
Gala
Honeycrisp ??? (no harvest yet)
Macoun
Spartan
Red Fuji
Granny Smith
Gold Rush
Pink Lady
(and I’m not totally sure about the last three)
So when I’m looking to graft, say Rubinette, I could look at Scott’s list or Matt’s list or the “Mid Atlantic Master List” and figure out where to put the new graft so that fruit ripens at the same time as the rest of the tree.
Does that make sense?
I realize something like this would provide little benefit to the experienced people, but I think it could be very helpful to a lot of people.
What do you think?