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Ok, I still haven’t giving up on Arkansas Black. I had a bad apple year with lots of bugs and bitter pit. The Arkansas blacks are unaffected. Nice crop too. Just wondering when I should pick them. We tried one today and it was pretty bland. Lots of green inside too. Should I wait until they are yellow inside? Will they get more sugar in storage?
Thanks
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Most people pick them like these from the @39thparallel orchard. Would not try to eat them for a couple of months.
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I don’t have to think hard. The graft of Arkaksas Black on my Honey Crisp got fire blight, the whole small branch. It will be removed and not replaced.
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I am finding many of the varieties highly valuable I once had a low opinion of. It’s usually an issue of misjudging harvest time or not understanding how they are best used. I pick Arkansas Black in October when I start to see significant drops and they snap off the tree easily. They are not for fresh eating with out mellowing in storage. The mellowing can be speed up by sweating them out at room temperature for a couple weeks. The real value of AB is a storage apple. imagine how valuable they would be if you only had a root cellar to store produce. I need to take a Brix measurement on AB. I just read that the Brix can be high on AB. The winery made a really nice cider last year primarily with AB and Black Twig. I’m sure AB starches continue to convert to sugar in storage in. It would be interesting to take periodic brix and starch measurements in long term storage on AB.
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I picked some this morning after the hard freeze last night. I like the taste of them just fine now, but I will put a few in the fridge to store for awhile and then see what they taste like.
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Should I leave them on the tree as long as possible?
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Yes!
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Thought i was the only one who ever had problems with apples. As they say location, location, location. My soil is mostly clay it is far more suited to pears and aronia than apples. Copper sprays twice a year in the spring and fall for controlling fireblight in apples are needed here. Pear hybrids dont need sprayed at all typically. There are nearly no apples that do ok spray free.
The Compspur has less flavor.
I’ve harvested in September, October, and last year a dozen or so in November.
Depends on the season.
But they’re not going to keep/store as long if you let them get completely ripe before picking.
Usually there’s still a good one on the ground after it freezes into the 'teens…unless varmints clean them up.
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I had half a bushel from a friends orchard last year, they were nice for eating several months later but not any kind of wow for taste. 10 for bulletproof and storage, average for flavor based on that crop.
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I basically agree with Scott. If something stores that well, it doesn’t have to have a magical taste, just good. This one works for me.
John S
PDX OR
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Such beautiful coloring on those apples.
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I only eat a few from my nursery trees, although a grafted branch had nice apples this year that the squirrels got. The ones I’ve eaten taste fine to me right off the tree and I like their size- not too big, and I’m sure with their dark color they must be loaded with anti-oxidants. Best of all, they are a relatively low-maintenance variety.
When I weigh virtues against drawbacks, I say the variety belongs in my orchard and I have never tasted them out of 3 months storage. Like I said, they taste fine to me right off the tree and my squirrels agree. I had at least a bushel on nursery trees that I wanted to harvest this year but they took them before they reached peak flavor.
That said, King David is my pick of most flavorful Winesap types. It is in my top-5 list of best apples I grow here, although it’s actually tough for me to keep that list at 5 and KD is a recent entry and therefore on probation.
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The quality of taste was all over the place and most of the time not so great at my location. I eventually removed it.
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I tasted some more of my friends ArkBlacks this last weekend. They had more zip with only a month or so of cellaring. But the main thing I was noticing is how unblemished they were. I was the guy cutting out the bad bits as we fed apples into the grinder and the ArkBlacks were pretty much perfect whereas all the other apples had a good amount of worms, bitter pit, and general rots.
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Arkansas Black.
It might get a “B” grade for taste, but I can think of a lot of apples I like less.
It gets an A+ for having some pretty apples dependably and not having to spray them.
An A for regular cropping, even in years of late freezes.
And an A for keeping even though not refrigerated.
An A for dried apples.
And maybe an A- for pies.
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Well, after this year I have decided to keep mine. I had a poor year with insect damage in my orchard but the Arkansas Blacks were completely undamaged. Our summer was warm this year so they ripened nicely.
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Grafted Arkansas Black last year, this year I have fruit buds, so hopefully I will see it set fruit next year. I am located in Europe Romania, at the border between zone 6b/7a. The source of scion is FedcoSeeds.
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