Goldrush and Cox's orange--am I too cold for one and hot for the other?

General Fruit Growing
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Suntan is one of the relatively few apples that I’ve tried here that has failed to thrive. It’s disappointing, because the few clean fruits that I’ve managed to pick have been delicious.

It wasn’t unexpected. A UK reviewer on Orange Pippin wrote:

The tree is slightly prone to canker and alos quite prone to powdery mildew. Early in the season the fairly large fruits suffer considerable damage from codling and sawfly maggots, although the pest attacks switch to other, more colourful, early-ripening varieties after a few weeks, so the whole crop is not generally lost. The mildew-prone tendency makes it unsuitable for dry regions, while the canker-prone tendency makes it unsuitable for wet regions. Not recommended unless it will be sprayed.

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I definitely like Sun Crisp and Crunch A Bunc, off the tree and in storage. I only like Gold Rush if it ripens properly and has been in storage for at least a month.

I like some tart essin rruit but in intensely like Gold Rush off the tree. My Rubinette is not memorable.

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Did you grow Suntan?

Also, what are your top five apples?

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My Suntan turned out to be mislabeled.

I don’t know if I have top 5 apples. In general, I like balanced apples. However, if I have to choose between sweet or tart apples, I lean toward the sweet ones. Orin would be a good one.

I like Sun Crisp, Crunch A Bunch and Gold Rush (ripe in storage). I also like really good Honey Crisp (I have grown it for 14-15 years, only a few years that the fruit quality was excellent. If we have frequent rain, the quality was compromised).

@HighandDry Neil grows a lot of interesting apples so his opinion would be good to have.

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I grow Queen Cox here in South Dakota, where it sounds like our weather is similar to yours. Queen Cox is a sport (spontaneous mutation) of Cox’s Orange Pippin, and it grows easily here. It gets some cedar apple rust here in the spring, but when things dry out in the summer, the new growth is not affected. The flavor is real intense, super tart and super sweet. I have not eaten a cox, but the description of Cox’s Orange sounds similar to Queen Cox. My tree produces heavily every year, It’s very reliable. Queen cox does not store well, they shrivel in the fridge after a week. However, they hang on the tree well, so I just pick a couple off the tree at a time and eat them fresh. I get about 4 weeks of eating them per year. Towards the end of the 4 weeks the flavor mellows, it tastes sort of like a fresh from the tree Golden Delicious.

Raintree nursery and probably others sell Queen Cox.

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Thanks Tippy, I have read Neal’s excellent posts on his apples before, and communicated further with him.

I just asked you because we live in areas with similar climates and growing conditions.

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I have eaten a lot of home grown apples, most don’t live up to the hype due to environmental factors.

I love Calville Blanc one year, then the next year it was not as good. However, if you have space, you should graft Calville Blanc. It is productive and an oveall good eating and cooking apple. And it is on a large size.

I also like Hawaii. I had another yellow apple, one of golden delicious’ children. Very good but I lost the tag.

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@markalbob : Your first post on this thread was in 2016. What did you decide?

I asked about the length of growing season regarding Gold Rush a year after you asked this question. Quick responses urged me to try it. Gold Rush is now the best tree I have. (I also tried COP, not knowing how poorly it handles low oven temperatures throughout summer.)

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I agree with you about Calville Blanc. I had quite a few years of poor production and or not very good fruit from my one tree. Maybe 6-8 apples at best per year. I was about ready to take it out.

I thought it was perhaps on a wrong rootstock variety, a G series rootstock I had experimented with. I said to the tree “one more year and I’m taking you out and planting something else”.
To my surprise that tree listened, lol. The next year the Calville Blanc had a LOT of delicious fruit. Some really nice large apples. I agree also with you about how great they are to eat and to cook with. So for the last two years that little tree has provided me with some very delicious Calville Blanc apples.
In fact I have about 6 Calville Blanc apples still left in my fridge in the crisper. They are looking a little worse for wear but they still taste really good.
That prior fall I planted a Calville Blanc on a different rootstock. I wanted more of this delicious apple.

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My Calville Blanc was grafted on a Honey Crisp. Honey crisp has a strong tendency to be biennial. In general, my HC sets fruit every other year. However, it does not matter if the host tree (Honey Crisp) sets fruit or not, Calville Blanc sets fruit reliably every year for me.

It is an all-around very good apple that is worth growing.

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I’m not sure how useful my opinions are to 95% or more of the growers on this forum, since my growing conditions are relatively unique in a vastly different way than the usual microclimate considerations one should add as a caveat before delivering information. With that in mind, Z6, dry climate overall, hot, dry summers with comparatively cool nights, drip irrigation, restricted water to my trees (I don’t calculate this, but tree growth strongly suggests this is the case), lean, rocky clay-loam, 4700’ elevation. Also, bears. I do not like them.

In keeping with the original thread topic, Jupiter is a Cox child I haven’t seen mentioned in this thread or very often elsewhere. It’s considered far more grower friendly than Cox and has a more assertive version of that desirable Cox flavor. I harvested a sizable crop, my first, from a sixth year tree a week ago. It would have benefitted from two, maybe three more weeks on the tree, but I feared the considerable bear pressure I’m dealing with would have ended up with the crop in bear bellies and damage/complete destruction of the tree, the latter of which has occurred with four other young trees in the past two years. Even with the early harvest and month or so of storage needed before it’s ready to eat, this apple is going to be really good this year, and better in future years once I’ve electrified the perimeter of my deer fence to keep the bears at bay. @NuttingBumpus, this is a Cox apple you should trial.

Fiesta is another Cox offspring to consider. Like Jupiter, it is also offering me its first real crop this year. I haven’t harvested it yet, but will soon, again earlier than I’d like due to bears. Fiesta has a reputation as a scraggly grower, and that matches my experience, so it’s not as easy as Jupiter in that respect. As opposed to Jupiter, which has a stronger flavor than Cox, Fiesta is supposed to be a little milder. I’ll find out soon if that applies in my conditions. It’s also supposed to crop well annually.

@mamuang, a top five is practically impossible for me, and it changes as new apples from my collection begin to fruit. Here are a few of my favorites, all of which have fruited regularly for years unless otherwise noted. They will, with one exception, all be fairly boldly to super boldly flavored, as that is my strong preference with almost any fruit.

Claygate Pearmain
Orlean’s Reinette
Rubinette
Calville Blanc
Goldrush
Bullock/American Golden Russet
Macoun - actually not the flavor bomb I usually prefer, but between its soft-crisp texture, juiciness and subtle, moreish (British term for can’t stop eating it) flavor, it’s so different and so good, it must be included in this group.

A slight step below the preceding.
Esopus Spitzenburg - maybe a step below the preceding apples in bold flavor, but still very good and super productive annually in all but the worst late frost years.
Suncrisp - I almost included it with the first group, but it’s just a hair away from that level, mostly due to the disappointing flavor it delivered in ‘23, something that has never happened with any of those.

The following apples have only produced one or two small crops for me thus far, so I can’t vouch for their productivity yet, but their flavor ranks with those mentioned above.

Old Nonpareil (came to me with that name—likely should just drop the “Old,” as it matches the description and looks of Nonpareil).
Golden Pearmain - first crop in ‘23, frosted off last year, good crop again this year. It’s quite bold—and good—off the tree, but after a month in storage, it was more deeply flavored and richer than expected. I loved it.
Norfolk Royal Russet - first handful of apples in ‘23, none last year, but a dozen plus ripening soon. The few apples I had from this tree in ‘23 were both among the prettiest I’ve ever grown, and the best flavored, period. I am very excited to see if I can duplicate that this year. I grafted a new tree this year to squeeze somewhere into my orchard based off of apples I ate in ‘23. If it’s as good every year as it was in ‘23, it might end up my favorite apple.

Tippy, I haven’t sampled Crunch-a-Bunch yet. I’ll do that in the next couple of days and report here or in the other thread Alan started.

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Cox and most of the Cox crosses are a distant memory for me thanks to Anthracnose, im still fighting to hang on to Karmijn though. I was able to successfully grow all crosses that i tried despite my hot summers with Alkmene being my personal favorite.
While working at WSU in Mt Vernon (1990s - 2000s) we tried every apple we thought could possibly do well here. The Cox crosses of the period were no exception. They all did well despite Mt Vernon having fairly low heat units, 1700 at that time. The climate was not kind to Goldrush though. We always gave it high marks for potential but never really got a decent crop.
My present location further up valley is great for later season apples. Goldrush is superb here.

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Neil: thanks for the tip regarding Jupiter. I had encountered the name & knew nothing about it until yesterday, when I helped strip trees in a local orchard in preparation for pressing cider. The owner has about 30 Jupiter in a line ready this winter to be placed in the orchard. He told me it was a Cox cross. His young trees may offer debut samples in two more years.

Checking coxorangepippin.com we find Jupiter a cross of COP & “Starking” Delicious.
Since Empire is a Delicious/McIntosh cross which is better than either parent tree IMO, the prospect of a Cox cross with Delicious has appeal.

In the meantime, all indications are that harvest in this region is nearly three weeks ahead of the usual. Gold Rush on my property is likely to be picked as soon as I make room to store it. I checked a windfall two days ago at 12 Brix and dark seeds. The flavor tells me it is nearly ready.

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Harvest in my orchard has run 2-4 weeks ahead of any I can remember across all fruits except maybe tart cherries. They were early too, but maybe only a week plus. And Goldrush at 12 Brix? Surely there must still be a mass of starches that will convert with a month or two of storage. Goldrush here runs 22+ Brix at harvest when picked in mid October in a normal year and hits 25-28 Brix after a month or two of storage. I don’t understand why your conditions wouldn’t produce at least 20 Brix apples.

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I found this a somewhat useful guide to Cox OP progeny. The author runs the demonstration orchard at UC Santa Cruz, CA, hence the “somewhat” qualification for me in 5b Front Range of Colorado. I have a Cox on semi-dwarf (modified central leader, about 7’ high) and grafted Rubinette and Pinova on to it this spring. Only in 3d leaf, so no fruit yet. I have also grafted Rubinette and Cox’s to other trees. Rubinette scion wood has been quite exuberant in my climate, grafted onto Cox, Pristine and Macoun, compared to the other two. Even had a few flower buds on one branch. Thicker and longer growth. However, the Pinova scion I got from Fedco was pretty shrimpy vs Rubinette from Cummins. So not a great experimental design.
coxs-orange-pippin.pdf (538.3 KB)

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I think there is an orchard in Sun Prairie that has Goldrush. (if I remember correctly.) I wanted one and found an orchard in WI that had it. The guy said it ripens ok most years. He will pick it if the temps are going to be below 28F for more than 3 hours. He convinced me to get one. I’m in Ozaukeee County. I don’t feel like I’ve had enough experience with it to say yay or nay. Its in a remote spot where I often forget to spay it. (bugs) . First year all the fruit dissappeard. Coons . I need more time to decide.

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Coons can strip a tree of fruit pretty quickly. They have all night ( and day time as well) to get your fruit and bring all their friends and family as well.

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