Well shoot… Now I’ve got a few more to add! Luckily this is the first year I’ll be grafting some english varieties, so if they fail, I’ll cut the limb and then put these two on other limbs!
How are they for disease resistance?
I am trying Médaille d’Or, placed in the most protected spot. The two-story house protects it from the prevailing winds (its wood is reputedly brittle) and late afternoon sun. With second highest tannin levels I know of (only Bramtot beats it, to my knowledge) there should still be significant tannins for cider pressing.
Will it ripen a crop here? I am gambling the sunny and dry summers will speed its ripening and raise its sugars so it can be harvested the first week of November, if not the last week of October. Will it succumb to fire blight or something else? God only knows. I just hope to have a better experience with it than has Scott.
I hope to graft the beginnings of two Harrison apple trees, one atop the disappointing D’Arcy Spice and another on Geneva 30. If Médaille d’Or fails, I might just go with Redfield as the tannin ( and color) addition, since Redfield already. Campfield is still tempting as runner-up…
I put in Medaille d’Or for a similar reason; that and it reportedly was a “vintage-quality” fruit in its own right.
I do not have a lot of cider-making experience, but plenty of experience with wine and am generally happy with how I can add winemaking tannin to cider to adjust that. There is no way to compensate for fruit that does not have the taste profile for good cider, though. If you have not tried it already, you might consider picking up some Redfield cider. I thought that it was fine, but not outstanding, and did not call me as a variety to add.
I recently put in a ‘Harrison’ to increase the vintage-cider-quality varieties that I have. If I add more cider trees, I think that I will continue to focus on juice flavor, as acidity is, along with tannin, is something that is easy to add (not only for the direct TA sensory effect, but acids other than Malic can improve flavor, in my opinion).
Vohd: I hope to graft Harrison this season and someday, when the trees grow up, add a proportion of Redfield to that juice. Medaille d’Or is such a shot in the dark and may never ripen a crop, Redfield is already established in this neighborhood, so seems worth considering.
The climate here is so different from where Redfield has been used as a varietal cider, I imagine it would yield a very different product, all things being equal. It may still have enough acid and tannin to bolster the mouthfeel and all for Harrison juice.
All this is theoretical and perhaps rhetorical. Time will tell.
@scottfsmith Have you made any cider with Harrison yet? If so, how did it work out? I’m thinking of putting in a tree for a single-varietal cider.
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My trees are still not producing enough for cider. That is a downside of MM111, a long wait. But I am sure they will be good for me based on tasting the apples produced thus far as well as others experiences. You are further north so not sure about how it will do there, but it should ripen in time at least.
This year my Wickson’s Son (unknown crab sort of like Wickson) produced a really good load and I think it is going to be a main cider apple for me. It is very high sugar, 23-24 brix, good tannins and flavor. Probably too late for you though, it is still hanging on the tree here.
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Thanks for the info! Fedco trees sells it, and I’m on the warmer end of their focus area, so hopefully it should be OK. I’m from NJ originally, so Harrison has a special appeal for me.
I’m also willing to bet that between the urban heat island effect and rising global temperatures, the climate at my site is close to that of northeastern NJ in the 19th century.
Harrison is very hardy and vigorous here in the southern adirondacks of NY, you should have no problem growing it. Campfield not as much, but OK. Too early for fruiting on my trees though.
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Sorry for digging up an old thread, but I think this post may have convinced me to go with Harrison.
I am in the Saratoga area, Zone 5a. Thanks for posting this!
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Nice to see another upstater Eric!
My trees are still too young to fruit, bug my Harrisons are growing about as well as anything else in the orchard. (Z4b-5a)
Time will tell the full story.
This central NYer offers another welcome. We only make fresh cider, so we don’t grow cider-only apples. Curious about the topic, I’ve checked the apple varieties used by five of our favorite local cideries here in the Finger Lakes, and don’t see either Harrison nor Campfield among any of their listed varieties.
It will be interesting to see if Harrison can crop here considering it’s noted to be an October apple. I am interested in grafting some of the potential Poveshon that was discovered in Western NY. My Campfield hasn’t been at all vigorous and in fact I’m down to one tree, so I’ll have to try grafting more. Last but not least I need to get some Grannywinkle scion to graft and then I’ll have the 4 Newark varieties to experiment with.
Thank you both! I’ve been on here since 2015, came from GardenWeb with Scott and Alan, but had a bit of a hiatus for a few years. I used to run a blog with my experiences for a couple of years with apple reviews as well.
I dont own an orchard, I have only enough space for 6 trees, so I try to make them count!
Harrison sounds good to me and with Tom Burford passing away in the spring, its all the more reason to keep Harrison spreading. Its quite tasty, I had a sample at Monticello in 2017, reminds me heavily of Golden Russet of Western New York, but more spicy. A lot of body. GR is great in cool autumns, one of my favorites, but Harrison really stopped me in my tracks when trying, even just a small slice. Seems like a versatile apple, I’d like to get it in some baked goods sometime, match it up with Belle de Boskoop in a strudel and tone down the sugar added. Fun to think of the possibilities!
If you guys ever want wood from what I have, let me know, I’ll swap for Harrison if you have a couple sticks!
Jonamac
Kidd’s Orange Red
Orleans Reinette
Reine des Reinettes
Belle de Boskoop
Pomme Grise
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I am in Zone 4b officially, Helena, MT, and perhaps Zone 3 in reality, and grafted some Harrison scions onto B-118 and Antonovka this year. I’ve heard it is slow to bear, and late season harvest, but wanted to try growing it for it’s cider making qualities…with the understanding it may not ripen every year here…but with the hope it may ripen every other year perhaps. I am thinking I would have 15 or 20 trees, a few years from now, with some of these unreliable and questionable varieties, like Harrison, on a small number (3 or 4) of multi-graft frankentrees. If they provide a crop, great, if not, no big loss.
Anyway, Harrison is among the most vigorous of my starts on both rootstocks.
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Probably no Harrison yet eh? I’ll be a few years. It’s taken my b118 trees 6+ years to get to size and physiology to start bearing, what with 3b realities, hail storms and all. But I think I still have a Harrison - GoldRush hopes have died.
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Sowams Cider Works in Warren, RI grows Harrison, among many others. I remember buying a bottle of single-varietal Harrison cider last year. it was excellent.
@jcguarneri – It’s a little bit of a drive for you but you might consider contacting them if you want to taste Harrison (and/or many others). My wife and I are going there this evening for a Valentine’s Day event, so I’ll check my memory.
PM me if you want contact info.
If we’re talking about commercial cider makers, Stormalong’s Ragtime Reserve (Harrison, Graniwinkle, Newtown Pippin, and Franklin cider apple) is a house favorite Stormalong Cider | Quality Craft Hard Cider
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I think my Harrison is still in the garden, but it has had some die-back and is only about 4 1/2 to 5 feet tall. It’s still planted a foot apart from others in the garden row, and close to a pocket gopher burrow that may have done some damage. Perhaps if it was transplanted to a better location it would recover. It did seem to thrive pretty well for the first couple years, but then I have had some health problems and neglected my trees badly for an entire year, allowing the weeds to outgrow the trees and hide them. Whatever has survived my neglect will certainly be among the hardiest and most vigorous of trees. The B-118 is fast-growing from the start, but I have found the Baccata and Ranetka accelerating to catch up already after a second growing season. Perhaps it would be worth grafting a piece of the Harrison onto an existing older, existing tree, so that in two or three years you would have some fruit to sample? I have a feeling the Harrison is more a zone 4 variety that can survive in zone 3, but not sure if it can actually “thrive.”