The farm is in Otway, OH which is zone 6a. They have a website at Hoople’s Fruit Farm.com
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Thank you. So, I guess mine should ripen in the next week or two. I’m in zone 6a but the east coast.
Scott,
Are the rest of your Hoople ripening now? I have only two so I would like to pick them at the right if possible.
Well, my opinion changed as I went to pick some apples at a local orchard and they had one called “Primgold” or “Prime gold”. Apparently, it’s related to golden delicious and taste pretty similar. Again, I never had a GD freshly harvested, but boy… these Prime Gold apples were goooood! So… I might love Hooples AG after all.
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I picked my last few a week or so ago. The deer got most of them unfortunately.
I had scion wood for Hoople’s this year and grafted two trees. I kept one and gave one to a distant friend and of course mine crapped out and hers is doing great …
Sounds like a great tree I guess I’ll have to locate new Scionwood next year
Thanks, Scott.
I went out to check, took a bag off, did a lift test, it did not give. So, I left it alone.
We have not seen deer this year. Hope they won’t show up anytime soon.
@markalbob, I took a risk and let two HAG (not a good acronym) on this graft
(grafted in 2016 on Gold Rush). Hope I won’t pay the price.
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They look good, although i might be tempted to stake them to a bamboo pole or something in case of storms but at this point you also have what, another week or 3 left to harvest only?
We don’t have strong wind that often. I am more worried about squirrels, raccoons and groundhogs than any wind.
I went out with a 4x6 organza bag but it was too small for the apple so I stapled the bread bag back. I sprayed Deer Off around the tree. It is supposed to repel squirrels and deer. Hope it works at least for the next few weeks.
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Here the squirrels are pretty focused on putting together their acorn stashes right now and the deer are showing no interest in my fruit. The drops are just rotting with some getting partially eaten by rabbits. My grounds are littered with drops. In a few years yours will probably be the same.
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I still see squirrels damaging my fruit. They prefer my fruit to acorns. We have tons of oak trees in my neighborhood.
Damn critters can’t follow a script. They are all improvisationists.
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I am very thankful its a heavy acorn year as the squirrels are about 95% on to that now. Even the deer are distracted, most of the time I find them under my big oak tree. The squirrels are still occasionally taking an apple or two and the deer are still taking plenty of 'em.
I wish the deer would take my drops, but, of course, if they were doing that they’d also be reaching up for fruit still attached to the tree. They just keep attacking leaves- especially J. plums in my nursery.
Something, I’m guessing Raccoons, stripped one of my apple trees in one, maybe 2 nights. Probably 100-200 apples.
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Coons would likely leave evidence at the base of the trees- poop, if nothing else. They are not into take-out like squirrels. If the fruit cleanly disappeared it was squirrels, but it didn’t happen at night. They are very sneaky when they try to be. Coons snap much larger branches than squirrels in the process of harvesting fruit.
Trapping or exclusion are necessary in coon country if you don’t have a killer dog out at night.
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Interesting that deer aren’t eating the drops. Does that happen every year or is this year an anomaly?
Same thing happened 2 years ago when we had another bumper crop. I’m amazed that my deer don’t pluck off ripe peaches either- they used to.
Ate my first HAG today. This one was picked on 10/5 and kept in a bag in a fridge. It had sunburn spot. Shared it with hubby. He said it was dry but sweet. I think it is on a drier side ( meaning not juicy) and sweet. To me, its sweetness reminded me of honey. Brix was 17. Both of us think it was a good apple.
We ate our own Honey Crisp after that. HC was definitely juicy and crunchy but not as sweet. This year, My HC was subpar.
My second Hoople dropped yesterday. It is a very beautiful apple. Can’t help showing it off here.
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I would like to taste it side by side with Golden Delicious, mine are starting to come in now and are very good quality fresh eating.
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