Hooples Antique Gold

General Fruit Growing
61

I want to grow a good quality Golden Delicious, too.

62

They say the older strains of Golden Delicious are the best. Sounds like you found a winner.

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63

For a very sweet, store-able, late apple, GD is underrated because in the quest for strains that had no tendency to russet they destroyed its flavor. GD is extremely grower friendly and a very consistent cropper for a late. I prefer a more complicated apple but GD is a lot easier to grow than Mutsu, or Fuji, the most popular sugar apples around here. Older strains of GD are still very good multiple use apples for the home grower. Mutsu and Fuji will not give most home growers here an annual crop. They must be thinned hard and early to do so and are still going to give you light crops on alternate years- at least on the free-standing root stocks I’m familiar with.

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64

Heads up. Trees of Antiquity is now offering Hoople’s Antique Gold.

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65

A friend just visited Century Farm Orchards NC tasting day. He tasted dozens and dozens of apples. Hooples A.G. “stole the show.”

It is supposedly susceptible to CAR but other than that, go crazy with it out there in grafting world.

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66

Hambone

Good to hear the Hooples at Century Farm was good this year.

I’m pretty close so I always attend the open house. Sometimes I attend twice! Lots of different varieties to try and I always learn new stuff.

One year I ran into Lee Calhoon and Tom Burford.

Hundreds of different varieties to taste, but some were picked in September or early October and held in storage for a good while so it can be hard to tell what the apple tastes like during its prime.

I was very interested in seeing and tasting Red Royal Limbertwig, but it was past its prime and I was disappointed.

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67

That’s too bad- I too am interested in tasting Red Royal LT vs reading vague unhelpful catalog descriptions.

68

David Vernon really likes the variety and indicated he got about a bushel of apples from one B9 tree which caught my attention.

In any case it did not store nearly as well as Hooples

69

Good to know. I got my tree from Century.

Someone just needs to tell David to stop calling it “Hopples.” I’m not willing to be that guy.

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70

Dear David,

Matt says you need to stop calling it Hopples Antique Gold.

Signed,
Anonymous

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71

Boo. VSOP, you’re gonna get me in trouble. I don’t want to upset my supplier. Especially one so gentlemanly.

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72

I was just joking, but if it is a glaring misspelling, a lot of people appreciate it when they’re corrected so they can fix whatever the problem is.

It’s like going around in the office all day with toilet paper stuck to your shoe, and you don’t realize until you’re about to go home. I mean, yeah, you’re a little embarrassed about the toilet paper stuck to your shoe, but you’re also like WHY DID NO ONE TELL ME??!!

Or maybe it’s not like that at all. I dunno. :yum:. Carry on.

1 Like
73

I also got mine from him. This year was its first in the ground and it barely survived. For some reason everything more than about 6 inches above the graft died, but I got some new growth from just above the graft so I am hopeful the tree will pull through. I will know for sure in the spring.

74

Matt

I believe I made the original spelling error here. David has it spelled right on his web page.

75

Nope. It has two Os, not two Ps. Hoople’s. Not Hopple’s.

You’ve spelled it right. David’s (consistently) spelled it incorrectly. But he gets points for consistency.

Here is the correct history:

And more here. It’s named after Harry Hoople of Ohio:

http://www.southmeadowfruitgardens.com/FruitTreeCatalog.html

By the way-- Looks like Whiffletree is now offering it-- for all you crazy Canadian kids out there. Whiffletree incorrectly lists it as a child of Golden Delicious. In reality, it is a sport mutation of GD:

And another related story:

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76

Rust on Hooples? Anyone see Hooples get a bad case of CAR? Somewhere I got the idea it was susceptible but I don’t see anyone reporting it. I plan to use it as one of three varieties I use at a grafting workshop next March. I want the students to leave with bench grafts of three stars: MonArk; Hooples and Black Limbertwig. One old, one new and one sport, one summer, one fall, one late fall. PS Thanks to @Lucky_P for my original Monark scion.

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77

How is Hoople’s compared to Ashmead’s? :slight_smile:

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How does Hoople’s taste compared to Ashmead’s?

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Hooples is more aromatic, Ashmead is more sour less aromatic and more dry fleshed.

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80

Hey, I would like to know what you think of Hoople’s and if it is worth planting a tree. I am tight on space and if it isn’t anything amazing I will skip it. ??