Many farmers who invested heavily in planting Honeycrisp trees likely did not take into account just how difficult it would be to grow, harvest, and store the apples.
Originally meant to be discarded, a seasonal apple in MN loses quality when grown elsewhere and then stored for year-round sales
Makes one feel insecure if they are say thinking of investing in an orchard of NY-1 with it’s rootstock partner G.257. Incidentally I am getting a G.257 or 2 to monitor and report how it does in the deep South. They were interested in reports of the virulent fireblight we apparently had. To see how it fares. But it takes a gamble on these new products.
Frostbite too was an apple they originally did not want to release due to it’s taste. They thought it was a bit much for many.
So, some Washington farmers bought into this apple on a large scale and it was not even tested in their region properly. That was a bad idea… a lost gamble.
I had some HC recently and only $0.99 a pound. They were huge, crisp, and delightful to eat. They must have been this year’s crop. The best HC I’ve eaten. Sounds like I may need to avoid them until new crop next year.
Pazazz is a seedling of Honeycrisp and is one of my favorite apples now. Honeycrisp is boring to me now.
That’s because the pattern expired. When protected by pattern they could only be grown and sold under license. The license restricted the growing conditions and how long the fruit can be stored for sale, to maintain quality.
Now the pattern has expired no restrictions exist so can be sorted for a year and still sold which gives them a mealy texture with not much taste
Patent.
However, I believe you are mistaken based on what I’ve read several times over the years. Popularity for Honeycrisp grew slowly and by the time it had buzz the patent had expired and they didn’t make their money back. Now new varieties are released in a more organized way, often as club varieties where growers are quickly contracted to grow a sizeable crop of a new variety and are given help in promoting it, so popularity is achieved in time to assure a return on the breeding investment.