So I’ve talked with Derek and his tree hasn’t fruited yet so he’s not sure it’s the real deal or not yet. (Did not see Derek’s post above when I made this comment, please disregard)
Was on a website of a Northeastern nursery that sold Orange Bastian trees this year. I will go back in my history and find it.
I went back to archive.org to search his site history and found this old blog post. I assume he is talking about the same apple here.
???
Does Derek own Maple Valley Orchards? If not then I may have the wrong guy! My bad!
Derek is Hocking Hills Orchard.
There is nothing wrong with those apples. I would look into the real orange fleshed apples like butterball and others. The taste is highly desirable.
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Here are the two apples side-by-side. You can see the similarities and differences. Trailman is glossy, egg shaped, a bit larger, and ripe now. Bastian’s Orange is smaller, a bit blocky around the stem, and has no gloss to it. Plus, Bastian’s Orange won’t be ripe for a few more weeks. Its flesh will get more vibrant orange during that time.
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Puzzling.
The fruits that Jim Bastian sent me looked like that - round - unlike the oval Centennial, which was my favorite crab at the time. The apples on my tree are more oval/elongate, like Trailman pictured.
But the ones that Bill (Auburn) posted are round, and his tree is grafted with scions I provided from my tree.
Other photos I’ve seen, purporting to be BOC, show a round mostly red-striped fruit, with deep yellow flesh. Mine never reach a deep orange flesh color, but it may be that I pick them before they reach that point.
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@Lucky_P … I got some trailman scions from you and grafted them this spring.
One of them grew very strong, bloomed and set 5 apples. I removed all but 1… and it continued to grow a shoot 2.5 ft long and ripened that apple.
It was very good… hope to get many more next year.
Above is what your trailman looked like when grown in southern middle TN… grafted to Novamac on b9.
TNHunter
When I pick them early, they have a terrible bitterness.
All of my edible crabs/lunchbox apples - Centennial, Kerr, Bastian Orange/Trailman(whichever it is), Almata (Chestnut & Clark’s Crab have not fruited yet) - ripen in mid-July here, and all pretty much within a couple of weeks of one another.
I like to pick BOC/Trailman while they are firm, crunchy, and flavorful; they will keep for weeks in the fridge. If they ever get to the point that one drops… I’m picking them all, before the critters get them.
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July 23… here in southern middle TN.
I had 2 Novamacs and 1 trailman ripen and drop from my tree.
August 5th… I still have 2 Novamacs hanging on the tree.
TNHunter