Kidd’s Orange Red, Gala, Rubinette, and Sansa

General Fruit Growing
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I have grown many of the Cox type apples over the years. Here is more or less my rating order.

  1. Suncrisp - big and beautiful looking, and flavor to match. Has good Cox aromatics, and disease-resistant.
  2. Freyburg - more like a Golden Delicious than a Cox but an excellent apple with anise overtones. Somewhat biennial.
  3. Rubinette - super reliable and super tasty sweet-sour (21 brix is not uncommon). More sour and less aromatic than Cox. A bit prone to later rot.
  4. Kidds - more a sweet aromatic as opposed to the sour of Rubinette, just as good or maybe a little better. But I have had biennial bearing problems. Rubinette also alternates but its between a ridiculous set and a somewhat light set instead of all or nothing like Kidds.
  5. Golden Nugget - a very nice early russet. It is a bit prone to watercore. It should be more widely grown, not sure why nobody grows it.
  6. Gala - this is a very nice apple in our climate, it ripens up very well. Its not as tasty as Kidds but is much more reliable and productive.
  7. Laxton’s Fortune - One of my favorite early apples.
  8. Ingrid Marie - this is too tart and prone to mealy but if you like them really tart its going to be your favorite! No problems as far as rots etc.

OK those are the successes, now for the ones I haven’t seen much in the way of eastern results on but I should try.

  1. Fiesta - I should probably try this one as its supposed to be tasty and less disease-prone. Has anyone fruited this?
  2. Alkmene - has anyone fruited this?

Now for the ones I suspect are duds but never saw the evidence myself.

  1. Suntan - several grafts died and I heard it doesn’t like the heat/humidity so I bailed on it.
  2. Cherry Cox - I heard it has similar problems as Cox but never tried it myself.
  3. Queen Cox - see Cox (my tree never fruited but its a Cox sport so is probably similar as far as rots).
  4. Karmijn - another rotter; well known to be bad in humid eastern climates.

Now for the duds.

  1. Cox itself - its the best of the duds, its not horrible but has the rotting and watercore problem.
  2. Ellison’s Orange - this apple is very inconsistent on flavor, and can be very strongly anise-flavored to the point of being a bit off-putting. Also prone to mealiness. If picked early they are better. No rot problems.
  3. Tydeman’s Late Orange - never got any good fruit off this one.
  4. Swiss Orange - similar to Rubinette but rots like crazy. I still have this one but am probably going to remove it. Even this time of year it already has rots on it.
  5. Holstein - the whole apple would turn to watercore mush. The worst!

I’m not sure where Sansa falls, my graft is about to fruit though so I will have data soon. Same for Herfordshire Russet.

Re: fireblight, I didn’t notice any strong trends but I did get some blight on many of them over the years.

Here is a nice overview of some of these apples, but beware its from California so is pretty much meaningless as far as disease info goes for eastern growers.

Here is a past thread here on a similar topic:

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