My First State Fair Apples

Just picked our first crop of State Fair apples (one of Honey Crisp’s parents) and am quite pleased. They are sweet with acid and moderately tart Not quite the snappy crispness of Honey Crisp, but not bad on the crispness scale either. All in all, a very nice apple. I hope it stays this way (or better) as it get older.

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Honeycrisp’s parents are Keepsake and unknown pollen parent.

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Opps. @Matt_in_Maryland I thought I remembered reading that State Fair was in the Honeycrisp lineage, but a quick check turns up the info you posted. So unless that unknown parent of Honeycrisp is State Fair, probably not.

But State Fair is still a pretty good apple, at lease at its first fruiting for me. And from the quick check I did, it is a parent of Zestar (although I don’t think that is what I read before), and an offspring of Mantet, which is another favorite apple of mine.

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Seems a bit late for state fair? It is a nice Apple but quite early, usually mid to late August.
I find it goes mealy very fast if left to over ripen on the tree

My place is rather high in elevation (8300’) and we had a late spring. Typically I figure we are a month later than ripening dates (and most other dates) than down at lower elevations. So mid-Sept instead of mid-August is about right.

I have a few branches of State Fair but to me they’re not an improvement over Gala. We’re at 3200 ’ so we’re not as challenged as Steve in finding apples that suit our season. Some years I’ve ripened Winesaps with no problem, although I did give up (prematurely?) on Rhode Island Greening.