My first harvest and first taste of this Canadian apple - and I love it! Grafted 3 yrs ago onto a vigorous young wild sapling and onto a branch of a bearing wild tree it proved to be a vigorous grower on both. The young tree flowered enthusiastically last year (removed them) and again this year on about 5 ft tall rootstock. I let them go and it just as enthusiastically set loads of fruit, thankfully self pruning most. I took off a few more and let it set about 20. Seemed good but when they got closer to full size the tree started bending to one side so I put a temp stake in just in case. I just couldn’t remove any of those beautiful apples!
Sept 3 a half dozen apples dropped in gale winds but they appeared ripe. My first taste – YES! Juicy, sweet-tart with a very good unique flavor, nicely crisp. I’d read they do better after a frost so I was hoping the rest would hang on for awhile. But 4 days later 7 more dropped so I picked the last 7 from the tree. Beautiful mottled red-orange medium size fruit. With the extreme weather this year it’s hard to say if this harvest window will be “normal” as the tree gets older. I hope it will go later so the root cellar will be colder. I don’t have enough to make sauce or cider, especially since we really like them fresh eating, but I’ll try to save some to see how they go into the winter.
Norkent is a cross between Haralson and Rescue from an AgCanada program in the 60’s, and certainly lived up to the high recommendations I’d read. It appears to be a great U.P. apple. Sue
i had a 8fter i put in at my old house. it was a great heavy producer. i wish i had a apple tree to put scions on back then when i moved out. its one of my favorite red apples and does well in the cold north here. where did you get your scion wood Sue? i would like to add a few to my crabapple and y. transparent.
Sorry about that - yes, U.P. is indeed the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, considered by some to be a separate state. We really are more connected to Wisconsin. Climate-wise highly variable thanks to the Great Lakes. Where we live I figure z3. But I certainly should remember those outside the upper Midwest wouldn’t know the U.P. (or Yooper). We’re pretty small potatoes! Love it here though. Sue
Steve, I got my scion from Bob Purvis. If you want scions remind me late winter. I think there’s a typo in your post – what variety did you have at your old house? Sue
Hmmm, sounds like your cold climate is similar to mine in Montana, though I’m sure it is much drier here. And for college football, you have the Wolverines and Badgers, we have Grizzlies and Bobcats.
Update - These Norkents lasted well for fresh eating for about a month, then they started losing that special Wow flavor. They were still firm and juicy but sweet was about all the flavor that was left. Later in Oct. they made good sauce (with Haralsons) and were still firm and juicy but had lost their appeal for fresh eating. They might do better with better storage temps. My root cellar was still probably 50, slowing going down to lower 40’s, during their storage period. Maybe they will last longer in good flavor when more mature (this was their first fruiting year), and in a less hot year. I still like the apple! I’m just learning when its peaks are. Sue
