a yellow transparent slightly under ripe and still green is very similar to R.I.G . i wouldnt be suprised if they shared some parentage but y.t doesnt keep long and goes mealy quicker. it too is a great sauce pie/ apple.
Check out this post from @SMC_zone6, I think it is #79 from Oct 12. He posts a picture of his RIG. I’ll try copy and paste that for you.
Doesn’t really look too much like yours.
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It looks nothing at all like my RI Greening apple.
I will look the Shizuka apple up.You may be right. When does your Shizuka ripen?
y.t. ripens by July if not earlier here.
a good home orchard early cooking apple though.
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If you feel like baking or saucing in the middle of summer. The apples almost completely go to waste in the orchards where I manage them. I’ve grafted several over to Ginger Gold in such orchards, which is later but much more popular and likely to be used.
A lot of the old summer apple varieties were bred from old Russian strains brought here for cold resistance. Brix tends to be thin, which combined with high acid, is not to most tastes.
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they ripen in early aug. here and are sought after for that reason. i have about 20lbs of sauce frozen in qt. freezer bags from apples ive scavenged on old farmland. my wife loves them green , hard and sour. the french here must have russian taste buds. it was said that these apples have been brough here by missionaries that came from Quebec in the early 1800’s.
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If you have no refrigeration and go to the grocery maybe a couple times per month…(like my grandparents)…
some fresh apples in SUMMER of any sort got appreciated!
(Yes, I do live on planet earth…such being the situation in Kentucky over half a century ago.)
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Almost every old farmstead around here had/has an early apple (usually Y.T. or Lodi) and a late apple (usually Northwest Greening).
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Sooty blotch is not so bad for me…rots are the thing that keeps me from getting ripe Granny Smith apples…that and it’s stingy fruit set.
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I used to have Geneva Early and I still have Anoka. Both better suited to the 45th parallel better than here.
Lodi and YT both get fireblight pretty bad…and other than apple butter or fried apples or maybe a pie…they’re not for eating IMHO.
Several red fleshed apples are going to ripen in July it seems…
But, yeah, I’m collecting early and late apples myself. Plus red fleshed ones.
Fireblight exists here, but I’d guess it’s much less a concern than down by you. I agree that Lodi and YT aren’t worth much for eating out of hand. Back when they were widely planted on farmsteads there weren’t that many early ripening varieties to choose from. They do both make for decent baked desserts and sauces.
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150 yrs ago it was probably the only apple to be able to grow in z3. the others ive found growing wild here arent much better. i found one though im going to graft it next spring. one of hundreds of wild ones i find can hold a candle to the better varieties nowadays. i may try grafting R.I.G also as my wife likes granny smiths.
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I believe RIG and NW Greening are quite similar. My NW Greening has seen plenty of -20 to -30 temps with the lowest temp being right around -38. It’s a very good pie apple. I’ve got some still hanging. The deer will appreciate them as they fall.
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For what it is worth as far as adding another description to the R.I. Greening apple. The skin is not smooth. It has a sort of very rough texture to the skin. Like a russet type skin. Not really noticeable probably from the photos I have taken. Yet the red blush area is more smooth and shiny.
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I haven’t noticed that with the RIGs we have in this region. In Apples of NY skin is described as moderately thick, tough, smooth, waxy, grass green varying to somewhat yellow (apparently further upstate and west of me it is harvested yellow according to this description).
I may have to wait until next year and see if these apples look the same. This was the first year I actually had any apples from this tree. It is only about 3 or 4 years old. I had one on it last year but it did not develop and fell off in June. These are no where near grass green in color.
Well, grass is actually a darker green than any apple I’ve ever seen.
That’s very true.
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Actually Japanese Forest Grass is more yello than your apples, Mike.
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