I forget to check on your Rubinette scions bark grafted on the large Red Delicious understock. Those two scions bloomed good. I will snip them off soon here after a few days of enjoying them pretty flowers. Stan, how high of a ranking do you give this variety among the rest of your varieties? Anyone else like this variety?
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Mine did not fruit yet. @scottfsmith gave high marks for flavor to Rubinette. This is the reason I (and probably many others) added it.
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I just grafted my first Rubinette, but am looking forward to them in a few years 
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Very high quality and also productive.
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Oh, yes. They’re one of our favorites here, out of over a hundred varieties. Rubinette has an especially fine sweet/tart balance.
I have a productive G11/MM111 interstem tree, but I’m thinking about grafting something else over to Rubinette as well.
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In this last year it was my best apple in a rough (wet) year, and they also stored pretty well all the way to February staying somewhat crisp.
Just keep in mind it may take a few years to get to optimal flavor. Also it is prone to biennial bearing. I’m going to pick off lots of blossoms next spring as it set too many last year and almost none this year.
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Scott,
Glad you pointed it out about biennialing. My graft set fruit for the first time last year, I kept only 3 apples. Still, it has no flower this year 
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Today I ate a Rubinette that had some kind of slow rot on a small portion of it. The rest of the apple was not damaged, but might have ripened earlier than the others because of the little spot of rot.
The flavor of this apple was absolutely in-your-face amazing. This variety fresh off the tree in September is incredible. Super sweet, super zippy, spicy and savory… over-the-top fantastic. I have several more fruits hanging on the tree right now; my first ever mini-crop. This from a twig @scottfsmith gifted me 8 years ago:
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Yes, Rubinette is a fantastic apple which doesn’t any get respect from apple snobs who also look down on all cox derived apples.
Mine are atleast a month away from ripe though.
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Yup that’s Rubinette!
It is a bit prone to rot as you can see but not the worst. But it can also be highly biennial… I had a monster crop last year and next to nothing this year…
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When does Rubinette ripen relative to Fuji? I have a dozen apples on my third leaf tree. Last year I had two, but a raccoon stole them…
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I’m not sure relative to Fuji, but just north of you here in Mass I’ve just started to get a few ripe ones this year. A lot of things are ripening early though.
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Rubinette skips a year here as expected.
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How can I judge ripeness before picking?
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I’ve got this one planted this spring. I’ll be surprised if it goes biennial here unless I let it over bear. With our long season and nonstop sun almost nothing goes biennial.
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Ahmad- Pick one and taste it. Pick whichever one has bug damage or whatever. If it tastes good, then they’re just about ready. I agree with the other commenter that this hot dry late summer is seeing lots of items ripen earlier than usual.
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Rubinette does not go biennial here. It is quite a heavy producer and has to be thinned or the fruits stay small.
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The biennial stuff is at least 90% not thinning enough early enough. I could probably leave 50% more apples than some other locations with more shade/clouds/shorter season. Instead, I leave less and thus no biennial bearing.
If you don’t want biennial, thin more.
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I do thin apples a lot. I have learned that from my Honey Crisp being biennial years ago.
However, I have noticed that some apple varieties are more prone to becoming biennial than others. My apples also do not get full sun. That could be a contributing factor.
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I’m sure some are more prone than others. Still it all comes down to how much fruit one leaves. Your tree in a shady spot might only handle half the apples mine could.
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