Wish the war and sanctions would end. Most of the USDA expedition gathered Russian Sphere apples are getting long in tooth now.
Places like VNSII have breed much farther along the old wild types then we have. The 4 prime fruit breeding groups their have lots of new resistant varieties now.
Prikubanskoe is a good example; but is not common to find. I know Hocking Hills has it.
I have 6 or 7. Iāll post all my notes this fall, so hopefully I can add info about summer rots and such. If I can remember Iāll tag you when I post it.
Yes, and Hawaii is one of the better ones. I stopped expanding any GD children since I had so much of that already. In fact I retreated a bit, I topworked Freyberg this spring. Its a bad rotter and it is enough like the other ones. The apples I am trying to get more of with newer grafts are Abbondanza, Sweet 16, Newtown, and Kidds Orange Red ⦠no GD in those.
Good choices to try and graft. I agree with you. I try to avoid the Golden Delicious off springs. Too many other great varieties to grow and avoid the issues with the GD varieties.
Abbondanza is late, some time in October. They are hard to pick as they redden well before they are ripe.
I want more Sweet 16 because of that unique flavor⦠not your usual apple by any means! They seem very reliable and have little damage. If they were larger they would be everywhere. My tree is not big enough. It is next to my Ashmeads and Iām going to turn the Ashmeads into S16 next spring. Iām sick of all the rotting on Ashmeads.
No Sweet 16 this year. They all rotted with record setting rains in July and through mid August. I got lazy with spraying and it was too late when I decided to do something about the rot.
Will start sampling my Sweet 16ās in about a week as Iāve never hit the sweet spot for picking. My M7 tree is a shy bearer; had to saw out half the tree twice due to blight but itās doing fine now.
Mine have now lost nearly all of the starch and are tasting good. So I picked them all and will store for 2-4 weeks to finish ripening.
I also picked all of the King Russet, many of those guys are perfect directly off the tree. They take a lot of damage but they are doing better than Reine des Reinettes (they are a sport of RdR). I think RdR will have to go eventually, its a fantastic tasting apple but like Ashmeads is just too prone to rot.
Not that I remember. I didnāt have many and I picked them out of my instinctual fear that something would steal them. I find that if the starches are nearly gone they ripen very well in the fridge.
This year my apples out of deer range are not getting taken by anything, but Iāve gotten overconfident too many times in the pastā¦
My notes say the Sweet 16ās I leave on tree until they drop are over the hill; no good. Will check tomorrow to see if the green is gone and check for easy release with 1/4 turn of apple. Learning when to pick fruit may be harder than growing it.
I donāt think I ever let it stay on too long but Iāve never had too many.
The reason why I picked them all a few days ago was there was zero green on the bottoms. If an apple is not all red or all russet, the lack of green on the bottom is a very useful indicator. The all red or all russet apples are hard to read, there is no green to go away. Swayze is also hard to time, I tried one a few days ago and they are not quite there, still a bit too much starch. They can be a bit greenish even when ready so I have to go by how strong the green is⦠a very light lime green is the goal.
I have too many gadgets already, trying to avoid more. The starch tester is another one used by commercial orchards. With enough practice you can get pretty good at both of these tests without any gadget.
Does anyone following this thread know of a source of Rambour dāHiver - either trees or scionwood? Also, is this the same apple as ones labeled āWinter Ramboā?
Currently in the process of planning my cider orchard in South Carolina and discovered this post. It has finally convinced me not to attempt the European cider apples and stick to the American varietals, of which there apparently some very good ones. Thanks a bunch!
There are lots of non-cider apples great for cider making. American and from other places.
You can add bitter components by adding inedible crabs too.
There are literally folks making good ciders using apple juice.
Brandy makers have even found they can add a sight jar in line of the distillation stack and fill it with other apples or flavoring agents. Pretty cool stuff.