I grow it as well as get some off old trees at a local orchard. I like it. As a baking apple, it really excels, but I enjoy eating them out of hand, as well. It does not have the complexity of flavor of, say, Ashmead’s Kernel, but it is a good to very good tart dessert apple. It’s been disease free for me. Compared to what is said online about it, I have found a little less of an tendency to be biennial, but not as long a storage life (I may be picking them too late, though, as I let them ripen on the tree for fresh eating).
I wondered if it was less likely to be targeted by insects and diseases, or if it was able to be grown without modern pesticides and anti-fungals only because the vectors for such things was decreased in the past ( due to smaller orchards and less pressures from fewer introduced issues. ( many pests we battle are from elsewhere now a days)
Scott
My Rhode Island Greening is productive and fairly disease resistant thus far. I use it for pies. I usually just use Surround soaked footies although I got hit hard from caterpillars last season. I will look at scions possibilities. I usually let it over produce and get scrappy scions. It is on B9 in a container. I picked it initially as Greening is an old family name of mine.
Reading through your experiences, Scott, I’m thinking I will look into try to get and graft Hooples Antique Gold, Rubinette, and maybe Kidds Orange Red onto existing tree(s). I was already planning on adding Williams Pride. I know WP has some disease resistance; do the others as well? We will be doing minimal spray/as much organic as possible so I’m trying to avoid bringing in anything very disease prone. (Right now we have Liberty, Sundance, Pristine, Gold Rush, Pomme Gris, Dolgo Crab, and Honeycrisp. . .the last is my husband’s favorite so we have to give it a try. We also have a big unknown apple that we want to graft other varieties to.)
How has Pitmaston Pineapple handled disease pressure? I saw you said some English apples didn’t work for you. My climate is probably pretty similar – Shenandoah Valley of Va.
I like most apples. . .I like everything from Golden Delicious to Gala to Pink Lady. But I definitely prefer the flavor and sweet-tartness of apples like GoldRush and Pink Lady.
In my orchard I find the varieties touted as disease resistant are not all that much better overall. So, WP was officially bred as disease-resistant, but it got bad water core so I didn’t keep it. The primary goal of the disease resistant breeding programs is scab, but I don’t have much problem with it – it gets hot early here and the scab usually fries in the heat.
The ones you mention have all been pretty reasonable for me. About half the English apples I tried were not good but the other half were good. Pitmaston Pineapple I have had bad luck on rootstock so I don’t have all that many years of fruiting on it but when it did fruit I had few problems with it.
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Scab isn’t too big a concern for me unless a variety is super susceptible. I’ve seen CAR destroy a tree though, and of course fireblight is a concern.
I just don’t want to bring in something that will be very likely to fail, or worse, be an infection harbor. You always seem to note if something gave you a lot of trouble so that’s why I asked about those varieties specifically.
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@scottfsmith, any more experience with American Summer Pearmain?
My graft took on a tree of mine, still waiting for fruit. Slow grower, spindly growth.
We waited nine years, only to discover it wasn’t actually an American Summer Pearmain (why we don’t use Antonovka for our own grafting and no longer buy from nurseries that only use Antonovka). Nothing three years after we planted a replacement on B9, so we, too, are waiting. However, I think we might have a better experience once fruiting starts here in the Finger Lakes than Scott has in his location.
At some point I removed most of my summer apples, I realized I didn’t need too many as they are just for immediate eating. I removed ASP then. Looking at my logs, the main downside was it never set a lot. The flavor was good, what I call “creamy”, also aromatic and sweet. But it was also not consistent in quality from fruit to fruit. So I pulled it out. The only early apples I have left are Pristine, Ginger Gold, Early Joe, and State Fair. The first two (P/GG) and the second two (EJ/SF) are sort of similar pairs so I really could be OK with just one of each of those. All of these four I like a lot. I also still have Laxton’s Fortune, Goden Nugget, MonArk, and Cherryville Black, those are several weeks later though.
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Thanks Scott, I’ll stick with the 1 branch of it on one of my trees for fun.
I’ve decided I’m going to take out my Kidd’s Orange Red.
After 8-9 years, its just not doing well on G11.
Small fruit, its a bug magnet, fungus problems and the wood is spindly and weak. I even have a downspout running to the tree for extra water because of my lighter soil. Makes no difference.
Going to replace it grafting Reinette Gris on G935 and planting it a couple feet in front of it.
I think Cummins matched up scion to stock poorly with that KOR/G11 pairing.
Cant win em’ all.
Thanks for replying. I’ve been tossing up between ASP and RG and ASP hasnt showed me much either in the 2 years its grown as a branch.
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Scott, Do you remember where you got the Transparent von Croncels? I can’t find it in the US.
Hmm, I think I got it from Botner.
Scott, included in the scions you sent me late last spring were some labeled “Muscat”. Would that be Muscat de Venus or Muscat de Bernay? Thanks!
Hmm, I don’t recall sending you scions and I don’t have any “Muscat” anything so my guess is somebody else sent them.
BTW @castanea it looks like the Temperate Orchard Society has Croncels which is the same as TvC I think.
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Hi! By the way what’s your opinion about Croncels? I can buy one of this…
Thank’s!
It is a very nice early cooking apple, it is also very large in size. I don’t really need an early cooking apple though.
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Ok thank you very much
Reviving this old thread for those like me looking for these descriptions of these great varities!
Well you should probably see this one which is the most recent:
I will add a pointer to the top of this thread so people know to go to the more recent one.
I should probably also update things as the “new” one is now four years old.
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An updated apple experience apple would be great. TY Scott.
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