I got fruit from two of my @SkillCult grafts. The first was Pink Lemonade (formerly known as Flaxen). It was excellent. Juicy and crisp and a really pleasant balance of acid and sweet. If I had to pick a comp, I’d say it was kind of cotton candy-like. No red or pink flesh.
Next was Black Strawberry. I probably picked this one a week or two early, but it’s grafted to the top of my Hooples tree, and the ripe Hooples had attracted some type of super larger wasp that was picking of the apples one by one. I didn’t want to risk losing my only chance at tasting this one this year. Also really good. Incredibly dark skin but only a light red flesh. I picked up on a gummy candy strawberry/cherry flavor.
Both apples were very sweet in a year where constant rain has diluted the flavor of a lot of my apples. Both also ripened very clean fruits their first year. It’s a small sample size, but so far so good.
The only Skillcult variety that has so far fruited for me is Bite Me! - the original. Very nice flavored crab apple. Unfortunately no photos of this one.
I did a Black Strawberry graft in March or April…didn’t put on much growth.
Basically, my experimenting is preferring Niedzwetzkyana and it’s offspring for making crosses rather than the Etter apples. I do have a Rubiayat that has not fruited. But Skillcult is several years ahead of me in obtaining ‘children’ from his crosses.
And he’s doing a fine job.
He just recently posted a new video about culling or keeping a bunch of his apple seedlings, 50 minutes long what a treat! I’m amazed at how easy collecting pollen is for apples and how one goes about breeding them. I don’t have any experiences to share but just wanted to say how he’s motivated me to start breeding for fun
I had a couple of really good BITE ME! this year. It has as close to a perfect sweet/tart balance as you can get, with a hint of crab flavor in the background. The main downside is it got really bad bitter pit.
FWIW, NAFEX.org has a fruit pedigree tool for members which uses DNA to trace apple and pear parents and children. I don’t know the underlying database or how many apples are in it but it might be handy for breeding planning…
They also have conferences with online and in-person webinars and newsletters, which is well worth the $19/yr membership. Skillcult spoke at last year’s annual conference about his breeding efforts and you can watch it in the archive online.
where to see his best varieties he has developed so far? i see his youtube has videos of them but it is not so collected with descriptions like a typical nursery website. Same goes for his website skillcult.com or i could not find what I am looking for.
Good to see those fruiting for you. Pink Lemonade is just done here and black strawberry isn’t ripe yet. I really have no idea how red flesh will express in different places, but looking forward to hearing more about any of them. Amazing how different PL can look just on my two trees.
I’ve got Cherry Crush grafted onto an espalier in Zone 4 Alaska. Year 1 the scions grew out 24+ inches and looked terrific. A moose came through and pruned them back- I thought I’d lost the graft but there was one dormant bud left behind. This summer that bud managed to produce 18 inches of healthy growth.
No signs of winter damage. The way it was growing before the moose came, I think it was highly likely I would have had fruit buds ready spring of ‘24. Now I think it’ll be spring of ‘25.
