Variability in an apple year to year

General Fruit Growing
#1

Do you have apples that are quite different taste and/or texture different years?

Probably most apples have some variability depending on weather and disease/insects but I’m wondering if some varieties are more so than others as far as flavor and texture. I have a wild tree that has small red apples that I didn’t pay much attention to till we cut some trees out around it and I decided to prune it and graft it over to an eating apple. The fruit was “deer” quality, rough shape generally, quite dry, mildly sweet. We grafted a Norkent half way up and I started my plan of replacing the original over the next years, leaving some of the lowest branches for the deer (this is outside my regular fenced orchard).

But this year to my surprise the apples were really nice - fairly clean, juicy, sweet, and made the best no-sugar applesauce of any of my apples. Mmm. So maybe the Norkent gets to share with the original instead of replacing it. Besides, I realized the tree could very well have come from a tossed apple core of our own (could it be a Beacon x crab??). Funny to think we’ve lived here that long. It’ll be interesting to see what the apples are like next year. I hope they stay juicy. Maybe it was the pruning; maybe the year but they were like a different apple this year.

apple-Bulero-fruit-gf

But my “regular” apples are in the main pretty much the same every year; I can expect them to taste similar one year to the next. I assume breeders would select for that trait, but most of my wild trees are like that, too. There aren’t a lot of suprises; dry ones don’t turn juicy nor juicy ones dry, relatively speaking.

So, has anyone else noticed wide differences in an apple taste & texture year to year?

6 Likes
#2

I think I’ve seen a some variability in my precious Liberties, but Prairie Spy seems (so far) to be quite the drama queen. I think @Scottsmith said he almost removed Rubinette after the first year, but ended up getting great apples in year 3 (?).

2 Likes
#3

I have picked wild apples for cooking/juicing/kraut for a few years and I can confirm that they do vary from year to year. Sweetness and bug damage for starters but also quantity (all of my wild trees are biennial, but crops still go up and down in odd years). My modest statistics shows that in a just-right year you get more, sweeter, and less damaged apples. this year was warm and reasonably wet, but the spring was cold and lasted well into June, although it was not freezing. the harvest is not as good as other years. at any rate, for the uses listed above wild apples are not worse than named varieties. there may be just a tinge of bitterness in some of the hardest ones (which may be cider apples), but it does not bother me.

2 Likes
#4

Our Mother apples have ranged from good to great.

Macoun has an off year last year.

Connell Red has been pretty sweet and bright until last year when it was quite the spitter. Turned almost all of our three bushels of them into cider, selling none at market

3 Likes