My key is to look at the bottoms and there should be no hints of green there. It has worked very well for me. The tops can be all different colors depending on sun exposure.
This year the deer beat me to 'em. The tree refuses to grow high enough, it was a perfect pedestrian tree but doesn’t want to grow up.
Aha! I think that’s the key. I’ve been looking at the bottoms as you suggested before, but also the tops which give me confusing signals. Thank you Scott.
When trees are stunted like that and I want vigor I hack off all spur wood (not like you don’t know about that). Goldrush benefits from about 111 vigor in most soils anyway- it you are shooting for a free-standing tree. .
Thank you for that tip, Scott. I used that method to pick Jonathan & Stayman, and it worked well. These apples have a ways to go, they are still green on the bottoms.
Are under-ripe Goldrush apples good for something? Leaf Blotch has defoliated one tree at about 90% ripeness- still has a starchy taste.
Would these be OK in sauce or pie? Or would long storage sweeten them up?
Or I have a couple friends with hogs.
My daughter developed a taste for them in that state, for some reason, this year. Sorry, that doesn’t help you.
Probably would be good fried, chutney, things where fruit/veg are used ambiguously.
I picked 90% of my Goldrush yesterday, 10/23 here in 7B, Md. I kept tasting and saying: One More Day (Les Miserables). That went on for about two weeks. They’re now in a fridge I bought for the garage, so should be set to eat an apple a day until about March. May need another fridge next year when Belle de Boskoop should crop first time. To me it rivals Goldrush for taste and texture.
Just a quick update on my experience…
I’m growing GR on an unknown semi-dwarf rootstock (Stark Bros). This year we had our first harvest on our 5 year old tree. I originally had 12 apples, but most either had coddling moth or ‘mysteriously’ disappeared at night. However, I was able to get a single apple. We just had a taste of it and it was pretty good for a first apple. The kids approved. My wife though it was a honeycrisp by the taste. The tree bloomed 5/1, the apple picked on 10/1, stored in the refrigerator for 2 months, sat out on the counter for 3 weeks, and then tasted on 1/4.
This is great, thanks ! I can definitely use this.
Mine never got fully yellow this year, and no blush, but after a month or two in the fridge, they still mellowed and sweetened and were quite good. My only apples this year unblemished enough to survive a couple months of storage.
I have picked GR a couple of seasons at a u-pick in eastern PA (Solesbury). My preliminary thinking based on that experience is that the last week of October gives an highly acidic, maybe not quite ripe apple that stores very well and tastes better on storage. The fist week of Novemer gives a ripe apple which you can definitely tell is a golden delicious offspring. It was not quite as acidic and stores well but not quite as well and in my opinion maintained its different, more GD flavor.
I have yet to pick my own tree but the plan is to let it flower for the first time this year.
GR was one of my best apples this year. I picked them in late November and they sat in the fridge for over a month.
Unfortunately my tree is tiny and grows slowly. It is productive though.
GoldRush is usually fully ripe here (California’s San Joaquin Valley) by early September. Some years even by late August.
That is probably one reason it is tiny. If you remove the spur wood and give up cropping for a couple years it might become a much more vigorous and productive tree with larger fruit.