All of the information provided came from WSU DNA testing results.
The Blushing Golden parentage was mere conjecture form the outset.
Please provide a link to that information. Gotta keep this real.
If that statement is true, then what the orchard was selling couldn’t have been Jonagold apples, but they sure had close to the same taste as what I had before. The only difference was that these were stored over winter, and the other apples were from a different orchard and picked fresh when I bought them. I am planning on going to the same orchard tomorrow. If they have any, I will get a picture of them and see if anyone can determine if they look like Jonagold. It really doesn’t matter they were a good apple and I got seedlings to practice grafting on and maybe get some good apples.
People cannot tell the difference between my Jonaprince apples and Honeycrisp, not even me, unless I have them side by side. But then, I’m a visual memory moron. Strangely though, the crunch is similar off the tree. Honeycrisp ripens quite a bit earlier, though.
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I just tasted a Jonaprince this fall and like it more than the Jonagold. Are they disease resistant or does it take a lot of sprays. This was at a comercial orchard and I know they spray fairly regular because of some of the varieties they have.
Point of fact the jonagold flavor is so common the USDA-GRIN uses it as a common flavor grouping. Many hundreds in their inventory has that descriptor.
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Jonaprince and Jonagold are not disease resistant- beyond that, for me, they are not the easiest to grow… Like Honeycrisp, they are prone to rot because of an inability to shuttle enough calcium to the fruit. My specific site makes keeping adequate calcium getting into the fruit of such varieties unusually difficult, but it is a problem at many sites.
This problem has a lot to do with soil and even wind exposure. More transpiration brings more calcium to the fruit. It get pretty complicated and is also related to excess potassium in the soil. Whether I’m spraying calcium or fungicide, it is an equal hassle and calcium does not mix with Captan, so must be sprayed separately…
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By contrast 100 miles north of Alan in upstate NY in open hill country with limestone bedrock and heavy clay soil Jonagold is carefree for relatives of mine who have an unpruned mature tree with an ~15’ spread and 12’ height, rains down apples heavily every other year and a light crop the next barring a late frost…but it’s literally apple paradise up there
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I suspect at that site many varieties are. However, I wonder how well those apples store. If apples like Jonagold were generally that easy to grow in that region, NYS would have a serious organic apple industry… the demand is certainly there for locally grown organic apples, but from what I’ve seen at green markets, the scenario you describe simply is not common. Most organic apples produced in the northeast are used for cider.
Single anecdotes can be terribly misleading as advice if they aren’t taken with a grain of salt. Including my own, of course.
My experiences demonstrate my Winesap has sterile pollen.
I also have a suspected Black Twig sport that is not sterile. The Black Twig is sterile. DNA testing is pending.
The Yellow D is not self fertile. The Golden D is. My sister has a lone Golden in in the middle of nowhere on a ranch in south TX. It makes apples with no pollinator. My experience tells me a Yellow D certainly needs a pollinator. The yellow D is purportedly the same as a Golden D. Nope. Golden D quite susceptible to fire blight while the Yellow D is highly resistant.
We’re dealing with genetic drift.
When you have a high density planting that changes everything and you should know that.
Even though there are SCORES of wild apples everywhere…they don’t even have another apple tree on their property and it gets perfect pollination, every hedgerow and roadside has apples
But even then the pest and disease pressure is nothing compared to a densely planted large scale orchard, there is enough ecosystem around them to keep the pest and disease density low enough for this to be possible on a backyard scale
I went to it and did not find any information from the page you linked about the genetics of any specific apples, only an introduction to the program where the research is being done. This forum works a lot better for me when folks that make specific claims about research give all of us easy access to the source of those claims. Otherwise things get foggy fast.
The spreadsheet link to all the results is down temporarily. It will probably be up in a day or two. I cannot post a link directly to the spreadsheet.
You should be already acquainted with this page and results. Get with the program!
I am not really all that interested in apple genetics as a general topic. Although my curiosity wanders to a wide range of subjects, I can only devote so much attention to subjects that have zero affect on my actions in this world.
The practical importance to me of the genetic structure of apple trees generally doesn’t extend beyond what will pollinate what… that is the only reason I’m aware of and professionally concerned about triploids.
But I am very committed to help keep discussions here within the realm of the known science and keeping anecdotes and opinions under scrutiny as far as how it matches that known science. .
The more GF.com is a reliable source of information, the better I like it.
I have stated that scores of times on this forum… however green markets often have growers of relatively small orchards, I used to even prune a 5 acre orchard that sold its apples and also its cider… it did get most of its cider apples form commercial growers.
I believe that once you’ve participated in this forum long enough, the voices of growers all over the country will alter that overly optimistic perspective (by my expectation). All I do is manage smaller orchards with a fraction of the pressure facing commercial growers, more the pressure from having to produce pristine fruit, of course, but general insect and disease pressure as well. Also the danger of developing resistance to pesticides.
A couple of the orchards I manage use only Surround to repel insects but now Marsonnina has stepped in requiring synthetic fungicide intervention. It has traveled all over state and destroyed organic crops of small growers in a large and growing swath. I suspect it will reach your prized Jonagold soon, if it hasn’t already- the variety has zero resistance to it- around here most neglected trees are now leafless by mid-August.
Beginners tend to exaggerate the significance of their anecdotes… I know I did. Everyone does to a degree, but after your hastily built assumptions have been slapped down again and again you develop some resistance.
wow! Nobody mentioned Red Delicious and IdaRed. Both taste terrible off the tree. IdaRed off the tree is like trying to eat a raw potato. But once in cold storage until December 1 it really shines for crispness and flavor.
I pick my Red Delicious when ripe but still very firm. The flavor sucks and best described as ‘chalky’. Hold in the fridge til December 1 and they are sweet and wonderful to eat. If I let them hang on the tree too long before picking, I find the flavor did not improve they just got soft and did not store well. Now I pick them earlier and they store and taste better. Love a home grown Red Delicious that is crisp, sweet and has yellow flesh out of cold storage.
Of all the varieties I have grown, the best winter storing apple for me was
NW Greening. Lasted into February for me. Stored much longer than my Northern Spy.
Thanks for mentioning King David! Hard to find but one of my favorites!
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Which one? There must be a dozen or more sports commonly grown now, and the consensus seems to be the redder they are the worse they are likely to be. I don’t know why that would be true but I have tasted cardboard spur Red Delicious that are crazy dark red.
I do value the tip about harvest time, as I manage a lot of old strain trees that no one likes much… perhaps partially due to my previous lack of knowledge of the right time to harvest them.
I will never find it to be a very good apple though- not much in the way of distinctive flavor or aromatics by the judgement of my palate. Washington ones are picked green enough and they are no longer very popular. .As I touched on, the original strain is often commended on its superior flavor to the mutants. Most of the old trees of RD I manage must be the argininal strain. They are stripey and not a solid red.
I’m not sure the point of your post, that site matters?
I directly stated much of the environmental conditions that allows apples to do so well in that specific area, always stress this whenever I post about them, and have gone even more in depth in some of my previous posts
It’s probably quite close to the climate of the lower Hudson valley in the late 1700s early 1800s…which was pretty good for apples back then I’ve been told
It’s not one tree, I don’t care about that Jonagold, but the 60+ year old standard Cortland at a different house? Yeah, I love that one (the Poundsweet of the same age next to it taught me how bad some cooking apples taste eaten fresh)
I know something like 10 households in this geographic area (maybe 10-20 square miles) and almost all of them have at least a few backyard apple trees, a long with all the wilds
One guy planted ~30 over several years, he didn’t know any better and planted a row of honeycrisp at first which now has apple leaf blotch and he deeply regrets planting them (they, as they often do outside MN, performed poorly even before the leaf blotch)
This is COMPLETELY different than the house I grew up in just 15 miles away, the only apples were ones that were planted by people and they grew much less well, didn’t get as old, and suffered far more from disease
So yeah, site matters, I know, that was literally the reason I posted what Jonagold does in nearly ideal conditions versus what you experience, by your own admission your area has gotten much more humid and hot since you’ve started managing trees
The Red Delicious I have was here when I took the site over. The strain is unknown. An older tree so must be one of the earlier sports that had better flavor than Red Chief or newer strains.
I hear you on lousy tasting commercial red delicious from Washington state. I bought some from local grocer packed in Wenatchee last winter and was not happy on the flavor.
Yet some grown and packed in WI by Appleland in Belgium, WI are just super tasty December-February. Sweet yet flavorful. When mine run out, I buy those. Original owner came from Iran and now his family runs the orchard. They had orchards on their land while in Iran too.
Had some wonderful Red Delicious many years ago touring a packing site in Michigan mid-winter too. Yet so many Red Delicious from the local grocery stores sure do disappoint on flavor. Some picked too early (flesh is green tinted) and flavor not good.
I will stick to what I grow, pick when flesh is white yet crisp and store til December 1 before eating. Or buy from Appleland Orchard.
I do think timing on harvest and what strain it is sure makes a difference. Too bad they ruined the market on this variety. So popular in the 60’s and 70’s that orchards around here charged a premium price on them (like they do for Honeycrisp today). I doubt the people who ate them back in the day had different taste buds than we do. They loved them for a reason. I feel the newer strains are all about color and they did not select for flavor.
Heard similar issues from old timers in Minnesota when Haralred came out. Many preferred the original Haralson and claimed the flavor was not the same.
Could same the same when Redcort came out. I prefer original Cortland and yes ran a blind taste test on some relatives by cutting up both and having them sample each without telling them what they were sampling til done. Amazed all chose original Cortland.
Then I look at Fireside/Connell Red. In that case I prefer Connell Red for the color and the flavor does not seem to be compromised.
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