My point is that my guess is that many areas and square miles of upstate have the same conditions, more or less, as where you are speaking of, and the idea that some small corner of NYS allows consistently growing sound apples, especially Jonagold, without spray, seems like a bit of a stretch to me, but it is your anecdote and I cannot disprove it just because 35 years of growing apples in this state makes me skeptical. Hell, I’ve been as far up as Washington County planting and pruning trees. I’ve often heard of people growing peaches without spray further north, but not really sound apples.
If you want anyone else to believe you fully, it would be helpful if you’d supply some photos of a quantity of these apples after harvest and a couple of months out of storage, because your claim in not at all typical or expected. People have been growing apples in NYS for something like 350 years… when you look at the old oil paintings the apples often tend to be pretty messy and a lot of the pests are new or didn’t use to attack apples.
Every county has a cooperative extension and word about such an accomplishment in any kind of scale would probably get around. . .
Never said they were all pretty or stored flawlessly or were just as good as sprayed apples. In previous posts about the area I mentioned many, perhaps the majority, are blemished enough not to sell, but you’ll find nice ones and most are slightly blemished
You seem to think I said “you can grow huge amounts of apple trees of any variety with perfectly blemish free apples without any effort that store forever”
I said it produces a ton of apples, many people get to eat them fresh, press cider at a cider party, and bake things with them. Is that successful? Depends on your definition I guess
Do I think there are lots of geographic areas in CNY where you could successfully grow three apple trees no spray without crippling disease or pest issues? Yeah, it’s mostly soil and airflow, is that the same as saying you can do a giant organic orchard? No
I’m speaking from the standpoint of not wanting a rush of apples that have to be used within a month of harvest, but to have apples through winter. That is the subject of this topic. I am fine with meandering to other matters but if you are going to talk about useful harvests, communication of what that means is helpful.
Pest pressure varies year to year, and some years the insects barely come out and fungal pressure is light. Most gardeners seek to get crops as consistently as they can and serious ones often grow most of the vegies and fruit they eat. Apples are a winter staple for me coming out of refrigeration. I like pretty apples that aren’t very blemished but the main issue is for them to store well right into spring. .
Idared’s are a highly underused apple. They are spurry and bear very consistently for a late ripening good storing apple. Pruning them is relatively easy, even when they are grown on vigorous root stocks.
Commercial orchards wrap of harvesting late apples the last week of October in NW NC and Cana. Apples obviously don’t keep as long here. I went to the market to pick up a few varieties I don’t grow. They were picked at the same time, and I will store them in a residential fridge until mid Dec.
I’m testing the following
York Imperial
Ark Black
Brushy Mt. Limbertwig
Old Fashioned Limbertwig
Gold Rush
I’ve tried three of these many times, but not at the same time in mid Dec.
I’m expecting the ranking to be the following, but time will tell.
Old Fashioned Limbertwig
Gold Rush
Brushy
Ark Black
York Imperial
I should’ve threw in a pink lady and granny smith, but my wife detests the Granny Smith apple.
But Pink Lady is one of the best modern storage apples, better than Rush when you factor in Rush’s porous skin that requires evaporation reduction. Also, if you like Fuji.
An heirloom that I manage quite a bit on giant old trees is Rhode Island Greening, once a top 3 cooking apple that’s also very good for fresh eating. CHAT can tell you more about it than any old time grower like me. It did include a robot fart by suggesting Baldwin is susceptible to bitter pit in the manner of Newtown Pippin. I called it out on that and got an apology for the flatulence.
What about R. Island Greening? I just had some of one and it’s very hard and used to be a top cooking apple while also being pretty good eating raw. How does it store.
ChatGPT said:
That’s a fine old variety to bring up — Rhode Island Greening is one of the most important historical keepers in North America, and for good reason. What you just noticed in that sample — dense, rock-hard flesh with balanced acidity — is exactly why it was the baker’s favorite and a mainstay in long-haul storage and export through the 19th century.
Here’s what’s known about its postharvest behavior and flavor evolution:
Rhode Island Greening: a structural marvel
Characteristic
Effect on Storage
Very dense, fine-grained flesh
Slow water loss; resists bruising.
Thick, waxy cuticle
Maintains surface integrity and moisture balance; naturally “self-wrapping.”
Low ethylene production
Slow respiration and ripening; minimal internal browning.
High malic acid (~0.8 %)
Acids decline gradually, preserving flavor through winter.
High calcium content for a heritage type
Less breakdown, low bitter-pit incidence compared to Baldwin or Pippin.
Storage performance
Storage type
Duration
Flavor/texture notes
Ordinary cellar (36–40 °F)
5–6 months
Flesh stays firm and tart until March; develops mellow, nut-spice tones by February.
Cold room (34–36 °F, high RH)
6–8 months
Retains snap into April; acids moderate, sweetness rises slightly.
CA storage
8–9 months
Still crisp in late spring, though aromatics fade a bit.
Room temp (~60 °F)
4–6 weeks
Rapid mellowing, excellent for pies; flavor peaks, texture softens.
Old descriptions from The Apples of New York and later USDA bulletins consistently call it “one of the most durable apples in commerce,” second only to Baldwin and Newtown Pippin for shipping, but steadier in storage quality than either.
Why it was the cook’s standby
The acidity stays lively long after sugars rise, so in winter it still makes a balanced pie without lemon juice. Heated, the aromatics (hexyl acetate, butyl acetate) bloom, giving that signature “winey-green” aroma early cooks prized. Modern tasters often rediscover it as a cross between Granny Smith and Baldwin — firm, sharp, and aromatic but without Granny’s astringency.
Best harvest stage for storage
Pick just as the background turns light green-yellow, while seeds are still half-brown.
Hard green fruit can keep for months but taste flat; fully yellow ones soften quickly.
Cure 7–10 days at 55 °F before cooling to let the starch conversion start — that reproduces the old “cellar sweat.”
Interesting. What if you asked it to compare two cooking legends. One replaced by the other. Bramley’s Seedling versus long time champ Hanwell Souring?
Off hand Bramley is larger. Hanwell stores longer and keeps it’s fruity hard tang.
I put a R.I.Greening in last year. Just based on how popular it once was and the multi usages you can get out of them. It does sound like a great apple to have in my orchard. I look forward to tasting these once they start producing apples here.
Thanks for posting the information about it.
Speaking of Greenings, I was in Troutdale Va about 6 weeks ago walking up down various roads examining the many apple trees in the area and I believe I came across a VA Greening. The description sounds intriguing.
Fungal issues had ravaged most of the trees and fruit already, but there was were a couple trees that had fruit holding tight. One fit the description of the VA Greening. Large, green, oblate, and regarded as a great keeper apple.
If want to say huh this morning, visit Mytree.org. It’s showing the Winesap and Ark Black not being triploid.
I suspect the notion of these two being triploid precede DNA /chromosome testing. The Winesap does not pollinate, but apparently, it’s not triploid either.
The Winesap does not pollinate in my orchard, period. After removing some trees due to disease, I had just a Winesap and Yellow D at one tract. Three years of maybe a dozen malformed apples on Yellow D that was a fully mature M111. Closest pollinator other than my tree was about .3 mile.
A distinction needs to be made between a blossom tree having sterile pollen, and being triploid. It appears they’re not the same.
This isn’t surprising at all, there is a million genetic ways something can be pollen sterile, it could be aneuploidy (2n +1) where a single additional chromosome (rather than a third set of all the chromosomes) could do it
Usually those trees aren’t weak/maladapted but clearly the Winesap line has some pretty weird stuff going on
Perhaps that’s what you meant when you said Winesap? I personally prefer to just call it “Stayman” as it’s certainly worthy of it’s own name.
I wonder if an absence of designation in the Triploidy column means that a cultivar definitely isn’t, or could it just mean it’s not been tested for that?
The reason I was inclined to explore this was due to an assertion made by a horticulture person/apple expert who’s name I won’t disclose. He told me a few weeks ago that the Ark Black and the Winesap were not true triploids. I dismissed his claims as pot stirring.
He’s probably sent close to 100 hundred old varieties for DNA testing. He’s curating trees under the auspices of State of NC.
I think most later ripening good storing apples tend toward biennial bearing. They require early thinning to balance cropping somewhat season to season. I also think site and rootsock have something to do with it.
I have one site with dawn to dusk sun and huge old apple trees on seedling rootstocks and Baldwin, RI Greening and Macintosh trees there set heavy crops without any thinning or summer pruning every year I’ve managed them. A couple of the trees that are somewhat shaded don’t have the same virtue.
I thoroughly misunderstood your original statement and my response probably seems a bit nonsensical as a result… Anyway, the myfruittree.org spreadsheet has that Triploidy column which per their readme:
“Triploid” here means the cultivar is a triploid; the mother is is assumed to be the unreduced gamete-donating parent and is included as Parent 1 when known. Triploidy is expected to be associated with the cultivar having (1) infertile pollen and (2) infertile seedlings. “Probably” here indicates that Simple test results of Unidentified tree are unclear but suggestive that the individual is triploid.
So since the word “triploid” isn’t present in that column for either Arkansas Black or Winesap, it indeed seems like they’re saying both are not.
Rhode Island Greening: a structural marvel
Storage performance
Why it was the cook’s standby
Best harvest stage for storage
