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Post by MikeH on Aug 12, 2012 9:41:51 GMT -5
There was one apple I fell in love with so much I filled my backpack with them. It was actually a selfed version of the Szechuan apple ( Malus chinensis x chinesis). The skin was literally the lightest I've ever seen on an apple; a green so pale it was functionally white (as the fruit got overripe the color turned to more of a pale cream). Texture was a little mealy (sort of like a golden delicios) but the flavor was incredible (super sweet, with a slight nutmeg undertone). I actually did save and plant all of the seeds, but got no trees (I had a few nice seedlings going in a big pot on my patio, and them the gardeners decided to do me a favor and clear all the "weeds" out of the pots....) I've toyed with the idea of trying to get a scion, but I stink at grafting.) Ummmm. Sounds sinfully good. I went looking and couldn't find it. If you can find it, I'll have a go and bud grafting it and you'll get your tree. As for grafting, Joyce and I were at an all day T-bud grafting course yesterday at a historical apple tree nursery and I came away convinced that bench grafting is NOT the technique to use. I'm not sure why bench grafting is so frequently mentioned but it is nowhere near as simple as T-bud grafting. Nor is the success rate anywhere near as high. I asked the teacher what the T-bud success rate is and he said: "For me, about 95% but then I've probably done 100,000 grafts over the past 35 years. For you, just starting out, about 85%." Most of the grating techniques require a youtube explanation but T-budding is so simple that a still picture conveys the basic idea.  |
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Post by blueadzuki on Aug 12, 2012 10:04:53 GMT -5
There was one apple I fell in love with so much I filled my backpack with them. It was actually a selfed version of the Szechuan apple ( Malus chinensis x chinesis). The skin was literally the lightest I've ever seen on an apple; a green so pale it was functionally white (as the fruit got overripe the color turned to more of a pale cream). Texture was a little mealy (sort of like a golden delicios) but the flavor was incredible (super sweet, with a slight nutmeg undertone). I actually did save and plant all of the seeds, but got no trees (I had a few nice seedlings going in a big pot on my patio, and them the gardeners decided to do me a favor and clear all the "weeds" out of the pots....) I've toyed with the idea of trying to get a scion, but I stink at grafting.) Ummmm. Sounds sinfully good. I went looking and couldn't find it. If you can find it, I'll have a go and bud grafting it and you'll get your tree. As for grafting, Joyce and I were at an all day T-bud grafting course yesterday at a historical apple tree nursery and I came away convinced that bench grafting is NOT the technique to use. I'm not sure why bench grafting is so frequently mentioned but it is nowhere near as simple as T-bud grafting. Nor is the success rate anywhere near as high. I asked the teacher what the T-bud success rate is and he said: "For me, about 95% but then I've probably done 100,000 grafts over the past 35 years. For you, just starting out, about 85%." Most of the grating techniques require a youtube explanation but T-budding is so simple that a still picture conveys the basic idea. I'm not sure it would be any easier for me now either. I told you all of the information I remember, we were just the basic Plant science class and only had a few hours, so the Acession numbers werent automatically provided to us, I'm sure they would have told us if we had asked (or looked it up and emailed them to us), but we I was a dumb colledge student, and it never occured to me to ask (remember I had the apples then, and had the seeds, and since it was (as far as I could tell) a selfed cross, I had every hope that the seed would grow true. What did I need to be mucking around with a graft I couldn't do in the first place) figuring out it now would probably involve trying to contact my professors from them (most of whom have probably retired by now, or are on some reasearch trip, have them give a person to contact up there in Geneva and then asking the person "do you remember what the acession number was of the white apple you were growing out about 11 years ago?) I suppose you could simply look up all those apples that have white skin, there probably aren't many (then again, the sheer scarcity of them probably means that "white" is not a selectable skin color in going through the GRIN acessions search lists. Slim chances. |
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Post by MikeH on Aug 12, 2012 19:37:25 GMT -5
I suppose you could simply look up all those apples that have white skin, there probably aren't many (then again, the sheer scarcity of them probably means that "white" is not a selectable skin color in going through the GRIN acessions search lists. Slim chances. As you note, searching the accessions is bound by their search parameters but there's more than one way to peel an apple. I've started using the "Find" spreadsheet option. It looks like your sweet criteria is the best to search on. There are a lot of cream or pale or white apples but there are far fewer sweet apples once you get outside the named varieties as one would expect. I'm about 1/2 way through the 12K accessions. Found some interesting specimens but not your university sweetie. I figure another hour or so to go through the remainder. |
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Post by blueadzuki on Aug 12, 2012 20:11:27 GMT -5
Also remember it's a chineseis, not a domestica (I assume they mention the species in listings) that should cut the list down quite a bit
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Post by castanea on Aug 12, 2012 20:23:54 GMT -5
Malus chinensis does not show up in GRIN.
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Post by blueadzuki on Aug 13, 2012 0:24:55 GMT -5
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Post by MikeH on Aug 13, 2012 6:50:00 GMT -5
Malus chinensis does not show up in GRIN. Yep but I decided not to stop there and started looking at the descriptions. Sadly, none of the descriptions come close although there are some very interesting flavour descriptions - Strange hazelnut-bananna and Strange hazelnut flavor. |
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Post by zestfest on Jun 2, 2014 11:57:19 GMT -5
Hey there -- I'm fascinated by Kazak apples and I'm wondering if any of the participants on this thread have found found any great Kazak varieties?
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Jun 3, 2014 14:44:27 GMT -5
Hey there -- I'm fascinated by Kazak apples and I'm wondering if any of the participants on this thread have found found any great Kazak varieties? The orchard I pruned this spring contained a lot of apples collected growing wild in central Asia... |
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Post by zestfest on Jun 5, 2014 1:37:40 GMT -5
Do you know anything about them? Do they have unusual flavors and/or disease resistance?
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Post by MikeH on Jun 5, 2014 5:10:54 GMT -5
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Jun 5, 2014 10:14:33 GMT -5
I just got involved with the orchard during the last pruning season... One of the trees had thorns sharp enough and strong enough to puncture my boot and pierce my sole. Another ripped my hand up. I recommended both of them for culling.
Limb architecture was very diverse, from weeping branches to strongly upright. From very open to very brushy. Growth rates varied from very slow to very vigorous. Every tree was seed grown from plants found growing wild in central Asia.
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Post by richardw on Jun 6, 2014 15:12:33 GMT -5
Those thorns sound nasty.
So growing from the central Asian sourced seed,how was the seed prepared for mailing to you,like is it kept damp??,i was always lead to believe that apple seed cant be dried out if you want to grow it.
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Jun 7, 2014 19:52:38 GMT -5
The seed was collected in person by the late guy that planted the orchard. I don't know details.
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Post by copse on Jun 8, 2014 3:00:49 GMT -5
If the guy has passed on, what's the future of the orchard?
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