My Arkansas Blacks are still doing OK even though I haven't kept up on keeping the bin watered.

Interesting. Thanks for the info.

Thank you Axel for this result!...a bit of a disappointment really,..isn't it?

>>It's now the end of AprilIs it?? ..do you have a Chinese calendar LOL.

So your best is the Pink Lady, our northern, zone 2 / 3 apple I found is the Norkent.
Have done a similar test in 2005, stored in a fridge, [thread below] I posted the Norkent picture May 27th. 2006.
I guess the controlled atmosphere method commercials use is what the hobbyist needs!
Happy Easter to all of you!

Konrad

Here is a link that might be useful: Fruits

I still have some decent Goldrush- still hard with plenty of flavor. One thing you should know is a lot of varieties vary from season to season in storability. Here it has a lot to do with cool fall weather- fall heat spells make soft apples.

I think that dismissing modern apples as uninteresting is just a kind of dogmatic thinking. Any decent apple we grow will likely exceed what's available in a store. I bought a few big, waxed and cosmetically perfect Pink Ladys that were on sale for 99 cents a pound. They were hard and 2 weeks later are still hard though stored at room temp. But their flavor is a disturbing mixture of industrial flavors I can't identify. The few pink ladys that I picked myself were incomparably better, as good as any antique I grow with a very appealing and unique texture.

Breeders of all disiplines have made a lot more progress than some people want to admit. The new fruits aren't just for show. Many of them have great eating quality. The heirloom hype is mostly that in my experience. I spent many yrs growing heirloom apples. None were good enough to still be growing them. Pink Lady was my favorite apple in Amarillo. That was right off the tree in November. Haven't been here long enough to know my favorite in Alpine.

The Fruitnut

"The heirloom hype is mostly that in my experience. I spent many yrs growing heirloom apples. None were good enough to still be growing them."

The problem is that modern breeders are breeding for the popular palate. I haven't heard of any modern varieties that are as sour as fresh Newtown Pippin. Even the not so modern GS doesn't stand up to it. The descriptions say they are going for anything but tart.
As far as storage Arkansas Black is 1870 and I haven't called off my storage test with them.

I think there is enough hype going around that everyone can have a share.

Amarillo is not the world. I love old apples and new apples. Lots of antiques here have qualities you can't find in another apple and I love the range of flavors and textures. Most of these varieties wouldn't do well in hot climates and the vast majority of heirlooms touted in this country were originally from the northeast or England and may perform poorly in warmer climes.

The newer varieties are selected also for being able to perform well in a wide range of climates. How else do you make any money off a pattent.

I am greatful for the work of fruit breeders and discoverers from all the centuries apples have been grown.

Axel, thanks for sharing this information! The only thing that disappoints me is that there is no way, from what I understand, that a Pink Lady would ripen here. I took some previous advice and bought scion of Oliver/Senator. What would be your second, third, etc? Are there any keepers that have a shorter growing season?

So what were the other varieties in your test, and how did they do?

Some varieties were obscure, some more well known:

- Pink lady (beyond April)
- Mutsu (Dec)
- jonagold (Dec)
- Fall wine (April)
- Granny Smith (April)
- red delicious (Feb)
- gold delicious (March)
- pomme grise (Dec)
- Ashmead's kernel (Dec)
- Cox orange pippin (Oct)
- Winter Gravenstein (April)
- Oliver (April)
- Waltana (Feb)
- Katherine (March)
- McIntosh (Feb)
- Winesap (March)
- Hauer pippin (Feb)
- Belle de Boskoop (Dec)
- Hudson's Golden Gem (Dec)
- Wickson Crab (April)

I am still eating crunchy and delicious Goldrush that were stored in a cool well house. Not as consistantly cool as a fridge but humid so they didn't shrivel. In the west coast you'd probably have to pick them a little green to get this kind of storability but it is a great apple.

I am down to my last two Liberty apples, and one has a brown spot on it. But I have been eating them daily since the first of October. They were stored at below 40 F in tightly sealed polyethelene (bread) bags. So they have remained useful, if not prime, for virtually seven months. And they are not known for being good keepers, quite the contrary.

They still have crunch and snap and are juicy and flavorful, but have lost their acidity and have become mealy. Not shriveled- in fact, a few seemed to burst their skins, as if they were slowly fermenting inside ... ? I don't know what to make of that. Also, some of them got brown around the core, but that was easy to avoid.
Carousel and Yellow Delicious kept easily until January, but there were only a few of those and they got eaten.

My only exposure to Arkansas Black was when a neighbor gave me one in the spring of 1965, so it's been a while, but I remember him touting its storage qualities. (That was in Arkansas, for what it's worth.)