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Originally posted by DuncanM
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My initial suspicions were a Discovery x Cox seedling.
After bouncing ideas between myself and Orangepippin (we sometimes conspire together) the likelihood seems to be that it's a Discovery apple.
I had some reservations about it being Discovery because:
The apples are more yellow, less red and more striped than my Discovery apples, grown only a mile away from this tree.
The mother tree is twice the size of the MM106's in this area, suggesting a possible seedling (which would fit with the slightly unusual appearance of the apples compared to mine).
The tree is as large as a M25-rootstocked tree and twice as large as the usually-planted MM106.
The tree also had a companion, which was about half its size - presumed MM106.
(MM106 usually only reaches 1.5-2m in 10 years here, and 2-3m in 20 years; this tree was twice that size and more consistent with the M25's or old seedling-rooted trees in this area)
However, Orangepippin pointed out that although less common, it's still quite possible that someone around 1990 might have acquired a M25 tree along with a MM106 tree.
This might have been particularly so if they were "discount" or "clearance" trees which didn't state the rootstock, or the buyer wasn't aware of the vigour difference of the two rootstocks, or perhaps the tree was mislabelled or was being sold cheaply because the variety and/or rootstock wasn't certain due to a lost label.
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