Early-ripening Apples

[FB.]

I often buy a small batch from one or another nursery to "test" them.

I trust and I like the quality of trees from two nurseries:

Keepers Nursery (Kent)
Keepers Nursery UK | Fruit trees for sale | Buy Online | Mail order
Their online ordering will sometimes remove an item from stock the instant an order is made, and if I edit the order a week or more before delivery the item I swapped will appear as "in stock" and the item I put in my basket in its place may go "out of stock" if it is a rare variety.

Bernwode Fruit Trees (Buckinghamshire):
http://www.bernwodefruittrees.co.uk/
They do not have an online ordering facility - you have to phone them and they'll call you back a short while later to say whether it's in stock.
They'll tell you straight if they don't have the variety/rootstock combination you want - no substitutions. When their trees arrive you can see the weathered year-or-two-old label which confirms that the tree should be true-to-type.

Most nurseries only label trees at the time of gathering the customer's order - the trees simply being in alphabet groupings out in the field. Consequently many fruit trees arrive with a shiny new label and the associated risk that the tree got mislabelled during digging-out or packing at the nursery.
Mistakes can be made - I once was looking round a Victorian kitchen garden and a casual glance caused me to misread a label as Adam's Pearmain only for my wife to say "but doesn't that say Autumn Pearmain?".
Not to mention illegible handwriting - I can easily see how your "Christmas Pearmain" turned out to be another variety beginning with "Ch" <Charles Ross> as they'd be near to each other in most nurseries and consequently easily mixed-up or picked up the wrong one in error due to lack of attention.

[FB.]

R.V.Roger are honest, too - although in my experience their trees tend to be of only average quality.
Buy plants by post from R.V.Roger Ltd

Some years ago I had an order in place with Roger's and when the time came for my order to be gathered they contacted me to say something to the effect that when the nursery worker went to get my order, some of the trees in my order were not satisfactory for sale, so would I like to revise or cancel the order.

Top marks for honesty and for not substituting - sadly they lost the revenue because I wanted specific varieties/rootstocks.

Therein lies the problem: do you send out any old rubbish or substitutions in order to get the revenue (with many customers probably not noticing the sick or incorrect order until years later) or do you be honest and risk losing the revenue?
I'm not saying it's right, but I can see the incentive for some nurseries to put £ ahead of honesty and integrity.

[boundtothesoil]

I picked a few kg of Beauty of Bath yesterday, just the reddest. They seem ripe even though they haven't started dropping off the tree big-time. However, the very reddest apples were occupied by codling moth caterpillars

[orangepippin]

Most nurseries only label trees at the time of gathering the customer's order - the trees simply being in alphabet groupings out in the field. Consequently many fruit trees arrive with a shiny new label and the associated risk that the tree got mislabelled during digging-out or packing at the nursery.
Mistakes can be made - I once was looking round a Victorian kitchen garden and a casual glance caused me to misread a label as Adam's Pearmain only for my wife to say "but doesn't that say Autumn Pearmain?".
Not to mention illegible handwriting - I can easily see how your "Christmas Pearmain" turned out to be another variety beginning with "Ch" <Charles Ross> as they'd be near to each other in most nurseries and consequently easily mixed-up or picked up the wrong one in error due to lack of attention.

A nursery is basically a warehouse. Field stock is identified by row and offset position in the row. Alphabetic groupings are possible but the primary sequence is by rootstock, and trees are usually done in batches so a given variety will end up being spread over a number of blocks. Of course unlike a normal warehouse, the products all look the same, so identification is definitely an issue. Errors could occur not only at the lifting stage, but are actually more likely to arise at the planting out stage or budding stage as well, and at the stage of preparing scionwood. So there is plenty of scope for errors, but I think for this very reason, the actual number of errors is very low.

[yummersetter]

Beauty of Bath fruit on the huge old tree are dropping, but that tree's still not healthy, only half sized leaves. It was pruned and weeded, but maybe being at least 70 years old is having an effect. I'm going to try feeding it, there's a shire horse next door which could probably provide the necessary.

On the mm106 bush trees, dogs, birds and wasps have meant there's only one fruit left.

The mm106 half standard, Red Beauty of Bath, looks amazing, picturebook apple tree. They're just beginning to drop but are still slightly underripe.

[FB.]

but that tree's still not healthy, only half sized leaves.

Those kind of symptoms are what I get when a tree has root disease - phytopthora crown or root rot.

I can always tell which of my trees are sick because they don't grow as well as they should; often little new growth and quite sparse or small leaves, sometimes many yellowed/falling leaves at this time of year (drought stress due to root dysfunction) and sometimes slightly greyish-tinted or slightly purple-tinted leaves accompanied by lots of small, highly-coloured fruits. Dieback also happens to new shoots from certain branches as the root supplying them gradually dies from phytophthora.

As for apples: Beauty of Bath has finished now. Discovery has been "in season" for about a week and likely to be so for another week or two. Only a small proportion of the Discovery apples being grown locally which aren't "holed" by at least one codling maggot. Mine - grown on MM106 which struggles in my light soil - are ruined by bitter pit because the roots clearly can't cope with the dry conditions.

On the other hand, my "Epicure" crop (a variety listed as bad for bitter pit) has no trace of bitter pit and only a small proportion of pest-damaged fruits. The "tree" is several feet in size on M25 rootstock which is a much better choice for producing good quality fruit than MM106 in this area.

[boundtothesoil]

Red Beauty of Bath, looks amazing, picturebook apple tree. They're just beginning to drop but are still slightly underripe.

I think there is an argument for picking Beauty of Bath slightly under-ripe rather than over-ripe, as the extra sharpness improves their otherwise pretty second rate and short-lived flavour. So, this year I've started picking the top, most sun-exposed, fruit a couple of days before the first droppers - seems to be working.

[FB.]

Well, here's something peculiar..........
I have a Blenheim Orange on M9 growing as a minarette in a sheltered sunny spot; the apples have reached a good size despite the dry weather and they all will part from the tree with a gentle lift.

Also
The Red Devil on MM106 are fully-coloured and beginning to drop to signal that they are ripe, but the fruit are not even an inch across, probably full of bitter pit as per usual with MM106, and basically worthless.

Epicure on M25 are close to being ripe. Fruit is of good size and quality despite the dry weather in early summer and its reputation for small fruit and bitter pit and despite the fact that the tree is both growing strongly and cropping - a combination which usually encourages problems with the fruit.

Scrumptious on MM106 are also close to being ripe, but are barely the size of golf balls (again highlighting the issues with MM106 rootstock here).

Grenadier on both M9 and MM106 is not doing well this year - fruit is crab-apple-sized probably reflecting this variety's reputation for preferring wet climates and heavy soils (the weather was quite dry in early summer). The apples should be ripe any time now but will be too small to be of any use. I'm going to cook with the M9-grown Blenheims instead.

[orangepippin]

Our Grenadiers on M9 are still not ripe, but they are more or less the same size as usual.

[FB.]

Our Grenadiers on M9 are still not ripe, but they are more or less the same size as usual.

Until the last few years I often watered them during dry spells and mulched twice per year.

Nowadays the trees have to look after themselves because although in the past I could get MM106 to produce fruit, I could not persuade it to grow much (maybe several new shoots of 3-6 inches per year under heavy feeding/watering) - certainly not fast enough to make the half-standard trees that "the books" promised me a decade or so ago.
I'm not spending my life being a slave to trees which won't grow in my soil, so I let natural selection deal with those which can't cope - which results in me having to replace a handful of dead or sickly trees each year.

Under my current "semi-neglect" conditions only my M25 and MM111 trees are worth growing - and it has become clear that certain varieties grow and crop better than others in soils with low fertility and/or moisture deficiency like mine.
I even had four pear trees on the supposedly strong wild pear/seedling rootstock and/or Pyrodwarf rootstock collapse and give up the ghost under severe drought stress earlier this year.

[yummersetter]

I've had good crops for the first time on two early-ish apples that I hadn't tried before. There are two bush trees on mm106 of Red Melba that have beautiful apples. Basically lime green with an even crimson flush, they have an attractive purple bloom so look quite unusual. They are crisp to bite into and a good sweet / acid balance. Wasps seem quite keen on them too, which seems to be the mark of a tasty apple this year.

Owen Thomas has an unenthusiastic write-up in a lot of literature so I wasn't rushing to try it but there are two half standard trees with a large crop on each of yellow apples with red stripes, Sunset style. It is softer to bite with cream flesh and a really strong and delicious orange flavour, unlike any other apple we have. It would be interesting to make juice from it and see if that orangeyness holds. The books say that it has to be eaten quickly before the flavour disappears.

[yummersetter]

Red Melba

[yummersetter]

Owen Thomas

[boundtothesoil]

Owen Thomas has an unenthusiastic write-up in a lot of literature

Any idea where this variety can be purchased from? I've googled and only Keepers nursery came up, and they only offer a budding service to order - just missed this year's batch so next delivery 2015.

I'm looking for off-beat, distinctly flavoured apples to use as parents in my crosses and like the idea of an orange flavoured one. I'd probably cross it with Pitmaston pineapple

[yummersetter]

I bought mine from the Scotts closing down auction and also can't find another supplier on an online search apart from Keepers. I'm happy to send some scionwood, or Brogdale might prepare a plant for you. It was originally supplied by Laxtons.
The downside to crossing with Pitmaston Pineapple is that Owen Thomas isn't large, it's Sunset sized, and PP is smaller still. I'd try to keep them distinct, but each larger and slightly crisper - a cross between Owen Thomas and Melba would be interesting.