Topic: apple id

[ruud]

I have got an apple tree who has red apples like on the pics.The shape is more long than round.The apple tastes sweet but it has firm texture. 
     
                                                                                       

[Kea]

Looks like a 'Red delicious' because of the white 'stars'. However the red colour isn't dark enough. Does it have very white flesh?

[tim]

*

[calendula]

maybe discovery if you are picking them now  :-\

[ruud]

Thanks kea and tim thats the one,btw is it a good variety to have?

[tim]

By Adrian Higgins
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, August 5, 2005; Page A01

Consider the fate of America's favorite apple. It emerged from an Iowa orchard in 1880 as a round, blushed yellow fruit of surpassing sweetness.

But like a figure in a TV makeover show, it was an apple that its handlers could not leave alone. They altered its shape. They made it firmer and more juicy. They made it so it could be stored in hermetically sealed warehouses for 12 months. Along the way, they changed its color and hence its name -- to Red Delicious.

 
Graphic
An Apple a Day...
Washington state apple shipments, as percentage of crop


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The only problem was the American consumer, whose verdict on the made-over apple has become increasingly clear: Of the two words in the Red Delicious name, one can no longer be believed.

"They eventually went too far and ended up with apples the public didn't want to eat," said Lee Calhoun, an apple historian and retired orchardist in Pittsboro, N.C.

In the 1980s heyday of the Red Delicious, it represented three-quarters of the harvest in Washington state, epicenter of the apple industry. By 2000, it made up less than half, and in 2003, the crop had shrunk to just 37 percent of the state's harvest of 103 million boxes. Red Delicious remains the single largest variety produced in the state, but others are ascending in market share as rapidly as Red Delicious is dropping, notably Fuji and Gala.

The reliance on Red Delicious helped push Washington's apple industry to the edge in the late 1990s and into this decade. Depressed prices for Red Delicious, weaker foreign markets and stiffer competition from abroad, including apple concentrate from China, contributed to major losses in the nation's apple industry, which mounted to $700 million in 2001, according to the U.S. Apple Association. The industry has recovered somewhat since then, in part because reduced harvests have buoyed prices.

Who's to blame for the decline of Red Delicious? Everyone, it seems. Consumers were drawn to the eye candy of brilliantly red apples, so supermarket chains paid more for them. Thus, breeders and nurseries patented and propagated the most rubied mutations, or "sports," that they could find, and growers bought them by the millions, knowing that these thick-skinned wonders also would store for ages.

"Did they do it because it has less flavor? Obviously not," said Eugene M. Kupferman, a post-harvest specialist at Washington State University's tree fruit research center in Wenatchee, Wash. "They did it because it has better legs and they are getting more money for it."

The Washington harvest begins in mid-August and runs to late October, and most apples sold through December are simply stored in refrigerated warehouses. Fruit shipped later in this cycle is kept in a more sophisticated environment called controlled-atmosphere storage -- airtight rooms where the temperatures are chilly, the humidity high and the oxygen levels reduced to a bare minimum to arrest aging. Last year's fruit will be sold through September, just as the new harvest is in full swing.

Storage apples must be picked before all their starches turn to sugar. Pick too late, and the apple turns mealy in the supermarket, but pick too soon, and the apple will never taste sweet. Growers test for optimum conditions, but today's popular strains of Red Delicious turn color two to three weeks before harvest, making it difficult for pickers to distinguish an apple that is ready from one that isn't.

Some strains "develop full red color in mid-August," said Stephen S. Miller, a research horticulturist for the USDA's Appalachian Fruit Research Station in Kearneysville, W.Va. "Physiologically, that apple is still as green as grass."

The grower could deliver a better apple by harvesting a tree in two or three waves -- the outside fruit ripens earlier than fruit in the center of the tree. This is done for Galas and other premium varieties, but the prices for Red Delicious are so depressed that farmers can't afford that. "You would put yourself out of business," said Roger Pepperl, marketing director for Stemilt Growers Inc., a major grower in Wenatchee. In addition, the redder strains' thicker skins, found to be rich in antioxidants, taste bitter to many palates.

But there are many more compliments if you Search!!

[ruud]

That is a lot of information,thanks a lot tim

[Baaaaaaaa]

Unfortunately there are many aspects required to correctly identify a particular apple variety from the 1000s out there.  Not only items such as color of the skin, texture (smooth or russet), shape and size of the fruit, when the fruit is ready for picking, but also the number of bumps on the flower end (bottom) of the apple, the depth and diameter of the dimple, the amount of russetting within it, the size of the old flower head and how open it is. At the top (stalk end) also the depth, diameter and russetting also makes a difference.

When all this info has been collected there are reference books available which will precisely identify the variety for you. The RHS provide this kind of service, but it ain't cheap. There are also 'Apple Heads' at country fairs who can give you the benefit of many years of cider drinking.

[Kea]

There are apple days coming up all over the country.

[redimp]

Red Delicious apple
Red Delicious apple photo
Red Delicious is one of the most famous American apples, and one of the most widely grown apple varieties. Although the name is similar, Red Delicious (sometimes just called Delicious) and Golden Delicious are entirely different varieties. There are a lot of similarities though: both varieties were discovered in the USA at the end of the 19th century, both need warm climates, and both are basically sweet apples.

Red Delicious is a medium-sized apple, with a tall conical shape. The dark and intense crimson colour makes it the quintessential red apple, and it is has a strong shelf appeal.

Unfortunately the visual appeal is not quite matched by the flavour. Red Delicious has a strong sweet flavour, perhaps most reminscent of slightly over-ripe melon. It seems like it should be crisp and crunchy, but it is generally too soft. Golden Delicious, in comparison, is much crisper but has a blander sweet flavour.

Flavour is of course subjective and to some extent it is a matter of what you grow up with. Red Delicious seems to suit North American tastes better than European tastes, but this is perhaps simply a matter of familiarity.

Red Delicious, like Golden Delicious, is starting to decline in popularity. According to the "Washington Post", Red Delicious' share of the harvest in Washington State, one of the USA's key apple-growing regions, has fallen from 3/4qtrs to just over 1/3rd of production in the 20 years to 2003. The lack of flavour is cited as one of the factors, and in Europe (where flavour has perhaps been relatively more important to consumers), Red Delicious has never been that successful. However it has been extensively used in breeding programmes, and its most interesting modern offspring is probably Fuji. It is also a parent of Kidd's Orange Red and Empire, both of which have inherited some of the melon flavour. It may also be a parent of Cameo.

Visitor comments:
"I quite enjoy your site, but must disagree with your assessment of the Red Delicious apple - it's entirely too charitable. There's good reason Red Delicious is losing popularity in the United States. At least in its late-20th-century incarnation, the Red Delicious came to represent all that is bad about industrial agriculture. Obviously bred for color and ease of shipping, the variety's flavor (when it has any at all) is insipid at best. Pair that with a over-thick skin and an often-mushy texture and it's no wonder many American children grow up not liking apples very much.  Frank Browning, a public radio commentator and writer who now lives on his family’s ancestral apple orchard in Kentucky, claims that he’s tasted apples from old Red Delicious trees, whose fruit is less red and much more flavorful. Such a shame it would have been so overbred."  C. Johnson, New York, USA

Species: Malus domestica

I personally cannot stand apples that are "sweet" and have no other flavour amongst which I count both red and golden delicious and many of the newer varieties.