Agriculture, or possibly agronomy, question

[Elizabeth I]

I have a question about the varieties of apples. For the past few years I have been buying the honeycrisp variety because it is exactly what I look for in an apple - sweet-tart in flavor, and always crisp, never mushy, in texture.

However, the last two batches I have bought have not been as good as in previous years - the first had a bitter aftertaste, and the second a slightly mushy texture.

The same thing happened with Fuji apples - they were great the first couple of years, then in subsequent years the stock was mushy and not very flavorful.

I assume these varieties are hybrids, so I'm wondering if after a few years these hybrids start to revert to their root stocks, and that would explain the decline in quality over several seasons.

Or am I just imagining it? I kept buying Fuji apples for quite a while, thinking that I had either gotten a bad batch or it had been a bad harvest for a year or two, but they never improved.

Would appreciate it if someone who understands the biology of this could offer an explanation. (And I'm willing to accept that it's all in my imagination, except it keeps narrowing the range of apples I can buy. )

 

[Loss Leader]

The same thing happened with Fuji apples - they were great the first couple of years, then in subsequent years the stock was mushy and not very flavorful.

I think the answer may lie in where you are in the world, where you buy your groceries and, astonishingly the US economy. The issues you're describing come up when apples are shipped warmer and held longer before sale.

Why were they held longer? Probably, less whole fruit was being bought due to price. But why weren't they shipped colder? The shipping companies raised the temperatures in their containers to save on costs.

I assume these varieties are hybrids, so I'm wondering if after a few years these hybrids start to revert to their root stocks, and that would explain the decline in quality over several seasons.

No. Degeneration is not a real concept.

(And I'm willing to accept that it's all in my imagination, except it keeps narrowing the range of apples I can buy. )

If you want great tasting apples, only buy them when they are in season in your area, spend more money and buy them from high-end grocers. They pay more to get the best of the stock before the rest get dumped into the chain grocery stores.


IGUOAAF: I grew up on an apple farm.

 

[Elizabeth I]

Thanks, Loss Leader - I do all those things and, as I said, in previous seasons the apples were great. This year, not so much.

You're probably right about the storage and shipping, though.

 

[Professor Yaffle]

I have no idea about your question, but I just wanted to say Pink Lady. Love them!

 

[bruto]

I'm no agronomist and I don't even play one on TV, but I've noticed with certain apples that the same variety will taste different from different orchards, and suspect that many conditions will contribute to the flavor. My apple of choice is the Northern Spy, which we get from two different places, one about 30 miles north of here in Vermont, and one about 30 miles south in New York state. The New York orchard's apples are consistently better. People sometimes blame the weather for differing luck with apples, but here are two orchards in essentially the same zone, yet the difference is consistent and noticeable.

The weather here has been pretty odd, with extreme rainfall, warm temperatures, and an extended fall. So I would not be surprised if that's a factor.

The last honeycrisps I got just a while ago were very disappointing, even though they were fresh from a local orchard. They're crisp and juicy and they look nice, but the skins are tough and bitter and the flesh has little flavor.

Bummer. Spy season is over, too. Back to Empires I guess.

 

[Loss Leader]

I'm no agronomist and I don't even play one on TV, but I've noticed with certain apples that the same variety will taste different from different orchards, and suspect that many conditions will contribute to the flavor. My apple of choice is the Northern Spy, which we get from two different places, one about 30 miles north of here in Vermont, and one about 30 miles south in New York state. The New York orchard's apples are consistently better. People sometimes blame the weather for differing luck with apples, but here are two orchards in essentially the same zone, yet the difference is consistent and noticeable.

That's all soil. If the farmer feeds his trees the absolute minimum, saving money, he'll get apples that aren't as sweet. Maintaining a good soil, while more expensive, creates better apples.

 

[bruto]

That's all soil. If the farmer feeds his trees the absolute minimum, saving money, he'll get apples that aren't as sweet. Maintaining a good soil, while more expensive, creates better apples.

I can buy that. Whatever those folks down in Granville, NY do with their soil, I hope they keep doing it, because their apples are deeeee-licious!

 

[Dancing David]

This space for rent

 

[quarky]

I'm no agronomist and I don't even play one on TV, but I've noticed with certain apples that the same variety will taste different from different orchards, and suspect that many conditions will contribute to the flavor. My apple of choice is the Northern Spy, which we get from two different places, one about 30 miles north of here in Vermont, and one about 30 miles south in New York state. The New York orchard's apples are consistently better. People sometimes blame the weather for differing luck with apples, but here are two orchards in essentially the same zone, yet the difference is consistent and noticeable.

The weather here has been pretty odd, with extreme rainfall, warm temperatures, and an extended fall. So I would not be surprised if that's a factor.

The last honeycrisps I got just a while ago were very disappointing, even though they were fresh from a local orchard. They're crisp and juicy and they look nice, but the skins are tough and bitter and the flesh has little flavor.

Bummer. Spy season is over, too. Back to Empires I guess.

Yeah, Northern Spy.

Pity that hundreds of apple varieties are being lost. I have a friend that grows 75 different varieties. He's considered something of a freak, yet, 100 years ago, there were at least 300 varieties of apples in the U.S.

many of these old varieties were grown for cider (apple beer) and were considered inedible.
Others taste like strawberries, and even bananas.

Its a shame what's happened to the apple. Yet, the biggest problem is shipping and handling...and storage.

An apple is not a Snickers Bar. You can't buy one, anywhere, anytime, and expect the same Snikerish goodness.

A tree is not the same as a factory.

 

[bruto]

Fortunately, here in the Northeast we're at least beginning to see a trend toward reviving and preserving some of those old varieties, and you can get some pretty interesting apples at the local co-op, for example.

Northern Spies are apparently slow to mature and not very reliable bearers, but fortunately we live within their limited region of availability. Nothing like em.

My grandfather was a biochemist with an agricultural bent (he spent his younger years researching cheese before he got into mold growing and invented the citric acid process), and when he retired to Vermont, he started an orchard, in which he raised one of just about everything. He was one of the first adopters of the Macoun, which used to be one of my favorites. He liked them fully ripe and rather scoffed at my preference for eating them green, but every year he would send be a box of them, still a little green.

My other favorite of his was the Yellow Transparent, another one rarely seen nowadays. It's one of the earliest ones to bear in fall, and seems to survive longer than many when it's neglected. But my recollection is that they don't keep well, and go mealy very quickly. Long ago I lived in a place in far northern NY state, which included a lot of old and long neglected apple trees bearing little wizened wormy fruits, as well as many young volunteers, whose apples were inedible. But way back in one back corner of the woods was an old Yellow Transparent tree, which probably had not been tended or pruned for 40 years, covered with big healthy apples.

I only lived there for two years. I meticulously pruned a bunch of the nearer trees, and was ready to start trying at least for a decent pie crop the second year, and was reading up on grafting, hoping to utilize some of those young healthy trees. But there was a freak late killing frost that year during blossom time, devastating the local apple crop. On my 60 acres, with dozens of mature trees as well as scores of healthy young volunteers, I found precisely one apple that year. Family emergencies intervened in my budding orchard venture, and I haven't done anything since. We have a few very scraggly old trees here, and occasionally pick feral apples for pies, but the best local growers provide such good stuff it doesn't seem worthwhile to do much more.