Turkeysong

Experimental Homestead

A Video Tour of my Amateur Apple Breeding Project

THIS BLOG IS RETIRED, I’VE MOVED TO SKILLCULT.COM   

ALL THE OLD TURKEYSONG POSTS ARE THERE AND MORE, CHECK IT OUT!

A walk around looking at various parts of my apple breeding project.  It doesn’t look like much, but I think it’s getting the job done.  I spotted my first blossom while filming this.  Way cool, that means I’ll probably have some bloom next year, hopefully followed by fruit!

July 5, 2015 - Posted by | Apples, Food Trees Fruits and Nuts, grafting, plant breeding | , , , , , , , , , ,

7 Comments »

  1. Hey so did the pollination take? I am very interested in this and need to do some catching up on your older videos. I never thought apples all that interesting until a couple of years ago when someone posted a picture on facebook of a red fleshed apple. There was no information on the picture and I was beyond intrigued so I googled images and found the Greenmantle nursery and the Albert Etter story and the red fleshed apple trees. I suddenly wanted to purchase my first apple tree but it was literally the last day that they take orders for the season. I decided to send an order with an apology that it might get to them a few days late, and ended up getting my Rubaiyat grafted onto a bud9 stock. I live in an apartment and grow everything in pots so I can take it with me when ever I get to move so this was going to be an experiment to see If I could grow it in a 20 gallon pot. So far so good. It grew 5 foot tall the first summer and had spurs all the way up the trunk. They bloomed profusely this year and were either self pollinated or pollinated from a neighborhood tree, and I have 11 apples on it. They even thinned themselves to one per spur just before I was thinking I would need to thin them. Anyway it has turned into one of my new big interests. Albert Etter. What a guy. To begin with; born and died on Thanksgiving day, and then everything interesting between. I now realize that I then came across you while looking for information about grafting trees. Not that I can propagate this tree because of their patent rights. It still just weirds me out that I’ve come to care about apple growing. Apples and other tree fruit are one of the original main industries around here and I’ve picked in the orchards and sorted in the sheds and rarely care to even eat one. Now I can hardly wait to taste a Rubaiyat. Are you sure you aren’t reincarnated Albert Etter? lol

    Comment by Karen Wood | July 5, 2015 | Reply

  2. You busted me, I am Albert! I don’t think that one took. Even if it did, I didn’t really expect it to do anything, but I think it was already too far gone. It probably wasn’t even properly formed. Next year is the year though! There are no patent rights on any of those Etter apples. There are just trademarks. If you signed a non-prop agreement, that is intended to keep the apples from being propagated freely, but no one owns the genetics as in a patent. There would be no need for a non-prop agreement if they had a patent. The best of those red fleshed apples I’ve tasted so far is Pink Parfait. It is not as red though and doesn’t have the intensity of berry like flavors. Rubaiyat can be good when it’s just right and is very compelling. I use it as a parent, because of the deep red flesh, but it needs improving as far as desert quality goes. Same with most of the others I’ve had. The first picture of a red fleshed apple in the video of the apple sliced open in my hand is Rubaiyat BTW.

    Comment by Stevene | July 5, 2015 | Reply

  3. Ha ha ha, cool. :) Well yes I did sign their non prob agreement and of course am a newb at this so hmmm. Maybe I will end up playing with apple crossing too. I will stay tuned to see how all of yours works out. I’m just so glad I came across you so I can do some living vicariously through you. Fun fun! :) Have you tried the Rubaiyat as dried apples? That is probably what I will do with them but of course will sample some fresh too.
    .

    Comment by Karen Wood | July 5, 2015 | Reply

    • I know I’ve dried grenadine, but don’t recall on rubaiyat. Definitely want to experiment more. the most compelling dried has been water cored suntan apples, but they don’t grow well here. That’s about all they’re good for in this climate. If you can find someone with a healthy tree they don’t much like the fruit on, you can graft stuff onto that to test, or use it to grow out seedlings. Wish I had access to some healthy trees for that. I need more framework trees.

      Comment by Stevene | July 5, 2015 | Reply

  4. Well I can see why you have so much going on with it. What a complicated science it is all by itself. I don’t get out and about much around here but If I happen to come across anything local that you could possibly be interested in having some of I’ll let you know. It could happen since they’ve been growing apples around here for so long. There are things like old homestead remnants hanging around here and there that could be rare. If I had a vehicle I would be out and about finding stuff like that all the time. I do have a few facebook friends who I don’t actually know but could ask because they have rural property.

    Comment by Karen Wood | July 5, 2015 | Reply

    • I don’t need much more in the way of varieties to collect. i’m trying to slow way down on that. I just could use a few local healthy trees to graft seedlings onto so I don’t have to grow them all out in rows.

      Comment by Stevene | July 5, 2015 | Reply

  5. Okie dokie then. I will wait to enjoy some good updates.

    Comment by Karen Wood | July 5, 2015 | Reply


Leave a comment