Alkemene
Alkmene was raised in Germany in the 1930s. It is sometimes also known as Early Windsor. The flavor is quite strong and has the Cox tanginess but is noticeably juicier. Some tasters have compared the flavor to a Granny Smith. The flesh is cream-colored and quite dense; biting into one of these gives teeth and gums a good workout. It ripens a bit earlier than Cox – around early September. It has much more strength and body than most early varieties. If you like a strong, tart apple, early in the season, then give this a try. Alkmene was developed from a cross between Cox’s Orange Pippin apples and Duchess of Oldenburg.
Braeburn
Braeburn is one of the most important commercial apple varieties. It originated in New Zealand in the 1950s, and by the last decades of the 20th century had been planted in all the major warm apple-growing regions of the world. It is fairly easy to grow, produces heavily and early in the life of the tree and it stores well. What marks it out from the competition is flavor. Braeburn was the first modern apple variety in large-scale production where the flavor was genuinely on a par with the older classic apple varieties. It ripens very late in Western Washington and sometimes too late to fully ripen.
Elstar
Elstar is another successful offspring of Golden Delicious, developed in the Netherlands in the 1950s.Daliest is a sport of Elstar which develops it red coloring earlier but has most of the characteristics of Elstar. It is a popular easy-eating dessert apple, widely grown in Europe but less well-known in the UK or North America. The skin is marbled, often with a soft sheen to it. It also lacks the perfect smoothness of many modern varieties. The underlying color is golden yellow but overlaid with deep red.
Elstar is definitely a crunchy apple, but not as crisp or hard as some – definitely the softer side of crunchy, so a good choice if you have fragile teeth. The flesh is lemon-white.
In most Golden Delicious offspring it is the other parent which provides the essential counter-balance to offset the sweet blandness of Golden Delicious. In the case of Elstar this is Ingrid Marie, a variety which originates from Denmark. Although not a widely-known apple, it lends a bit of extra flavor to the mix – inherited from its own parent, Cox’s Orange Pippin.
Greensleeves
Organic growers in England rave about this large, beautiful, yellow apple! Bred at East Malling station for high scab and mildew resistance, the cross between Golden Delicious and James Grieve produces heavy crops of crisp, juicy, delicious apples in September after a long, mid-season bloom. A compact spur habit adds to its winning nature.
Hatsuaki
A sweet, crisp and juicy dessert apple with yellowish flesh, a yellow ground color and orange=red stripes. From Japan it is a cross of Jonathan x Golden Delicious. Good for fresh eating and processing, it ripens in September. It has a delicious sweet flavor much prized in Japan.
Tsugaru Homei
Tsugaru apples are moderately sized, round to conical fruits with a somewhat uniform shape and light russeting within the stem’s cavity. The skin is firm, slightly sticky, and has a yellow-green base that may be covered with red mottling, blushing, and striping. Underneath the surface, the flesh is dense, white, crisp, and aqueous, encasing a small central core filled with black-brown seeds. Tsugaru apples have an intensely sweet flavor with an acidic and mildly tart undertone. Tsugaru apples are native to Japan and were developed at the Aomori Prefectural Apple Experimental Station in the 1930s. The variety is a cross between a Kodama and Golden Delicious apple, and after approximately forty years of trials, Tsugaru apples were officially released to commercial markets in 1975.
Belmac
A new, productive, all-purpose Canadian cultivar that combines flavor and keeping ability with cold and disease resistance. The sweet, medium-to-large, deep red apples ripen in late September or early October and keep for three months or more. A delicious, sweet/tart MacIntosh flavor suggests its parent, Spartan. It was bred by Dr. Shahrokh Khanizadeh in Quebec and introduced in 1996. Offered under agreement with Ag. Canada, Quebec. Sam Benowitz brought this variety to our area from Canada. Belmac resists scab, mildew, and cedar apple rust, thrives in eastern Canada, and has proven a winner in western Washington. It combines a delicious McIntosh flavor with excellent keeping ability.
Rubinette
Rubinette is a modern apple variety developed in Switzerland between 1964 and 1982. It is a cross of Cox’s Orange Pippin and Golden Delicious. Rubinette has characteristic orange and dull red streaks over a light green/yellow background. The apples are generally small to medium-sized. It gets some apple scab and needs thinning to attain size but it has a complex delicious flavor.
