The message . com
from "Mike Lyle" contains these words:


David WE Roberts wrote:
[...]
Has anyone experience of this type of apple?

Should then be picked and stored to give them time to mature?

It seems sad to have a huge crop of shiny, sweet red apples which are
basically inedible because there is only so much blotting paper I can chew
before I start to wonder why I am doing it.

I also don't want to waste a lot of effort picking and storing them if
they are going to turn out old and woody instead of fresh and woody.
[...]

No experience of the one you describe (which doesn't sound like a
genuine Worcester), but some apples do, as you suggest, need to ripen
further in store before they're ready to eat. I did have a nameless
one, a russet, which was indeed rather woody till it had been stored:
it would be worth trying once, and if you still don't like it, you can
get rid with a clear conscience. At least one kind is best at Christmas
or after, I believe. I think these anonymous varieties we find are
often seedlings, which are rarely worth the effort.

--
Mike.

My understanding is that it's only later apples which mature in store,
i.e. early apples (August and into September) are best straight off the
tree and deteriorate quite rapidly once picked, often within a week or
two, whereas the ones picked from October will store well and many are
unpalatable until a month or two after being picked. In other words it
seems unlikely that apples picked now will improve after being picked.
Also, as Charlie says, in spite of the hot weather even the earliest
apples - Beauty of Bath and Discovery - aren't quite fully ripe here yet
(S. Lincs)

As David suggest the dry weather might be affecting things. You could
accept the falling of the apples and see what the remaining ones are
like when they will yield easily to a small twist. Then see whether
fewer fall next year and make a final decision about the future of the
tree then.

Janet G