"Ted Mittelstaedt" wrote in
:


"Sheldon" wrote in message

groups.com... On Aug 24, 4:58?pm, "Ted Mittelstaedt"
wrote:
As I mentioned, I have an Indian Summer crabapple tree
that
is it's pollenator, and that tree produced a large number
of crabapples. ?As you said, all apple trees need a
pollenator - where did that crabapple tree get it's pollen
from if not from this tree? ?And if it got it from some
3rd tree in the area, then why didn't this tree get it
from that tree also?

Not all crabapple pollenates dessert apple well.

Yellow Transparent is a cooking apple.

ignore Shelly. he makes things up as he goes.

Your crab apple
produces fruit because some crabapple are self pollenating.
Your tree produced some apples because most likely there
is another apple tree not too distant and one that's in
blossom during the same period as yours, but probably too
distant to be an efficient pollenator, and probably the
wrong type of tree for your fruit to set well, so it will
drop. Check with a nurseryman to find out which type of
apple tree is recommended as a pollenator for yours, not
all are compatible so don't run out and buy just any old
apple tree.

There are no real nurserymen left in my city - none that is
who are available to any customer, that is. I already
tried that route a couple years ago. As I mentioned, none
had heard of the particular cultivar. Everyone I talked to
only wanted to sell me a Gala apple tree or some such
variety that I can buy from the supermarket - why even
bother planting one of those when every corner market that
sells apples already has tons of those apples.

have you tried contacting Trees of Antiquity?
http://www.treesofantiquity.com/inde...ain_page=index
they not only carry Yellow Transparent (one of my favorite
pie & sauce apples) but many other heirloom fruit trees.
i'm sure they can answer your questions far better than an
idiot on the opposite side of the continent from you.

My read of the local retail nurseries is that they follow
fads and fashions, and know nothing about plants anymore.
Half the retail nurseries are owned by chains in the first
place. And all of them carry the same varieties. Right
now the native plants are a big fad so they carry those.
But I could go from nursery to nursery writing down
varieties and I would end up with a list of perhaps a grand
total of 15 different apple varieties. And every one of
those 15 would be of an apple available in the supermarket.
Most people buy fruit trees that produce fruits they are
already used to buying and eating from the supermarket. So
that avenue is as they say a dry hole.

you can find 15 varieties of apple in local nurseries? i
think i can find maybe 5 or 6, one of which is always the
misnomered 'Delicious' yuck! i can only find decorative
crabapples, those with pretty flowers but tiny useless fruit.
I contacted several dozen "grower" nurseries nationally,
looking for this cultivar.
None carried it. One nursery back east claimed to carry it
in a non-grafted native root tree. Good luck with that. A
few wholesale nurseries in Canada also claimed to carry it.
Do you want a description of all the crap you have to go
through to take a tree across the border from Canada to the
US and how expensive it is? And this isn't even beginning
to touch the nonsense with minimum orders and all of that
which the wholesale nurseries have.

Trees of Antiquity has it on dwarfing rootstock,
conventionally grown, available for 2009 planting season.
http://www.treesofantiquity.com/index.php?
main_page=product_info&products_id=153
they know their trees. i really think they can tell you a
cross pollination cultivar. and they're on the west coast.

This isn't a cultivar that is an espically significant
historical cultivar, so
the various societies that care about saving "heirloom"
cultivars are no help either. Yellow Transparent is
equivalent to a 1984 Chevy Celebrity. During their day
millions were made. But they were always a workhorse and
at this time they have not been gone for long enough for
anyone to notice. No doubt in 50 years there will be
"heirloom apple tree preservers" out there tearing their
hair out wondering why nobody bothered saving a specimen of
yellow transparent, just as there will be old car buffs
tearing their hair out wondering why nobody bothered saving
1984 Chevy Celebrities. But right now there are not -
because most are like you who seem to think that it's an
ordinary enough tree that info should be readily available.

it's from the 1870s. it *is* considered an heirloom variety.
it is currently out of favor because it doesn't ship well &
has a *very* short "shelf life". it's NOT a 'keeping' apple.

30 years ago this cultivar had a limited success as a
commercial apple. What I need to find is some old retired
geezer farmer who at that time had an orchard with some of
these in it, and who remembers all about their habits and
how to make them happy and how to get them to yield well.

i would imagine it had *very* limited success as a commercial
variety, since it doesn't hold or ship worth crap. i'm trying
to remember if there was a big craze for dried apples 30 years
ago that might account for some interest in it commercially.
seriously, the fruit rots on the tree even, if you don't pick
it as soon as it's ripe.

The entire thing is an experiment. It may not work. But
the alternative is sitting on my butt doing nothing, being
****ed at the dumb supermarkets who only want to carry
something like 5 apple varieties, all of which have only
been bred to have 10 month shelf lives and skins made out
of what appears to be red stainless steel - so they can be
shipped on the cheapest freight carrier from Mexico and
still be salable.

yup. shipping apples. pretty & pretty inedible.

lee
--
Last night while sitting in my chair
I pinged a host that wasn't there
It wasn't there again today
The host resolved to NSA.