APPLEOOSA

SKILLCULT APPLE BREEDING PROJECT

This page is for accumulating information on my new apple variety Appleoosa.

Appleoosa is a cross between Grenadine and Lady Williams. So far, it probably shows the most similarity to Grenadine in flavor, with complex fruitiness predominated by berry notes.

Appleoosa can have a very similar appearance to Grenadine, with dark pink to red skin, covered in large white speckles. That is where the name came from, because it’s spotted like an appaloosa horse. I thought it was funny as a temporary name and then is stuck. It can show red striping as well though. I think that Appleoosa is probably going to prove to be a consistently better looking apple than grenadine, which will often fail to ripen well or develop full color. Appleoosa has fortunately not inherited that Grenadine trait of failing to ripen and falling off early. While Grenadine’s outside color seems to be mostly from the red flesh showing through the translucent skin, I think Appleoosa actually has red skin to start with.

Out of all the grenadine seedlings I’ve fruited, this one seems to be the most like grenadine in complexity of flavor. It certainly can have a heaping helping of complex berry like flavor. It can have some of the negative traits of Grenadine as well, like poor flesh texture when very ripe and fairly high skin tannins. It appears to be improved in all of these areas however. One of my early goals was to just improve on grenadine while keeping the flesh color and flavor. This apple seems to be proving itself to be that, although the flesh color has varied from solid pink to mottled. I don’t use grenadine in breeding any more. I now use more of my own seedlings because they are better and this game is about incremental improvements.

Even though this fruit was largely untested, I put a few scions on auction in 2022, which sold for over 100.00 each in some cases! That’s how interested people are in this project and these red fleshed apples. Otherwise, just a few friends and patrons had ever received cuttings of this variety. (as of 2023, 43 new scions are headed out into the world) My suspicion is that it will be much like an improved Grenadine, often not top quality for dessert, though often very good, and useful in cider making and cooking. It’s highest value will likely be in breeding better red fleshed apples, with strong flesh color and delicious complex flavors.

As of 2022 and 2023, I’m finally getting quite a few fruits of this apple. Even though flesh color development was more mottled than solid is 2022, the flavor has been very complex and strong. In 2023 it was much darker and more solid. As much as I really enjoyed eating these (and I ate them all!), I still primarily consider it a stepping stone apple toward the best red fleshed fruits we can breed, and it will likely be supplanted fairly soon as the bar for red fleshed apples continues to be raised.

Check out Gloria Bell’s review on instagram..