[NAFEX] Cameo Apple
Alan Haigh
alandhaigh at gmail.com
Sat Nov 1 08:52:00 EDT 2008
Not long ago someone defined the Cameo apple as "bland" on a posting. I
just sampled my first apples from this cultivar and would like to offer a
different opinion. Cameo has been a stand-out in my nursery in terms of
being a strong grower with very nice structure and I was pleased to discover
that it's apples are very attractive and have a very good texture- crunchy
and dense with a relatively thin skin. They are also quite juicy with a
pleasing acid-sugar balance which along with it's ability to hold its
texture when cooked make it a superior culinary apple as well. They
were amongst the least insect scarred apples in my barely sprayed nursery.
I think that the definition of "bland" may have come from the Cameo's
relative lack of aromatics- a complaint often made of Honeycrisp. I think
it would be ungenerous to reject this otherwise stellar cultivar for a
single shortcoming- no cultivar is perfect.
I should of course include the disclaimer that my opinion is based on an
extremely limited sampling and only a single season. The trees were grown
in less than optimum sunlight and in southeastern NY, Zone 6. It may be a
different kind of apple when grown elsewhere, or even here on another
growing season. It may also be of different quality when harvested from
more mature trees than the young ones in my nursery.
I'm always reluctant to be excessively critical of chance seedlings that
someone has sufficiently fallen in love with to pay the thousands required
to obtain a patent. To a fruit grower this must be like having your own
child criticized. Anyone with enough confidence to invest this kind of
money probably has a good reason for believing their cultivar is special.
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