North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[Don Yellman <dyellman@earthlink.net>]

Donna:

I find it difficult to relate your description to the Lodi apples that I 
know.  Lodi is billed as an "improved" Yellow Transparent; I think the 
improvement consists of a little larger average size.  I grow Yellow 
Transparent here, and have relatives in Iowa who have had a Lodi tree 
for quite a few years.  I don't think the Lodi cultivar has been around 
for 50 years; perhaps 30 or 40.  Just about any description of Lodi 
applies equally to Yellow Transparent.

Yellow Transparent is the best sauce and pie apple we grow.  It is quite 
acidic, but not bitter, and not dry at all.  It is the earliest apple I 
have, ripening here in northern zone 7 every year before mid-July.  This 
year we took them down on July 3 when a few started to turn yellow.  
That's the signal to pick them all, since the quality and crispness 
deteriorate quickly with the color change, they often develop cracks, 
and they fall from the tree and are easily bruised.  If I left them 
alone, none of the apples would hang on the tree until the end of July.

YT and Lodi are  very short keepers, and should not be left around out 
of cold storage for more than a few days.  We make our sauce the same 
day we pick them, and use every one, with a yield of about 25 quarts of 
sauce from one tree.  Once made up into sauce or sliced apples for pies 
they keep as well in the freezer as any other variety.  My YT tree, when 
properly thinned, is an annual bearer, and so is Lodi regardless of what 
the book may say.  Sauce made from fresh YT or Lodi apples is absolutely 
excellent, although it requires a little sugar to balance the acidity.  
I have not yet tried Monark or Pristine for sauce, but Ed F. thinks they 
are also top-notch for for this purpose.  I do have a little Monark tree 
coming along that might bear in about 2 years.  Many people in VA and 
West VA still grow the Astrachan for sauce, a redskin apple that is also 
very early and tart.  I did try one other variety for sauce here, an 
Early Cortland from Miller Nursery, which is a Cortland/Lodi cross.  It 
was a violently vigorous growing tree requiring constant pruning, with 
very sparse blooms and the buggiest apple I have ever grown.  I took it 
down in spring, 2002, and good riddance.

Don Yellman, Great Falls, VA