North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[Heron Breen <breen@fedcoseeds.com>]

>As for flavor, it might help to know what at least one
>parent was.  

What I did, I selected one apple each from the best
tasting, biggest, juciest, longest-keeping apples
that I had on hand.  After refrigeration, I planted
the seeds from each apple in separate pots.

This seedling came from an unknown variety from my
uncles orchard that my grandfather (or his father?)
had grafted many years ago.  It is usually used for
making sweet cider, as it does not taste good when
fermented.  It is biennial and about 3-1/2" in diameter and is deep dark 
crimson red with streaks of
russett.  It tastes like a McIntosh, but is extremely
juicy.  Directly under the skin, the flesh is purple.
Depending upon the particular apple, it might up to
1/2" deep. It will not keep its shape when cooked and
makes a pretty good pinkish brown apple sauce.

Only 3 of nine seeds came up.  This is the odd one.

>There was a very good article on the net, you may be
>able to find it as they talked about selecting for
>good traits from young seedlings.  Look for something
>like Apple improvement midwest. 

I found the Midwest Apple Improvement Association at
http://www.hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/maia
but I didn't find the article, though I havn't yet 
read all of the newsletters.

>You might graft some of your seedling on a dwarf
>stock like M26 to get it into bearing sooner, to find
>out.

I think I'll do that, even though I'm not especially fond 
of M26.  I like Vineland 2 much better than M26. 
They have about 3 times the amount of side branches
as M26 and they actually grow sideways instead of 
up.  I have a couple of trees on V.2 that I picked up
in New Brunswick.  Unfortunately, I can't seem to find
it in the US, and the rootstock doesn't seem to want
to sucker, so I can't get it that way, either.

Here's a picture of V.2 for anyone interested:
http://res2.agr.ca/kentville/pubs/fact01-01/V2/images/V.2bkBIG_a.jpg


Thanks for the help.
-Nick