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  • From: sherwin <sherwindu@att.net>
  • To: nafex mailing list at ibiblio <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [nafex] Zestar!
  • Date: Fri, 30 Aug 2013 02:05:51 -0500

On 8/29/2013 10:43 PM, Richard MURPHY wrote:
Hello Deb and crew.
Mine grew in z4 Maine. My extra fussy wife loves them. Taste is sweet/tart and fruity.
I don't use any fancy growth enhancers, no fertilizer.
Try some from a farm stand.
Also, do a starch index test. They might not be ripe. What color are the seeds?
Iodine tincture, small brown bottle, also includes 'iodide' or it won't work.
Mix 1 tsp tincture with 4 tsp water.
Pour some into a small plate.
Cut the apple in half at the equator, and tamp the cut face with a towel.
Put it flat side down in the mix for 15 seconds, then take it out.
Look at what the mix did to the apple.
Black is starch, white is sugary. This is cool if you've never done it.
The women at work chose Zestar 2 to 1 over Williams Pride.
Possibly because they are better cookers.
Murph

Murph,

My attraction to growing William's Pride is that it is an early apple.
It is also a disease resistant apple developed by the folks at my
alma mater Purdue. It is attractive looking, but is by far not as
flavorful as my russet apples.

As for ripening, I picked my big load of Lubsk Queen after I was tired
of picking them off the ground and they appeared to be ripe. The
greenish cast had turned mostly to the nice ivory color splashed with
red. A really attractive apple, early, fairly sweet, but a magnet for bugs.
With a regular spray schedule of Captan and Imidan, I was able to get
mostly clean fruit. However, I think my mistake was to pick these
apples all at once, since I could not make enough apple sauce and
juice to consume them all (over 2000 on M26 root stock). The apples
went overripe on me in house storage (room temps and cooler temps).
That was only about 3 weeks after picking. Several weeks after that,
I found a few apples on this tree that I had missed. They were still
unspoiled, despite very warm temperatures here in the Chicago area.
I picked them because of the seeds turning black, snapping off when
lifted, and changing to a non-green color. I think these tests can be
inaccurate, in the case of these early apples. If I get another big load
of them (yes, I did thin aggressively), I will not be so quick to pick them,
as they seem to hold up better on the tree.

Sherwin Dubren
Morton Grove, IL



  • [nafex] Zestar!, Richard MURPHY, 08/29/2013
    • Re: [nafex] Zestar!, sherwin, 08/30/2013

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