Taking the 2023-2023 season off from budwood collection. Hoping to have an improved list up for the 2023-2024 winter season. We do have finished pear trees for planting spring 2023, please click the link below for our tree inventory. These 3 year old pear trees are feathered and 5 to 6 ft tall. They’re $30/tree and a volume discount start at 10 trees (total order of trees, doesn’t have to be one variety). If you have an interest in custom fruit grafts from our nursery, contact us to discuss. Please don’t hesitate to ask questions!
john@blackduckcidery.com
Apple:
St. Edmund’s Russet: 1870 England. Unknown parentage. Also known as: St. Edmund’s Pippin. Early to mid September. Great full russet with rich pear like flavor. My favorite early russet. Not a keeper so eat them quickly. Delicious fresh eating and excellent cider fruit.
Spigold: 1962 NY State Agricultural Experiment Station at Geneva, NY. Golden Delicious x Red Spy cross. Mid Oct. ripening. Big triploid with stiff upward growing limbs. Spread early for good tree form. Some biennial tendencies, so thin early during the “on year”. The BEST apple from the NY state breeding program. Great sweet/tart taste with crisp yellow flesh. Delicious eating, cider and sauce.
Hidden Rose: 1960’s Airlie, Oregon. Unknown parents. Also called Airlie Red Fleshed. Mid/late Oct. ripening. Medium size yellow/green apple looks plain on the outside. Beautiful red streaked flesh with a good tart flavor. Good bearer in our orchard, but can be biannual if allowed and susceptible to scab. Even with these faults a great tree to grow.
Kingston Black: 1820 England. Unknown parents. Early to mid. Oct. ripening. Small dark mahogany bittersharp apple. Acceptable eating qualities for a cider fruit. Considered one of the best apples for a single variety cider. Fairly consistent crops in our orchard, one of the better ‘cider’ apples in the FLX.
Muscat de Dieppe: 1750 Normandy, France. Unknown parents. Mid. Oct. ripening. Small orange/red bittersweet. Great aromatics and soft tannins. One of our favorite Frenchy apples for cider. Good yields in our orchard and seems to not be very susceptible to FB compared to other Frenchy cultivars. Sometimes hard to keep a central leader.
Calville Blanc d’Hiver: 1590’s France. Unknown parents. Mid Oct. ripening. Large triploid yellow apple with unique shape. High vitamin C. Great citrusy/tart taste. Nice aroma and great culinary apple, but very useful in cider blends.
Holstein: 1918 Germany. Also known as Holstein Pippin. Cox’s Orange x unknown cross. Late Sept. ripening. Big triploid apple with excellent flavor and golden juice. Hint of pineapple. Great all around with some disease resistance, although it can get some FB.
Reinette Franche: 1500’s France. Reinette means “Little Queen” in French. Unknown parents. Late Oct. ripening. Medium yellow/orange russeted apple. Citrusy flavor with tart edge. Juicy and crisp. Good cider blender for acid addtions.
Keepsake: 1979 University of Minnesota. Malinda x Northern Spy. Mid/late Oct. ripening. Fine grained and crisp flesh. Great hammered finish on the red skin. Very aromatic with sweet juicy light yellow flesh. Unique flavor, almost melon like! Good storage and Keepsake is one of the parents of Honeycrisp (don’t hold that against Keepsake). Nice blender in cider and storage life is exceptional.
Major: 1880’s Devon, England. Early Sept. ripening. Very early bittersweet to start the cider season. Great yields every year in our orchard, but can get fruit rots if hot, humid and wet near harvest. Soft tannins needs some early sharp apples to balance and lower pH.
Crimson Crisp: 1979 selected by Purdue, Rutgers, Illinois Universities (PRI). Rome cross. Also known as: Co-op 39. Ripens in mid to late September. Trees tend to “runt out”. Medium apple with beautiful crimson color covering 95% of the surface. Great tart and spicy flavor with a crisp texture. Stores well and has disease resistance. An excellent modern apple for eating and blending in cider.
Newtown Pippin (common strain): 1700’s Long Island City (Queens), New York. Also known as Albemarle Pippin by confused Southerners, who think they can rename anything I guess. Unknown parents. Late Oct. ripening. Yellow/green apple. Excellent flavor! Firm apple with great aromatics. Easily develops watercore. One of our favorite late season sharps.
Newtown Pippin* (high acid/tannin strain ~150yo tree) What can we say, its a Newtown with attitude. Seems we have possibly an early strain of the variety. It has all the qualities of Newtown with higher acids and much higher tannins! We’ve started to get fruit in our orchard from grafts of the original and they seem to have similar chemistry as the original. Limited supplies of budwood this year, but we’ve gone all in on this variety and will have bundles of sticks next year.
Ashmead’ Kernel: Early 1700’s England. Early Oct. ripening. Russet apple over red skin w/ full flavor assault. Very tart fresh off the tree. A couple weeks start to mellow the acid. A great heirloom with reliable crops in our orchard. An excellent cider apple too.
Egremont Russet: 1872 England. Unknown parents. Late Sept./Early Oct. ripening. Full russet with drab yellow green under color. Interesting nutty flavor with firm dry flesh. Has a rich taste in a small package. Ok bearer in our orchard. Great cider addition, although some FB on bad years.
Brandywine Crab: M. ioensis ‘Plena’ Klehm’s No. 8 (M. x purpurea ‘Lemoinei’ x M. ‘Klehm’s Improved’) Our FAVORITE apple tree! Actually a 2″ crabapple with yellow/orange fruit color,moderate acids, massive tannin that will destroy your taste buds if eating fresh and they shake out! Late Sept/early Oct. ripening. They don’t keep very long so sweat for no more than 2 weeks. Did we mention double pink flowers that look like roses and smell intoxicating from about 100 feet away?
Mad Cow*: Large crab or a smallish apple, depends how you score it. Nice bittersharp with good acidity and tannins with some citrus notes. Annual bearing with big crop yields. Mid Oct. ripening and the fruit can be shaken off. FB resistant, but does get scab, although it’s never been a problem with premature defoliation or fruit not ripening. One of our favorite bittersharp apple discoveries over the years and you know it’s a great apple when the cows could care less about you until you work this wild tree, than they go crazy with desire just to get some of these tasty treats. Fairly vigorous tree with a spreading habit.
Golden Salt Crab*: Medium size crab that grows in clusters. Mid/late Oct. ripening. Great acids, some tannins, but the taste of salt is unmistakable when you bite into one. The flavor transfer through fermentation to give the beverage a salinity that has your mind thinking it came from near the sea. Unique and cool, let’s be honest! Small naturally dwarfing tree with great consistent crops. Seems to be resistant to most apple diseases.
Cherry Veil*: Large crab/smallish apple. Technically a mild bittersharp, but the tannins are very low with high acids. Cherry and red berry flavors with beautiful light pink streaking in the flesh that makes a light pink juice. Resistant to FB. Tree is medium vigor. Good cropping, but can get in a biannual cycle if you let it.
Deadland Crab*: Medium size crab(1in) with high acids and some tannins and a bit of tart cherry. Mid Oct. ripening and the trees shake out. Naturally smaller tree with upright growth habit. Fairly annual crops with good resistance to FB. This was originally found at a roadside pull off for hunters and apparently fertilized over the years with enough bone meal to provide all the phosphorus and protein a young apple tree needs forever!
Pear:
Barland: (syn. Bosbury) Originated in England in the 1600s. Late sept./early oct. ripening. High acids, medium tannin. Large, vigorous, long-lived tree. Can be a fairly annual bearer here in the FLX. Not FB resistant, but not as susceptible as many perry pears.
Barnet: (syn. Brown Thorn; Hedgehog) Edible. Late Sept./early Oct. ripening. Fruit has russeting and apparently resemble baby hedgehogs to the English. Tree has compact growth and is very precocious. Scab-resistant, but not resistant to FB, but not as susceptible as many perry pears.
Brandy: From the West of England and originated about 1820. Natural semi-dwarf tree with wide crotch angles. Productive, but biennial cropping tendency. Very precocious. Mid/late Sept. ripening. Low tannin content compared to most European perry pears. Not FB resistant, but not as susceptible as many perry pears.
Seckel: A tiny, gourmet pear, typically only about 1.5 inches in diameter. Very sweet — a “sugar pear”. Aromatic. Fruit is lightly russetted, red blush. Grower-friendly, semi-dwarf tree. Resistant to fireblight or at least it corks off if it gets a strike in very severe FB years.
Harrow Delight: From the Agriculture Canada station at Harrow, this is a high-quality, early, fresh market pear with excellent blight and scab resistance. Mid/late August harvest. Fruit is medium size with excellent flavor and smooth flesh. Ground color is yellow with a red blush. Early bearing and a small manageable tree.
Corral*: Small pear with big tannins, low acid and nice aromatics. Upright growth with some disease resistance. A good annual bearer that can be shaken out. Mid/late Sept. ripening. Only keeps a couple weeks after picking, but it presses out decent juice yields. I can’t find a picture, we need a better photographer I guess.
Cheese*: A small(2in) late season pear with good annual crops. Blooms very late for a pear and is ready to pick in early/mid November, it can be shaken out. Low acids, big tannins, great aromatics and juice yields. Has some disease resistance, but not immune to FB, decent crotch angles with a spreading form. Has a cheesy aroma when first picked, but we always thought about calling it the Tank pear cause it is a tank.
Lemon*: Medium to large pear with low tannins and high acids. Probably a lot of citric acid as the pear really has a lemony flavor. Very disease resistant. Mid/late October ripening and it can be shaken out. Firm crisp fruit may have Kieffer in it’s lineage, high juice yields with great citrus additions in a blend. Big tree with upright growth habit, put on semi-dwarf rootstock.
*cultivars listed are wild seedlings discovered by Blackduck. We still have limited budwood of these, so we may run out early.