Queen Cox for the chop

[Lardman]

I think you may well have a point about micro-climate there HFG. I can go 4 miles down the road and the 'farmer' grows organically and chemical free without issue producing largely blemish free heritage apples and pears.

I just put the last and best example of QC I had on the scales and it came in at 121g taste was perhaps 4/10 but would definitely improve if left long, with the obvious problem being the are no longer any left.

Sunset is also on it's last warning as is the Pitmaston Pineapple.

[Hereford fruit grower]

Are you on the side of the Malvern Hills with fruit trees half-flattened by wind exposure or in the Vale of Evesham with no trees nearby and so almost the same problem?

I have a fairly sheltered garden despite being rural and 99 m above sea level. I sympathise with you, whatever the cause of your problems.

Sunset as I implied does as well as Queen Cox, maybe a bit better as it crops perhaps 10-20% more heavily. M9 rootstock typically gives large fruit on small trees, solving the usual Sunset problem, i.e. small fruit.

I weighed a few windfalls and they were ~120-140 g. Most of the crop's that size. I haven't picked yet as I'm hoping for a sunny day or two. I thin it very heavily or I think it would overcrop and the fruit would be small even on M9.

But maybe because of this variation in conditions you can grow 'clean' Crispin or Rubinette. I'm culling the latter because the fruit's too small, the taste's nothing that special given the huge choice of 'Cox-type apples' and the scab on it is quite rampant.

[ameno]

Sunset as I implied does as well as Queen Cox, maybe a bit better as it crops perhaps 10-20% more heavily. M9 rootstock typically gives large fruit on small trees, solving the usual Sunset problem, i.e. small fruit.

I've always read that, yet for some reason my Sunset, on M26, produces consistently massive fruit (the largest are like a small Bramley). It crops earlier than usualy, too, usually finished by late September (although most tree fruit seem to crop early in my garden. My Beauty of Bath apple tree is usually done before July is out).
It's definitely a Sunset, though. The appearance and flavour of the fruit marks it out as that.
Maybe I thin too much?