Finally ..apple ID

[binley100]

After living with it for 26 years I've finally got an ID on my apple tree ..thanks to apple day at Ryton and some knowledgeable apple people I now know that my tree is a Miller's seedling and quite rare. How cool is that .......all I know is it tastes delicious but doesn't really store although I've frozen it, dried it and cooked with it as well as just eaten it straight off the tree..

[yummersetter]

I have Red Miller amongst my young trees - I like it a lot. They get eaten with no leftovers to store.

[StephenH]

Its description in 'The New Book of Apples' sounds good - "Savoury, crisp yet melting, very juicy flesh". It says, though, that it is strongly biennial, which is a bit of a drawback.

[binley100]

We've had a crop most years but some years are better than others , we used to do any pruning in Feb now we tryand do it when the leaves have dropped. This year it was ridiculously laden and I couldn't thin it out fast enough ..last year was ok enough for us but no spares ..year before same as this . think the biennial thing is something to do with pruning.......

[StephenH]

I think you can control biennial habit to some extent with judicious pruning, but I don't know the details. I tried it in 2009 with my big tree, which used to fruit heavily in even years, and very lightly in odd ones, but I think I may have overdone it - it now seems to fruit heavily in odd years!

[binley100]

I'm no expert at pruning so just tend to cut back long stuff and take out crossing stuff or what looks like it might be manky stuff......