December 24: GoldRush

Golden Delicious x PRI Co-op 17 (which contains Melrose and Rome Beauty, among others)
Purdue-Rutgers-Illinois (PRI) apple breeding program, 1994

We’re going out with a bang with this one!

GoldRush is a high-acid, high-sugar, extremely late-harvested apple that is especially popular among organic growers because of its resistance to apple trees’ number one fungal pest, apple scab. If its growing season is long enough, GoldRush offers an intensity of flavor similar to a russeted apple. But if the growing season is short, expect a less striking flavor, just because it didn’t get to fully ripen.

Its flavor is top notch with a super-high sugar content. Although GoldRush is intended for fresh eating, cidermakers love this one too.

The really amazing thing about this apple is that it will keep for a loooooooong time, even into early summer. It’s so hard and so dense that it resists the degradation that most apples succumb to. And it doesn’t just keep until the summer — it keeps really well. The texture is still crisp and the flavor is still exciting.

Read Adam’s Apples take on GoldRush.

Growing Notes

Trees out of the PRI program tend to bear small apples unless the trees are dramatically thinned. Strictly speaking, this is a Zone 5 apple with hardiness only down to -22, but my trees have survived so far over about six years. The growing season has been getting longer, which has enabled these apples to ripen. But in a growing season that ends around October 15 — that’s not quite long enough.