Getting away from cider apples let us look at a fine eating apple. So fine it is the most popular eating apple in the US, tho it was found in Canada:
Quote:McIntosh is without doubt one of the great North American apple varieties. Like its 19th century contemporaries Golden Delicious and Red Delicious, it has become a highly influential apple variety with numerous offspring. However unlike those varieties its popularity has not spread outside North America, and indeed most "Mac" production, remains centred in New England and across the border in Quebec and Ontario.
The apple was discovered by a John McIntosh, a farmer in Ontario in the early 19th century, and he and his family became involved in propagating the variety. The McIntosh apple was ideally suited to the climate of the area, being a heavy and reliable cropper with good cold hardiness. McIntosh achieves its best flavor in colder apple-growing regions.
The McIntosh style is typified by attractive dark red or (more often) crimson colours, and a crunchy bite, often with bright white flesh. The flavor is simple and direct, generally sweet but with refreshing acidity, and usually a hint of wine - often referred to as "vinous".
In general these apples keep reasonably well in store, but the flavor falls away quite rapidly - although remaining perfectly pleasant. Nevertheless to get the full vinous sugar rush it is best straight from the tree.
https://www.orangepippin.com/varieties/apples/mcintoshPollination of the McIntosh:
https://www.orangepippintrees.com/pollinationchecker.aspxMcIntosh (Malus domestica) is infertile and needs a pollination partner of a different variety nearby.
Varieties the pollination checker (very handy tool that!) lists as pollinating McIntosh:
Cox Orange Pippin
Sweet Coppin
I have both of these. One other tree is listed as pollinating McIntosh: Granny Smith
We all know the sour green cooking apple Granny Smith (discovered growing in her compost pile by Mary Mae Smith) but its pollinating power is pretty incredible—I went through the list of all the apple trees I had ordered that were still living. Granny Smith pollinated nearly all of them! Only the very late bloomers like Brown Snout or really early bloomers could not be pollinated by Granny.
That makes Granny Smith almost a crab apple! One of its parents was French Crab. “Aha!” you say “Granny is at least HALF a crab apple!” That is what I thought too until I found that French Crab was not, in fact, a crabapple! Maybe one of the other parents of Granny Smith was a crab apple? We will probably never find out.
To finish with Granny: it is picked in March by a lot of commercial growers but in fact it ripens in June. Good fruiterers will sell Grannies picked in June.
A note on crab apples. These are a type of small apples, related to our domestic apples but different enough genetically that they can pollinate them. Mostly apple, pear and cherry trees are not self fertile: a pollen from one blossom or tree cannot pollinate an ova on another blossom on the same tree or on another tree of the same variety. Peaches, apricots and some plums are self fertile, just one peach etc tree will produce a good harvest.
Crabs tend to be sour and full of pectin. Great for making crab apple jelly, great for making pectin jelly to freeze and use to set jams of fruit with really low pectin, e.g. apricot jam. Can add an acid kick to an otherwise overly bitter or very bland cider.
If you live in a big city or town just plant an apple tree—there will be sufficient apple trees around you to pollinate your apple variety. This is not the case for other fruits. If living in a small town adding a Granny Smith will likely see your other tree set lots of fruit as will the Granny Smith—unless the tree you bought was triploid.
Triploid varieties, e.g. Belle de Boskoop or Court Pendu Plat need a suitable variety nearby to pollinate it. But a triploid tree will not contribute viable pollen to pollinate the tree that pollinated it—so need three trees, two to cross pollinate each other while also pollinating the triploid variety.
Couple of links:
https://www.gardenfocused.co.uk/fruitarticles/apples/triploid-apple-trees.php#:~...https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ploidy
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