We have a contract with Stark Bros Nursery to offer our new apple "Ruby Darling" It is in the spring retail catalog, available to anyone, but was sold out in two days, along with "Scarlette Crush" a HC X Pink Lady cross available next year, all together we have signed contracts with Stark Bros for 9 new HC crosses, They are crosses of HC and Gala, Pinova, Pink Lady and Wickson Crab, one is a backcross with 75% HC and 25% Pink Lady, also are now testing double back-crosses of HC X PL. . Our contract states no club varieties, all available to the little guy that grows at home or for farmers markets, I never did like this concept of the big eletes cutting out the little guy.with club varieties.One new apple with HC X Wickson measures a Brix of 24, sweeter, crisper, good looking is the goal. Some have potential to be commercial varieties and some are aimed at niche markets, I saw early on, (1997) that Honey Crisp and its offsprings were the future, some crosses were made that year, and have been tested by customers at the Old Capitol Market in Springfield Illinois where they were so well accepted we quit growing standard varieties Get a Stark Bros retail catalog or visit Starkbros.com. Lee and Mary Elliott, Upstart Nursery, Winchester, Illinois _______________________________________________ apple-crop mailing list apple-crop@virtualorchard.com http://virtualorchard.com/mailman/listinfo/apple-crop
