Backyard apple breeding

Apple: Akane

Shane Gadsby -

A small to medium apple that colours early, with a mild and balanced sweet-tart flavour.

  • Vigour: Medium
  • Precociousness: Medium (flowers as early as third year)
  • Resistances: Mild resistances to most apple diseases.
  • Size of fruit: Medium
  • Flowering: Mid to late Spring
  • Fruiting: Late Autumn
  • Cropping: High
  • Ploidy: Diploid
  • Fruit colour: Red
  • Flesh colour: White
  • Leaf colour: Green
  • Parentage: Jonathan x Worcester Pearmain
  • Descendants: Sansa
  • Biennialism: If fruit not thinned
  • Growth habit: Standard
  • Self-fertile: No

A product of the Japanese "Tohoku" Breeding program (notable for having also produced the Fuji apple), and codenamed Tohoku 3 before being released in 1970 under the commercial name Akane (Ah-Ka-Neh).
Notable as having a very balanced taste, and being excellent for pies and cooking, the flesh is described as chewy more than crisp.

NOTE: I have yet to try this apple directly, having only grafted it in 2021, and so have relied on others for information related to this variety.
This entry will be updated as the tree grows and bears.