Backyard apple breeding

Apple: Baldwin

Shane Gadsby -

A picturesque "antique" apple with fruity flavour, and very crisp flesh, know for it's good storage quality.

  • Vigour: Medium
  • Precociousness: Low
  • Resistances: Resistant to rust, but susceptible to apple blight, and bitter pit
  • Size of fruit: Medium to large
  • Flowering: Early to mid
  • Fruiting: Mid-spring
  • Cropping: High
  • Ploidy: Triploid
  • Fruit colour: Red
  • Flesh colour: Yellow
  • Leaf colour: Green
  • Parentage: Unknown
  • Descendants: Unknown
  • Biennialism: Often
  • Growth habit: Tight V
  • Self-fertile: No (possibly totally pollen sterile)

Discovered as a chance seedling in 1740 by John Ball in Lowell, Massachusetts, and named for Colonel Laommi Baldwin, to whom a cutting was later given and subsequently widely grown on on his estate.

Noted for it's extremely crisp texture, and fruity flavours, it was prized for it's ability to keep for months in storage. This latter quality made it an important trade commodity before the invention of refrigerated transport.

It fell out of usage by growers after multiple hard frost years damaged large portions of Baldwin crops, leading many orchards to switch to cold hardy varieties (such as McIntosh), not to mention it's strong tendency towards biennialism (or even triennialism!).

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.