Backyard apple breeding

Apple: Devonshire Quarrenden

Shane Gadsby -

A balanced antique apple, with berry flavours, and strong fragrance

  • Vigour: Medium to low
  • Precociousness: Low
  • Resistances: Susceptible to scab
  • Size of fruit: Medium
  • Flowering: Early
  • Fruiting: Early
  • Cropping: Medium to high
  • Ploidy: Diploid
  • Fruit colour: Red
  • Flesh colour: White (red staining under skin)
  • Leaf colour: Green
  • Parentage: Unknown
  • Descendants: Worcester Pearmain
  • Biennialism: Strong tendency, though can be managed with thinning
  • Growth habit: Standard V
  • Self-fertile: Partial

A classic French apple, first described in the 1676 by John Worlidge's "Vinetum Britannicum". It has a dark red blush covering most of the apple, and though they aren't large, are extremely flavourful, with noticeable strawberry flavours and strong floral aromas.
Due to tending towards being a softer apple, and having nearly no ability to be stored they have largely fallen out of favour, but make excellent home orchard additions.

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.