I made a trip to The Apple Farm on the Back Road in Fairfield where they’ve had an excellent crop this year. They still have lots of apples. Tucked away on a north-facing hillside, there are a few rows where we grafted back-ups of at-risk, historic cultivars several years ago. I wanted to check them out.

I was able to pick four of them: Kennebec Russet, Green Monster and Sasanoa and Sennebec Russet. All four are provisional names. Kennebec Russet is still alive and growing near the new Sidney off-ramp of rte 95 in Waterville. (It’s name is the most likely of the four to be correct.) Green Monster may be a seedling though it’s growing in a row in a old farm orchard in Waldo. Sasanoa is a Rhode Island Greening sport from a long-abandoned, overgrown orchard south of Bath. That source tree is almost certainly dead.

Sennebec is the oldest of the four and the most historically valuable. Dan Newman found the ancient tree (also now dead) on the Sennebec Road in Union (thus the provisional name). The DNA profile showed it to be a child of the golden russet type we call GR2. That confirmed that GR2 itself has to be really old. Sennebec might be the local cultivar known as Union Russet.

The specimens I collected of all four apples were in beautiful shape. They are just a few of the jewels we’ve discovered over the years. Come see them and taste them at the Great Maine Apple Day this coming Sunday (October 25) at MOFGA in Unity. It’s from Noon to 4 PM. See you there!