Today in the orchard
The second ID I worked on yesterday was one from Sandy River Orchard in Mercer, ME. As I recall, this was an apple that Francis Fenton told me he found on an old tree in nearby Norridgewock and grafted into his orchard. That was in the days when Francis was actively fruit exploring, years before he and I met and spent many hundreds of hours together. Francis died at age 99 in 2015. Unfortunately he never took me to the source tree, nor do I have any idea where it might be. Happily we have a large branch of the apple here on the farm, and I picked them all a day or two ago. For now I’m calling it “Fenton’s Ribbed Yellow.”
“Fenton’s Ribbed Yellow” somewhat resembles Calville Blanc d’Hiver, (and for awhile I thought maybe it was Calville), but has a DNA profile (AMHO 103) showing it to be “unique far from all.” Like Calville the apple is yellow and distinctly ribbed. From “above” it is pentagonal. The cavity and basin are generally medium in size though they are sometimes so shallow as to be almost non-existent. Occasionally the cavity is also lipped. This is one unusual and cool looking apple. It is ripe now (mid-late September). The closest match I’ve find so far is to an apple named Holly, submitted to the USDA watercolor program in 1904 from Bridgeton, ME. (Bridgeton and Mercer are about 70 miles apart.) It also may turn out to be one of those many hyper-local selections that may forever remain unidentified.