Hey, Phase! I'm green with envy, as my Goldrush just went into the ground this past spring. Your apples are beautiful, and exploding with flavor and juice, I'm sure. Like you, I truly don't know why the variety isn't more widely cultivated. I have Goldrush expressed from PA to Memphis every year. Misterbaby.

Hi Misterbaby, you will get your own pretty soon, especially if it's a dwarf tree.

where did you order Goldrush from? I am interested in ordering some too. my family love them! thanks.

Yum = Goldrush, I bought a bushel this year from the farmer's market. They grow quite a few acres of them here in NC.
I planted one on bud 9 in 2007, expect a few from it next year. Grafted several on bud 9 and will plant them in the orchard. I love them as eating apples. You take a bite and it breaks off in nice clean chunks, its crisp.
Other folks have praised the Goldrush apple here on this forum. Jellyman has, as I recall. I bought my first tree from Century Farm Orchards in Reidsville, NC. Good, strong healthy trees.

Goldrush apples are available online from kauffmansfruitfarm.com. These folks send out really nice fruit. Their Pink Ladies are to die for, too. Misterbaby.

Goldrush is available from many nuseries. I buy mine from Adams County Nursery. The reason they have not done well as a commercial variety is that the commercial growers have difficulty sizing them up- at least that's what I've read in the trades.

Goldrush is actully 2 different apples- the one off the tree and the one out of storage. Out of a month or more of storage the texture is smoother and the flavor becomes sweeter. It is extremely rich. I suspect that this transition isn't as dramatic from fruit grown further south although Ed Fackler certainly says it is. He calls the apple "battery acid off the tree" and a world class sweet tart out of storage. Others, such as Jellyman, say they're quite sweet off the tree.

Up here they are still quite tart off the tree when they turn from green to yellow in very late Oct. They are also strongly bienniel here (for me, anyway) although I'm told that a longer growing season provides them with enough energy for annual cropping.

I prefer my Goldrush fully tree-aged, at which point they are intensely sweet-sharp plus an unusual "spicy" flavor I love. The stored ones are more mellow and very good but I have yet to get that spicy flavor in the stored apples. My tree didn't crop this year so there is more data for biennial (but I had lots of non croppers this year due to very bad fireblight the previous year).

Scott

Here in Southern California our first crop was very sweet and not tart at all off the tree; Pristine (another PRI selection) was way more tart. GoldRush was still good, but none of the battery-acid I've heard of in other posts, and so latitude does seem to make a difference.

Applenut

That Pristine is tart for you is very surprising to me. I manage a single Pristine and have only been on site a couple of times when they've been ripe, but I was curious enough to pay close attention, and the apples were not tart. One of the two times I tasted them they were over-ripe, they don't hold up for very long, and the apples were bland and mushy. Picked earlier they turned out to be quite good, but pretty sweet for a summer apple.

applenut, I am in SoCal too, but in a coastal area. My Goldrush apples are very sweet and tart, which I like a lot.

If I get more next year I will try to store one apple and compare the tastes.

Scott,

What exactly do you mean by "fully tree aged"? I have my first crop of Goldrush waiting for a very soon harvest. Should I leave them on the tree to age?

As far as the apples go, they are unsurpassed for cracking crispness, vivacious flavor, superior storage. They are the quintessential apple!

Thanks,
Ted

Ted, I mean letting them stay on the tree a good long time, until some start to drop. And at that point don't pick them all, just the ones that come off with no effort at all. Every climate is different so just experiment. I stored a few last year and was expecting them to be better, but they lacked the spicy flavor stored.

Scott

I harvested my first crop of Goldrush last week. It was planted in 2006 on G16, bought from Cummins. The apples were still holding firm onto the branches, but I thought it was time to bring them in. They were the smallest apples in my orchard. Right off the tree, they reminded me of a really good Yellow Delicious, but with a firmer texture and more depth.

Scott, your experience may be the result of apples overly ripe for storage- mine may be Goldrush unable to fully ripen. My season is about a week too short to fully ripen this apple on my site. I loose a little too much late sun from tall trees to my west.

On sites nearby, where the sun hits the trees dawn to dusk, GR ripens better and the apple is not as "woody" off the tree. The apples get golden with an orange blush like the one pictured- I'm lucky to get mine mostly yellow.

If the apples at least show some yellow they greatly improve in storage to as good as any variety I grow. I don't know about GR, but many apples come out of storage better if picked a bit green, as I'm sure you know.