Stark Delicious

type: Dessert

synonyms: This apple is commonly called Red Delicious, however, that name actually applies to a mutation of Delicious.

identification: Medium size, distinctly oblong conic. Look for five bumps around the crown. Skin tough with a cream yellow base colour that is almost entirely covered with deep red. Abundantly marked with light-coloured lenticels. Stem is medium length and stout, set in a wide and deep cavity.

characteristics: Flesh is cream coloured, coarse in texture, crisp and firm. Juicy and very sweet with a flavour reminiscent of a very ripe melon.

uses: Best used as a fresh eating apple. Flavour tends to dissipate when cooked.

origins: Discovered in 1872 by Jesse Hiatt as a as a sprout growing close to a Black Gilliflower apple tree on his farm near Peru, Iowa (U.S.A.). After cutting it down twice only to the find that it regrown, Hiatt finally let the shoot grow and it bore first fruit in 1882. Hiatt considered it so strikingly superior to its Bellflower origins that he spent better than a decade trying convince others that his Hawkeye apple--named in honour of the state of Iowa, known as the Hawkeye State--was indeed "the best apple in the world." In 1893, at a fruit show held by the Stark Brothers Nursery at its facility in Louisiana, Missouri (U.S.A.), it attracted the attention of Clarence Stark and the following year the nursery purchased propagation rights to the variety under the name Stark Delicious or simply Delicious. Whether it is a mutation growing off the roots of the original Bellflower or a chance seedling, possibly from a cross between Yellow Bellflower and Black Gilliflower , is unclear, but the original fruit was not as upright in shape as it is today and the colouration was light red with scattered darker red stripes over a yellow background. However, buyer preference for richly coloured red apples has driven the development of over 150 uniformly coloured, deep red mutations we commonly call “Red Delicious” today.

cultivation: Moderately vigorous, upright spreading spur bearer which crops well on an annual basis.

mutations: More than 150 mutations of the Delicious have been found over the past century and are being grown for the supermarket trade.

cold storage: Keeps up to six months in cold storage.

vulnerabilities: Susceptible to scab, moderately resistant to mildew, tolerant of blight and very resistant to rust.

harvest: Fruit ripens first half of the fifth period (140 to 160 days after petal drop).