Hawkeye

Good Apple Info Snapshot:

The original (and superior) Red Delicious.  A featured Mid-Season Bloom tree.

Good Apple Info Difficulty Rating:

Easy.

Tree Habit:

Upright spreading, moderately vigorous spur bearer. Crops heavily and benefits from fruit trimming.

Apple Color:

Thick, smooth, glossy yellow skin covered with red shading and striping, taking a high polish when rubbed; dots numerous, small, white.

Size:

Medium to large, roundish to somewhat oblong, quite conical, knobbed at the base;

Flavor:

mild subacid to sweet – distinctive “Delicious” taste. Flesh yellowish, moderately fine-grained, breaking, juicy.

Bloom:

Mid-Season.

Ripe:

September/October

History:

It hardly seems necessary to point out how this variety has replaced almost all the older apple varieties in southern orchards and gardens. The unripe, starchy Red Delicious apples found in supermarkets bear little resemblance to a southern grown, properly ripened Delicious, an apple of high flavor and aroma. This apple first grew in the orchard of Jesse Hiatt of Peru, Madison County, Iowa.  The 1907 USDA Yearbook says that the original tree was a sprout from the rootstock of a Yellow Bellflower tree, the top of which had been destroyed about 1875.

Storage:

OK, 1-2 months.

Uses:

Fresh Eating.