CLARION

(FORMERLY REFERRED TO AS ICE PRINCESS)

SKILLCULT APPLE BREEDING PROJECT

This page is for housing information on my seedling apple clarion

Clarion is a seedling of Grenadine crossed with Golden Russet.

Originally I referred to this as Ice Princess as a working name, but I am not going to use working names anymore. It just confuses everyone, including me. The first fruiting was very late and incredibly crisp. Later fruitings have varied, but I think I have figured it out now.

Clarion is a term used for various primitive trumpets with a clean high tone and no keys. They are famously known from Bach’s Brandenburg concertos, possibly my favorite classical music. All of the names I ended up considering for this apple had to do with light, clarity and such. I think Clarion is an excellent name for this apple, though I had a bunch of good ones to pick from.

Both the complexion of this apple and the flavor are clean. The skin is light yellow and translucent having an almost glowing complexion. The surface is very smooth, although it does get apple scab pretty bad. At its best, Clarion presents an almost ethereal look. It can also have a thick waxy or greasy coating. Even if you wipe it thoroughly, it doesn’t all come off.

The flavor matches this sort of clean visual presentation. It is mostly high notes, that are somewhat fleeting. It can taste resinous, like pine and late in the season some banana, but there is more going on than that. Later in the season it can become more complex and start bordering on rich, but there is always a cleaness and lightness to the taste. At first bite, it may seem somewhat boring, but there is something about it that works and keeps me eating them. It is actually quite delicious and unlike other apples I’ve eaten. In 2023 a friend and I picked a basket of seedling apples to test and both of us were more inclined to keep eating clarion over all the others. The texture can be very crisp and I would say that is the norm. In the first year of fruiting it was insanely crisp, since then it has varied somewhat, but the usual presentation is fine very grained and crisp. It will not surprise me if it is super crisp in cooler climates. The skin is somewhat thick, but less so on larger, well grown specimens.

Under good conditions, it is medium small, maybe up to medium. So far the tree is looking to be very precocious. I grafted some onto a seedling tree that had never even fruited. Often grafts on an imature rootstock like that could take years ot start fruiting. It started to fruit in the second season, while surrounding trees treated the same have not even flowered yet. I have seen this in more than one case, so don’t be surprised if you get fruit the second year after grafting.

Clarion inherited Grenadines tendency toward greasy early drops. A percentage will turn greasy, ripen early and drop off the tree. Fortunately, these drops are usually good eating. The season of this apple may possibly stretch to months. I recently ate a decent one off the tree in late december. I don’t know when I started eating them, but fairly early.

The bottom line is I eat a lot of these and find them delicious and intriguing. It has a definite place in my orchard and I look forward to eating it for years to come.