Wow. Weird when something on HN hits this close to home. I work in AgTech (automated irrigation) in Washington State. I can attest to the love-hate boom-bust relationship this variety is having with the Washington apple farmer.
The article leaves a key point out. This fruit tree is really temperamental to water correctly. Irrigators love and hate this thing. Some fruit bears overwatering gracefully. But with this tree, it begs for water, but if you overwater it even a little, the fruit fails easily. I've watched some big players (Pytech) dump millions of dollars into closed (fully automated), open (just telemetry and recommendation, human then waters) and hybrid loop irrigation methods to try and get this right. It remains a real pain to get right.
(edit: the cosmic crisp is also difficult to grow Just Right(tm))
This rankings site [1] was shared on HN a couple years ago [2], and since then I’ve switched to Honeycrisp.
While I agree they aren’t always the most tasty, they are almost always (like 98%) crisp and never mealy to the point I want to stop eating it, unlike nearly every other breed I’ve tried (which admittedly is only about 7-8 or the most common ones).
I will take a less flavorful crisp apple 100% of the time over a mealy apple.
So even a mediocre Honeycrisp is, to me, still way better than nearly all the other ones.
This is the same story for every new variety of apple. It becomes popular because of its positive characteristics (sweetness, tanginess, juicyness, crispness), but then slowly over time it gets cultivated for mass market appeal (uniform color, shape, shelf life) and the variety loses what made it good.
The best apple variety is generally the new one. The market is strewn with the discarded remains of formerly good apples like Fuji and Gala.
If you live within a few hours of apple country, do yourself a favor next fall and go discover some new varietals. There are hundreds produced commercially (read: some farm grows them) that will never see a supermarket. Try a bunch and use your favorites for fun dishes you rarely make: pies, tarts, cider, butter, cut them into oatmeal, sandwiches, salads. They can taste so amazing and different that it's a fun adventure. (Plus then you can pretend you're a fancy food person, saying to your friends "Ooh, the Macoun had a good season this year!")
And if you have a bit of land, start some trees! They are a wonderful gift for future generations. Plant a bunch and leave them alone, let the survivors flourish. Worst case they die and you have some good firewood for a bbq.
I used to have an orchard with c. 35 apple trees, 2 of which were honeycrisp. I can confirm that they are tricky trees to manage. I was theoretically in a good area for honeycrisps. But the trees were prone to all sorts of maladies that didn’t affect my other varietals, including antique varietals that are traditionally thought of as “difficult”. And when they did grow fruit it was usually small and misshapen.
Apples are interesting and this is a great example of the unexpected challenges you can face growing them. Every honeycrisp tree is a perfect clone of the very first one, but the environment of each is not a perfect clone of their original environment. And the interplay of genetics and growing conditions can have very unpredictable results.
travisgriggs ·6 days ago
The article leaves a key point out. This fruit tree is really temperamental to water correctly. Irrigators love and hate this thing. Some fruit bears overwatering gracefully. But with this tree, it begs for water, but if you overwater it even a little, the fruit fails easily. I've watched some big players (Pytech) dump millions of dollars into closed (fully automated), open (just telemetry and recommendation, human then waters) and hybrid loop irrigation methods to try and get this right. It remains a real pain to get right.
(edit: the cosmic crisp is also difficult to grow Just Right(tm))
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jader201 ·7 days ago
While I agree they aren’t always the most tasty, they are almost always (like 98%) crisp and never mealy to the point I want to stop eating it, unlike nearly every other breed I’ve tried (which admittedly is only about 7-8 or the most common ones).
I will take a less flavorful crisp apple 100% of the time over a mealy apple.
So even a mediocre Honeycrisp is, to me, still way better than nearly all the other ones.
[1] https://applerankings.com/
[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33639206
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mjamesaustin ·7 days ago
The best apple variety is generally the new one. The market is strewn with the discarded remains of formerly good apples like Fuji and Gala.
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0xbadcafebee ·7 days ago
And if you have a bit of land, start some trees! They are a wonderful gift for future generations. Plant a bunch and leave them alone, let the survivors flourish. Worst case they die and you have some good firewood for a bbq.
peterbonney ·7 days ago
Apples are interesting and this is a great example of the unexpected challenges you can face growing them. Every honeycrisp tree is a perfect clone of the very first one, but the environment of each is not a perfect clone of their original environment. And the interplay of genetics and growing conditions can have very unpredictable results.
Show replies