Apple cultivar
'Crimson Gold' is a modern cultivar of applecrab, meaning that it is a cross between a crabapple and a domesticated apple. It is a small apple.[1]
It is one of the last apples to be developed by the American breeder Albert Etter in 1944, who named it 'Little Rosybloom'. Etter died in 1950 before completing the patent filing, and it was later rediscovered and renamed as 'Crimson Gold'.[1][2]
The skin of 'Crimson Gold' has a yellow background which is visual only at the shaded areas of the skin and around the stem. Otherwise it is covered with a ruby red. Flesh is crisp, with a balance of sweet and tart. Delicious for fresh eating, and also good for baking, retains its shape and texture even with high temperature.[2] In fact, when the apple was rediscovered, about 1970, on a single limb of an old test orchard, Etter's "boil test" was used to confirm that the found apple was in fact Crimson Gold/Little Rosybloom. The genuine apple holds its shape after 2 hours of boiling, while the similar Wickson Crab, also an Etter introduction, does not.
Confusion arose when a new and different apple variety from Europe called "Svatava" was introduced to the United States under the same name. This new variety was trademarked as "Crimson® Gold" by Brandt's Fruit Trees, while the original Crimson Gold variety became known again as Little Rosybloom. Currently, both the original Little Rosybloom and the newer Svatava cultivar marketed as Crimson Gold are grown in small volumes, mainly by home growers and small direct retail orchards. "Crimson® Gold" is a registered trademark of Brandt's Fruit Trees referring to the Svatava cultivar.
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