Golden Delicious

• Picking season: Late
• Country of origin: United States
• Self-fertility: Partially self-fertile
• Flowering group: 4
• List of other varieties that will pollinate Golden Delicious

Golden Delicious is increasingly sought out by apple enthusiasts for growing in home orchards as word spreads that if you look beyond the bland reputation of the supermarket examples, this is an apple that truely merits its name.

Home-grown Golden Delicious is a very different proposition from the supermarket apples you may be used to. It is a very sweet apple of course, but the the sweetness is more like that of raw cane sugar than the bland sweetness you might be expecting. The trick is to pick the apples when they are fully ripe, at which point the familiar pale green skin turns to a green-gold hue.

There are many commercial sports or variants of Golden Delicious with slightly different qualities. Gibson is a sport which is less prone to russeting.

Home-grown Golden Delicious still apples retain the advantages of commercially grown examples - versatile for eating fresh or using in the kitchen, and can be kept for several months in a cold shed or in the fridge.

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Golden Delicious apple trees for sale

• 11-year maiden bare-root tree 33.45€
  M26 rootstock
  Medium size (2.5m-3m after 10 years)
  

  Out of stock
• 21-year maiden bare-root tree 33.45€
  MM106 rootstock
  Large size (3m-4m after 10 years)
  

  Out of stock

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How to grow

Golden Delicious is easy to grow, and very productive across a wide range of climate zones.

It is potentially a good pollinator for many other apple varieties, particularly varieties descended from (Red) Delicious, McIntosh, and Cox, because it flowers over a long period in the mid-season and produces larger quantities of pollen than most other varieties.

History

West Virginia, USA 1890s. Golden Delicious is almost certainly a seedling of an old American variety called Grimes Golden. The original tree survived until the 1950s, by which time Golden Delicious was firmly established as one of the most widely-planted of all apples.

Golden Delicious characteristics

• Gardening skillAverage
• Self-fertilityPartially self-fertile
• Flowering group4
• Pollinating othersGood
• PloidyDiploid
• Bearing regularityRegular
• Fruit bearingSpur-bearer
• Picking seasonLate
• CroppingHeavy
• Keeping3 months or more
• Useful forEating freshCulinary
• Cooking resultKeeps shape
• CankerSome susceptibility
• ScabSome susceptibility
• FireblightSome susceptibility
• MildewSome susceptibility
• Climate typeTemperate climatesWarm climates
• Summer average maximum temperaturesCool ( 20-24C / 68-75F)Warm (25-30C / 76-85F)
• Country of originUnited States
• Period of origin1850 - 1899
• Flower colourWhite
• Fruit colourGreen / Yellow
• AwardsRHS AGM (former) 1993RHS Plants for Pollinators