for 2006 Malus ‘Connell Red’ Connell Red Apple Type: fruit Height: 12-18’ semi-dwarf, 15-25’ standard Hardiness: Zone 3-8 Light requirements: Full sun to part shade Bloom Color: apple blossom pink Connell Red is a naturally-occurring mutation of Fireside. The two are essentially the same, but you’ll find people who prefer one over the other. I’ve always told people who have a preference not to get too carried away with it. A good apple of one is better than an average apple of the other. And always get big ones. More than with any other variety, size matters here. Big ones are fantastic. Small ones aren’t worth eating.   But there are characteristics that don’t match up. Most obvious is the skin coloring. Connell Red’s magnificent deep red, stripe-free, solid blush is dramatically different (especially if you were the one to discover it!) from Fireside’s flame-orange striping over a rich yellow under-color. Strikingly different, as the photograph shows. They share the same flavor complex, one that is hard to describe in apple terms. I say there is a banana essence in there. They’re both very sweet, but Fireside has a little more acid to go with the sweet, while Connell Red tends to be more mellow. But that’s a generalization, like I’ve said, that doesn’t always hold true. I could fool anybody in a blindfolded taste test, and I could be fooled, too.   Throughout the last several decades, Haralson has been the most-produced apple in Minnesota. Fireside and Connell Red, when considered as one variety (which they should be), has been second, and Regent has been third. That ranking is of no consequence to the national scheme of things, but it does indicate the high regard in which Fireside and Connell Red are held by growers and consumers who are the most familiar with these varieties. Historically, Minnesota varieties are not planted extensively outside the five-state area (MN, WI, IA, SD, ND) and, when they are, they show up in areas like Minnesota where exceptional winter hardiness is required. I think Minnesota varieties have lived under the erroneous assumption that, since they’re all we have that can survive our winters, they must be qualitatively inferior to varieties that can’t. And that we can’t grow sweet apples, just sour ones. And that we can’t grow big apples, just little ones. But that just ain’t so. Fireside disproved that notion more than sixty years ago, but word has been a little slow getting out. Honeycrisp is changing that perception these days in a new and big way, because it’s the first Minnesota variety since Wealthy in the late 1860’s that has been planted widely outside the five states. (It’s changing Minnesota, too, as it will soon overtake Haralson for the top spot in Minnesota apple production. You can read about that by going to the Honeycrisp write-up.)   An impressive but little-known and unusual characteristic of Fireside and Connell Red is their aroma. It is not a pronounced scent when just a single apple is present, like it is with the variety ‘Viking,’ where one apple at room temperature can permeate a kitchen with the smell of ripe apples, but, en masse, Fireside and Connell Red are potent. In the olden days, before we had twenty-bushel bins that we handle with forklifts, when we used to load and unload trucks full of one-bushel wooden field crates one-at-a-time by hand, it was an overwhelming experience to unload a truck of Connell Red or Fireside, especially on a warm day. The delightful ambrosiatic fragrance is so strong and so super-sweet that it can’t be withstood. It just blows you outa there after a while. I have both witnessed it and succumbed to it, stepping out of the truck faint and delirious. Too sweet! -from Sponsel’s Minnesota Harvest *****

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