Wickson Crab cider apple trees

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• Picking season: Late
• Self-fertility: Not self-fertile
• Flowering group: 2

Wickson Crab is a popular crab apple with dense white blossom followed by attractive pink/red flushed apples, which are large by crab-apple standrds.

Wickson Crab apples contain plenty of pectin and are therefore useful in the kitchen for jams and jellies.

Unusually for a crab apple, Wickson Crab is also very sweet. The high sugar content is balanced by a strong acid content, and this potent combination makes the juice of Wickson Crab very popular for cider production in the United States.

Wickson Crab organic cider apple trees for sale

• 11 yeartree on M116 rootstock25.95€
  Medium tree (2m-3.5m after 10 years) Bare-root
  

  Sold-out
• 21 yeartree on Bittenfelder rootstock25.25€
  Very large tree (5m-6m+ after 10 years) Bare-root
  

  Sold-out

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If you do not hear from us by March you can contact us to pre-order for next autumn.

Growing and Training

Wickson Crab is a small and hardy tree. It has a wide climate range, and is suitable for both northern areas and warm climates.

History

Wickson was developed by the Californian apple enthusiast Albert Etter and released in 1947. Etter named the variety after the Californian pomologist Edward J. Wickson who was one of the few experts at the time who took Etter's breeding program seriously.

Etter claimed that Wickson Crab was developed from a Spitzenburg crab and a Newtown crab, although no such varieties exist, and it is thought there is no relation with the well-known traditional American apple varieties Esopus Spitzenburg and Newtown Pippin. A more likely parent would have been Transcendent Crab, which Etter is known to have used in his Etter's Gold variety, and which shares many similar characterstics.

Wickson Crab characteristics

• Gardening skillAverage
• Self-fertilityNot self-fertile
• Flowering group2
• Picking seasonLate
• Season of use2-3 weeks
• Food usesJuiceHard cider
• Cold hardiness (USDA)Zone 3 (-40C)
• Summer average maximum temperaturesCool ( 20-24C / 68-75F)Warm (25-30C / 76-85F)Hot (>30C / 86F)
• Fruit colourOrange / Red

Similar varieties

• 
  Amere Nouvelle
  Amere Nouvelle is a traditional French bittersweet cider apple.
• 
  Dabinett
  Dabinett is a traditional English cider apple variety, producing a bittersweet juice.
• 
  Dabinett
  Dabinett is a traditional English cider apple variety, producing a bittersweet juice.
• 
  Kingston Black
  Kingston Black is one of the premier English cider varieties and produces a bittersharp juice.
• 
  Kingston Black
  Kingston Black is one of the premier English cider varieties and produces a bittersharp juice.
• 
  Michelin
  Michelin (or Normandie Blanc) is a traditional French cider apple variety producing a bittersweet juice.
• 
  Somerset Redstreak
  An English cider apple variety producing a very high-quality bittersweet juice.

More about cider apple trees

Cider production in Europe is traditionally associated with three main regions - Asturias in north west Spain, Bretagne and Normandie in north west France, and the "west country" area of south-west England. These regions all face the Atlantic ocean and have cool temperate maritime climates.

Cider can of course be made with any variety of apples, but in these three regions apple varieties have evolved which are specifically intended for cider production - they have high levels of tannins which give "body" to the resulting cider, but which make them very unpalatable to eat fresh.

Good quality cider is almost always made with a blend of different apple varieties, using bitter, sweet, and sharp flavour components. It is quite common to mix in regular cooking and dessert apples to lend extra flavours.

If you are in an area with a hotter continental climate (with average summer maximum temperatures routinely over 30C) then you might want to consider using apple varieties that can withstand warmer temperatures, but still have good juice qualities. In this case rather than using European varieties you might want to seek inspiration from the very different "hard cider" traditions of North America, where dessert and crab-apples are widely used.

We have a good range of traditional English and French cider varieties, as well as a number of mainstream apple varieties with good juice qualities that lend themselves to cider production.