We have just finished harvesting Pixie crunch from our plantings at the Purdue Meigs farm and the more I see this apple, the more I like it.
Although we think of this as a relatively new apple, the original cross was made 45 years ago at Rutgers University and it was selected from a planting in West Lafayette, Indiana. Before being named Pixie Crunch, it was tested as Co-op 33. It resulted from a cross of two numbered apple selections but has both Golden Delicious and Rome in it’s pedigree.
The Pixie Crunch tree is spreading and precocious. Our three year-old trees at the Meigs farm had about 80 apples per tree this year (Fig 1).
Fig. 1
Fruit size is just a little smaller than Gala and fruit finish is a dark red blush over a yellow background (Fig 2). With open trees, most fruit will have over 75% color.
Fig. 2
What stands out most about Pixy Crunch is its eating quality. Fruit are very crisp (close to Honeycrisp crispness) and stay crisp on the tree over a long period. Fruit drop is not usually a problem. These factors give Pixie Crunch a very wide harvest window, at least 3 weeks with fruit still in very good condition on the tree. Because of this, and the very good eating quality, Pixy Crunch is a no-brainer for retail farm markets, although fruit may be too small for the wholesale market.