The farmer I took a graft for some Criterion's grubbed-out all 8 acres a year later… Too soft, wouldn’t sell. The few I grow are some of the last apples I grab… There was a lot of hype 20 years ago over them, but as mentioned, not much demand in the long run. I’d take a Mutsu instead… in fact, I do!
Miller Nurseries have supplied bare root Criterion Apple trees for a number of years.
http://www.millernurseries.com/cart.php ... tail&p=113. These are not "instant gratification" trees that will bear in a few months.
I happen to think that the Criterion is one of the best apples I have very tasted!
I encourage all home orchard folks to find and study a copy of the book "How to Pick a Peach", which explains some of the things that have gone horribly wrong with the industrial food supply chain.
Frankly, Van Well Nursery or C and O Nursery are major players in what the book explains. I requested catalogs from both places (I am planning on purchase of 50 to 75 apples trees for a small market operation) and was amazed at their descriptions of the varieties they offer. The features are all about the apples getting red faster and picking a week earlier than the orchard down the road. Nothing in these descriptions about the benefits to the consumer (taste, flavor, etc.).
Bruising may be a valid concern to growers who sell to brokers who know their produce will be handled like rocks that are shipped a few thousand miles cross country. Bruising is not such a big deal to someone who picks in the back yard and carries into the house.
I happen to think that the Criterion is one of the best apples I have [ever] tasted!
Well put; and, Criterion’s were far and away the winners of our HOS taste-tests years ago. …And I must admit, grafted to the top of an old Vanderpool Red in a now shady corner of my yard, mine likely don’t receive the sunshine necessary to develop the sugar content others do. For home orchardist’s and local-market producers they’re a fine apple. …But you should have seen the disgust in the eyes of the grower I mentioned above - a year before grubbing his beautiful young orchard.
I also appreciate your description of the commercial grower’s mindset. I’d ordered the same catalogs from the ‘same places’ years ago, only to find the same priorities… I hope you keep us posted on your operation; there’s been a little ‘cross-over’ between commercial growers and home orchardist’s on this site -- and it’s always a benefit to the home grower. Problem is, the commercial guys are doing it for a living and apparently haven’t the time or need to continuously contemplate their ‘next variety.’ They’re dealing with commercial block-plantings and the competitive care required to succeed in what’s been described as a very competitive “industry.†With access to, and constant applications of: herbicides; insecticides; fungicides… if not ‘homicides’ …their operations seem a world removed from ‘ours.’
With ever-increasing energy/transportation costs we’re likely drifting back to the days of locally, or at least regionally produced fruit. As Organically grown fruit appears to be reaching a parody with the cost of commercially grown distant produce, the largest of growers may find it necessary to top-work their orchards to that of taste-competitive cultivars – as opposed to the cost/production/shipping of the competitive “rocks†you described
What I miss are U-Pick Orchards! Growing up in Portland (Oregon’s largest metro area) my Dad made sure we always had a box of whatever fruit was in season as me and my sibling’s alternative to junk food. It worked! We’ve an appreciation of fruit like few I know. Why? Because Baby boomers and all those after have been raised on the same ‘long-haul’ varieties you described above. Picked ‘green’ to ship from another hemisphere they no longer resemble the fruit our great-grandparents strived for – the same things we “Home Orchardist’s†are striving for.
It’s shocking how many adults I meet, many in the educational field, who “Don’t like†this or that fruit… Guess I wouldn’t like Asian Plums either if all I’d eaten were the insipid rock-hard high-priced long-distance ‘beauties’ that end up at the local mega-store! You wouldn’t believe the extent of convincing it’s taken me to give away an ‘extra’ tree to friends, neighbors or co-workers! …I’m definitely a Pusher in that regard, having had access to extra rootstock and cuttings, I’m compelled to propagate the best …which should include Criterion Apples… Thanks for setting me straight 
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