Fortune apples picked fresh from the Orchard delivered To your door

The 1995 Cornell release bulletin gives it in one phrase: “a sprightly blend of sugar and acid”, with a flavour it calls “subacid and pleasantly aromatic” and slightly spicy.

In the hand that reads as a properly balanced apple — sweet but with real acid behind it, and a distinct spice note that sets it apart from its Empire parent. It is the Northern Spy side of the family showing through.

Balanced, leaning sweet. “Subacid” in a breeder’s bulletin means acid present and noticeable but not sharp — which is exactly where most people want an eating apple to sit.

It is sweeter than Northern Spy and more interesting than Empire. If you want frank sweetness go to Fuji; if you want sharpness go to GoldRush.

Mildly, and it is one of its best features. The release bulletin calls the flavour “slightly spicy” — a warm, faintly clove-like note rather than anything hot.

That spice is what makes it a Thanksgiving apple. It reads as autumnal in a way that a plain sweet apple does not.

Yes. The release bulletin describes the texture as “firm, crisp and very juicy” — three separate claims, all of which hold up.

It is not the explosive cell-shattering crunch of a Honeycrisp. It is the firm, dense, snapping crispness of a well-grown late apple, and it holds that texture for months.

Very — the bulletin says so explicitly, and the Cadbury processing tests independently confirmed it. Juice yield matters commercially, so that is a meaningful third-party assessment rather than a compliment.

It is a genuinely wet apple. Eat it over a plate.

Attractive burgundy red over green, per the bulletin — a deep, slightly wine-coloured red rather than a bright fire-engine one. Fruit that has been shaded inside the canopy keeps a green background.

It is also, in the bulletin’s words, “not prone to russet”, which is a real commercial virtue and the kind of detail only a release document bothers to record.

Large to very large — that is the bulletin’s own size range, and it is the first thing growers noticed about it. Ours generally run about 200 to 320 grams, so roughly two to the pound and sometimes fewer.

Size is part of why growers asked for this variety by name before it had one. A large, attractive, well-coloured apple sells itself on a farm stand.

Round to oblong, with a short stem. Not flattened like a Cortland, not conic like a Red Delicious — a solid, substantial, slightly tall round.

Combined with the size and the burgundy colour, it is one of the better-looking apples we grow.

Cream, per the bulletin — not stark white and not yellow. Firm, crisp and very juicy.

Cream flesh under burgundy skin cuts very handsomely for a platter, and it stays that colour longer than most, for the reason in the next question.

No, and this is a genuinely underused fact about the variety. Cadbury Beverages rated it slow to oxidize in independent processing tests — and a beverage company testing apples for processing has every reason to measure that accurately.

So Fortune belongs on the short list of slow-browning apples alongside AutumnCrisp, SnowSweet, RubyFrost and Shizuka. Almost nobody selling Fortune mentions it.

Honestly, this one is harder than most, and the bulletin says so: “Testing is needed to determine the optimum maturity indices.” In 1995 Cornell had not settled how to judge it.

Practically: it matures with Empire or slightly later, the green background under the burgundy should have warmed, and it should feel heavy for its size. When in doubt on this variety, later is better than earlier.

It holds rather than improves. This is not a GoldRush that transforms over the winter; it is a good apple in November that is still a good apple in March.

The bulletin gives four to five months in common storage, and what fades over that time is the aromatic spice rather than the texture.

No — smooth, thin and not prone to russet. It is one of the easier skins to leave on.

Peel it for a refined tart or a smooth sauce; otherwise leave it, since it carries the burgundy colour.

Very good, and unusually it is also a very good cooking apple — the release bulletin calls it “an excellent dual use variety because it is suitable for fresh and processing markets”.

Dual-use is rarer than it sounds. Most apples are clearly better at one or the other. Fortune was bred specifically to be good at both, and independent processors agreed.

No. It is a conventional cross made by hand-pollinating a blossom at Geneva in 1962 and growing out the seed — thirty-three years before anyone could buy the fruit.

The only genetically engineered apples sold in the United States are the Arctic varieties, which are labelled as such.

Yes, with one caveat: they are large to very large, so half an apple may be the sensible serving for a small child.

The slow browning helps here — sliced in the morning, a Fortune still looks right at lunchtime. For a whole-apple lunchbox fruit, Lady apples at six to ten to the pound are better sized.

Both, genuinely — that is what “dual use” means and it is the whole point of the variety. The bulletin says it “can be eaten fresh or used in baking or salads”.

If you only ever buy one apple for a household that both snacks and bakes, this is a strong candidate.

Very. It is large, deep red and extremely juicy, with a sweet-tart balance and a gentle spice that keeps it interesting all the way down.

People who like Northern Spy or Jonagold tend to take to Fortune straight away.

It is simply a very juicy variety — one of the juiciest we grow — and it holds that juiciness through months of storage.

Cut one on a board and you will see. It is part of why it makes such good sauce and cider.

Because of its test number. It was evaluated for thirty-three years as NY 429, and growers noticed that “four-two-nine” sounds like “fortune”. When the time came to name it, they asked for that.

It is one of the few apple names derived from a pun on an accession number, and it is a much better story than most variety names have.

It is the accession number Cornell’s breeding programme at Geneva gave the seedling. Programmes number thousands of seedlings; only a handful ever earn a name.

Growers testing the variety across the United States knew it as NY 429 for three decades, which is why the number rather than a description ended up naming the apple.

They did, and the release bulletin says so in unusually direct language. Fortune was “an apple that gained high praise from growers before being officially named and introduced”, and “it was so successful in trials throughout the United States that growers strongly requested it be named”.

That is the reverse of the usual sequence. Normally a breeding programme names a variety and then persuades growers to plant it.

Thirty-three years. The cross was made in 1962 and the variety was released in 1995.

That is long even by apple standards, and it puts Fortune in company with the other slow Geneva releases — AutumnCrisp waited 41 years, and Monroe, AutumnCrisp’s parent, waited 39.

1995. The Cornell release bulletin is New York’s Food and Life Sciences Bulletin No. 147, and the variety made its public debut in January 1996 after being announced in December 1995.

A plant patent was applied for in March 1995.

A plant patent was applied for in March 1995, per the release bulletin. Plant patents run twenty years from filing, so any protection has long since expired.

That is why Fortune is now available from many nurseries without restriction, unlike SnapDragon, RubyFrost or Ludacrisp, which are all still managed varieties.

No. Fortune is the cultivar name itself, not a marketing brand laid over a coded cultivar. That was still the normal practice for public breeding programmes in 1995.

The trademark-plus-cultivar-number model — SnapDragon for NY 1, RubyFrost for NY 2, Ludacrisp for MAIA-L — came afterwards.

No. There is a Fortune plum, and there is an English apple called Laxton’s Fortune — a 1904 Cox’s Orange Pippin cross from Bedfordshire, a completely different variety.

If a British source discusses a “Fortune” apple it almost certainly means Laxton’s. This page is about Cornell’s NY 429.

Yes — the release bulletin records that Fortune was one of nineteen varieties being promoted by the New York Apple Association at the time of release.

That tells you the state saw it as a commercial prospect rather than a curiosity, which given how its trials had gone was a reasonable bet.

Partly timing: it arrived in 1995, just as Honeycrisp was about to absorb every spare acre and every marketing dollar in the eastern apple business.

It remains a farm-stand and direct-market apple. That is not a comment on how it tastes.

No. It is a modern Cornell cultivar, crossed in 1962 and released in 1995, from a deliberate breeding programme.

Its grandparent Northern Spy, however, is a genuine heirloom dating to about 1800 in East Bloomfield, New York — so there is real antiquity two generations back.

The cross was made in 1962 by Dr. Roger Way at Cornell University’s New York State Agricultural Experiment Station in Geneva, New York.

The 1995 release bulletin carries four names: Susan K. Brown, Roger D. Way, David E. Terry and Kenneth G. Livermore of the Department of Horticultural Sciences.

One of the central figures in twentieth-century American apple breeding, and the man who made the Fortune cross in 1962. His name is also on the 1978 release bulletin for Liberty, alongside Robert Lamb and Herb Aldwinckle.

Two of the varieties we grow carry his work, made sixteen years apart and released seventeen years apart. That is what a career in fruit breeding looks like.

Not by parentage, but by programme and by person. SnapDragon, RubyFrost, AutumnCrisp and Fortune are all Susan Brown’s named Cornell releases.

Fortune is the earliest of the four and the only one released without a trademark over it.

Geneva, New York, at the north end of Seneca Lake in the Finger Lakes. Founded in 1880 as the New York State Agricultural Experiment Station, it joined Cornell in 1923.

It has released 69 apple varieties since 1890, including Cortland, Empire, Macoun, Jonagold, Liberty, AutumnCrisp, SnapDragon, RubyFrost and Fortune.

New York’s Food and Life Sciences Bulletin No. 147, 1995, published by the New York State Agricultural Experiment Station at Geneva. It is the document that named the variety and it is the primary source for nearly everything on this page.

It is two pages long and contains more precise, more useful and more candid information about this apple than anything published since — including a frank list of its faults.

Because you cannot hurry a tree. A seedling takes five or more years to fruit, then needs propagating onto rootstocks, then multi-site trials across states and seasons, then commercial evaluation, then a decision about whether growers will plant it.

Fortune took 33 years, AutumnCrisp took 41, Liberty took 23. None of that time could have been skipped.

69 since 1890, which is more than any other American programme. The list runs from Cortland in the 1910s through Empire, Jonagold, Macoun, Liberty and Fortune to Cordera, Firecracker and Pink Luster in the last decade.

A remarkable share of the apples in an American supermarket trace back to that one campus at Geneva.

The release bulletin directs interested nurseries to Mr. H. Walter Haeussler at the Cornell Research Foundation, in the Cornell Business and Technology Park at Ithaca.

That was the 1995 arrangement. The patent has since expired, so Fortune is now freely available from many nurseries.

Yes, and widely — the bulletin describes trials “throughout the United States”, and it was the strength of those trials that made growers ask for the variety to be named.

Its profile also appears in the Pacific Northwest Fruit Tester’s variety characteristic profile, which is about as far from Geneva as American apple growing gets.

Explicitly so. The bulletin opens by calling it “an excellent dual use variety because it is suitable for fresh and processing markets”, and that was the point of the cross.

It gives growers, in the bulletin’s words, a mid-season variety that resembles Empire but has the processing characteristics of Spy, with fewer of Spy’s production problems.

Cadbury Beverages ran the processing trials, and their assessment is the most valuable single piece of evidence about this apple, because it comes from a company with no stake in the variety.

On that basis Norris, writing in 1994, concluded that Fortune had excellent processing characteristics.

Moderately, and less than its trials suggested it would be. It performed well in on-farm retail testing and was well received in supermarket testing in upstate New York, and it was one of nineteen varieties the New York Apple Association promoted.

But it is demanding to grow — see the faults section — and it arrived just as Honeycrisp took over the eastern apple business. It settled into the direct-market niche rather than the supermarket.

‘Schoharie Spy’ × ‘Empire’, crossed at Geneva in 1962. The release bulletin states it plainly, and adds the key clarification: Schoharie Spy is a red sport of Northern Spy.

So in practical genetic terms, Fortune is Northern Spy crossed with Empire.

A red sport of Northern Spy — that is, a mutated branch found on a Northern Spy tree that produced redder fruit, propagated as its own strain. It is named for Schoharie County, New York.

A sport is genetically the same variety with one thing changed, usually colour. So Fortune’s seed parent is Northern Spy in all but skin colour, and the burgundy red of a Fortune comes straight from that sport.

A spontaneous mutation on a single branch of an existing tree, propagated by grafting. It gives you the same variety with one trait altered — almost always colour, sometimes ripening date or growth habit.

Most of the red strains of Red Delicious and many Gala strains are sports. Sports give you a different-looking version of a flavour you already had; seedlings give you a genuinely new apple.

The processing quality, the acid, the complexity and the size. Northern Spy is the classic American pie apple — tart, aromatic, and structurally superb in the oven — and the bulletin is explicit that Fortune “has the processing characteristics of Spy”.

It also contributed the thing the bulletin says Fortune has less of: Spy’s production problems. Northern Spy is notoriously slow to come into bearing and difficult to crop well.

Appearance, eating quality and a manageable tree. Empire is itself a Geneva variety — McIntosh × Red Delicious, crossed in 1945 — and it is a reliable, well-coloured, commercially successful apple.

The bulletin describes Fortune as a mid-season variety that resembles Empire but with Spy’s processing characteristics. That was the whole design brief.

Three famous apples. On the seed side, Northern Spy — an American heirloom from about 1800 in East Bloomfield, New York. On the pollen side, through Empire: McIntosh and Red Delicious.

We grow all three, so you can taste Fortune’s entire ancestry side by side — which is not something you can do with most varieties.

Through McIntosh, yes — Cortland is Ben Davis × McIntosh and Macoun is McIntosh × Jersey Black, so all three share a McIntosh ancestor.

They also share the Geneva programme. But Fortune carries far more Northern Spy than McIntosh, and it is firmer and better in the oven than either of them.

No. The release bulletin states that Fortune can be pollinated by “any diploid in the same bloom season”, which is the language used for a normal diploid variety that simply needs a partner.

That is worth knowing because its grandparent Northern Spy is often assumed to be difficult in this respect. Fortune is not.

It has the family character — the acid, the aromatic complexity, the slight spice — in a sweeter, larger, better-coloured package that ripens earlier and comes into bearing sooner.

If you love Northern Spy and cannot get it, Fortune is the closest thing we grow that you can actually buy reliably.

It looks more like Empire than it tastes like it. The bulletin describes it as resembling Empire — mid-season, well-coloured, commercially familiar — but Fortune is larger, spicier, more acid and considerably better in the kitchen.

Empire is a fine everyday apple. Fortune is the more interesting one.

Not that we can find in the published record. It arrived in 1995, just as breeding attention shifted decisively toward Honeycrisp-derived crosses.

Its own parent line, though, is heavily used — Northern Spy appears in a great many pedigrees, and Empire in more.

Four, in plain language, and it is the most useful part of the document.

No nursery catalogue mentions any of this. A release bulletin written for growers has no reason to hide it, which is exactly why we build these pages from release bulletins.

It can. The bulletin lists it as susceptible to fruit cracking during some seasons, and suggests it may be related to drought conditions during the growing season.

Conditionally. The bulletin describes it as a good annual bearer, but with a biennial tendency if allowed to overcrop — and then repeats the warning under physiological disorders: it will become alternate bearing if allowed to overcrop.

The fix is thinning. Let a Fortune set everything it wants in a heavy year and you will get very little the next.

Less so than most. The bulletin says it “may not be as precocious as other varieties like ‘Empire’” — that is, it takes longer to come into bearing.

That is the Northern Spy side showing. Spy is famous for making growers wait, and Fortune inherited a milder version of the habit.

The bulletin’s wording is careful: cold hardiness status “appears adequate”. Not proven, not excellent — adequate, on the evidence they had.

We like that phrasing because it claims exactly what was known and no more. Both of its parents are New York apples, so cold hardiness would be expected.

More than average, yes, and that is the honest summary of the faults list.

Fortune is the better apple and the harder tree.

No. What reaches you is graded fruit we were happy to pack — large, deep red, firm and very juicy.

Growing Fortune well takes attention, and that is our job rather than yours.

Mid-season. The release bulletin gives the maturity date as with ‘Empire’ or slightly later, which in the North puts it in early to mid October.

See Harvest Times for where this year’s crop stands; picking dates move a week or more with the season.

Four to five months in common storage, which is the bulletin’s own figure — and note the words “common storage”, meaning ordinary cold storage rather than the controlled atmosphere large packers use.

In a home refrigerator, three to four months at good quality is realistic. That is genuinely good keeping for a mid-season apple.

No. GoldRush is the storage champion we grow — up to seven months, improving for much of it.

Fortune’s four to five months is still well above average, and unlike GoldRush it is excellent the day you pick it.

Crisper drawer, in a loosely closed bag with a few holes punched in it. Cold and humid.

Do not wash before storing — that strips the wax bloom and leaves water sitting in the stem cavity. Keep them away from onions and anything strongly scented, and away from bananas.

For a week or so, and it is a handsome apple to have out — large, burgundy, and not russeted.

Past that you are spending the crispness on the display. Keep a couple out and the rest cold.

Slowly. It starts firm and crisp and holds for months, which is precisely what four to five months in common storage means.

The aromatic spice fades before the texture does. A March Fortune is still crisp and slightly less interesting than a November one.

Yes, and it is one of the better varieties for it — large, firm and slow to oxidize. Core and slice, tray-freeze until hard, then bag with the air pressed out.

About a year in the freezer, and they come out well for pie, crisp and sauce. The slow browning means you can be relaxed about the lemon dip.

Very — four to five months in common storage is exactly the profile a cellar suits. Aim for 32 to 38 °F with high humidity.

Store in shallow layers rather than deep bins, check weekly, and pull anything bruised or breaking down before it gases the rest along.

Less than most. It is firm-fleshed with a smooth thin skin, which is a reasonably robust combination. Size works against it slightly — a large apple lands harder.

Handle it as fruit rather than as freight. Bruised tissue is where storage rot starts in any variety.

It moves with the season, so we do not publish a fixed date. Harvest Times tracks where each variety stands as the crop comes in.

Apple Crop Growing 2026 lists what is still on the tree, and Ready to Ship shows what is leaving the farm today.

Yes, like any fruit — a rinse under cool running water and a dry cloth. No soap, no detergent, no produce wash.

Our general washing and handling advice for every variety is on the Honeycrisp.com apple FAQ.

It is good straight away and it stays good for months, which is unusual. If anything the flavour rounds out a little over the first few weeks.

Buy it in October and you will still be enjoying it after the new year.

Nearly everything, and that is the unusual thing about it. The release bulletin calls it an excellent dual use variety — good fresh, good in baking, good in salads and good for processing.

Most apples are clearly better at one thing. Fortune was bred to be good at several, and independent processing trials agreed.

Very. It has Northern Spy as a grandparent and, per the bulletin, Spy’s processing characteristics — which in practice means it holds its shape and brings enough acid to keep a filling interesting.

It is also large, so four or five make a pie. Cut the sugar slightly against a Granny Smith recipe; it brings its own.

Yes, well. Firm dense flesh from the Spy side means recognisable slices rather than a collapsed layer.

It is not as rigid as a Rome, which is the apple to use if you want walls that will not give at all. For a pie you actually want to eat, Fortune is better.

Excellent, and this is documented rather than asserted. Cadbury Beverages ran processing tests and found Fortune produced good applesauce, which is the basis on which Norris concluded in 1994 that it had excellent processing characteristics.

It needs little added sugar, and the slight spice comes through. Cook it skin-on and mill it for a rosier sauce.

One of the best we grow, for a specific reason: it is slow to oxidize, so diced or sliced Fortune holds its colour far longer than most apples.

Add the cream-coloured flesh against burgundy skin and a balanced sweet-tart flavour, and it is a properly good salad apple. The bulletin names salads as one of its uses.

Yes, and it presses a lovely juice — sweet with a real backbone, and slow to brown, so it stays bright in the glass.

For hard cider it works well as part of a blend rather than on its own.

Four or five for a standard 9-inch double-crust pie. Fortune is large to very large — about two to the pound — and a pie wants two and a half to three pounds of fruit.

Fewer apples to peel than most varieties, which matters if you are making several.

Usually not. The skin is smooth, thin and not prone to russet, and it largely disappears in a pie or a crisp while adding colour.

Peel for a refined tart, a custard-set dessert or a smooth sauce.

Good. It breaks down willingly enough, carries acid to stand up to hours of cooking and heavy spice, and its own slight spice note suits the dish.

Blend it with Rome or Jonathan if you want more body, or with Pound Sweet if you want to cut the added sugar right down.

Very, and the slow oxidation is the reason — the rings come out paler than from most apples even with a light dip, and they hold their colour in storage.

Slice an eighth of an inch, skin on, and dry at 135 °F for six to ten hours. Being juicy, it shrinks a fair amount.

It is one of the best we grow for it, and the timing is the reason as much as the flavour: picked in early to mid October, it is at its peak in late November with months of keeping still ahead of it.

Add the slight spice, the size, the shape-holding in the oven and the documented good applesauce, and it earns its place on the table.

Yes. Thick rings in a hot dry pan or on a clean grate, three or four minutes a side. It is firm enough to handle and has enough sugar to caramelise readily.

Good next to pork, sausage or a sharp cheese. Salt it after it comes off the heat.

Well suited — a good size, enough acid to cut the caramel, and firm enough to stay crisp under the coating.

Chill and dry the skin thoroughly first or the caramel will slide. That is true of every variety.

A little, because it is a very juicy apple. An extra tablespoon of flour or a teaspoon of cornstarch over a standard recipe is usually enough.

The maceration trick also works: toss the slices with the sugar, wait half an hour, pour off the liquid, reduce it and stir it back in.

A medium Fortune — about 255 grams — is roughly 125 to 140 calories. A small one is nearer 100 to 110; a large one runs 155 to 175.

The figure to work from is 52 calories per 100 grams, from USDA, for a raw apple with the skin on. Fortune is a large apple, so a whole one carries more than a standard medium.

A large Fortune of about 320 grams comes to roughly 155 to 175 calories.

Across the sizes we pack: small (~200 g) about 104, medium (~255 g) about 133, large (~320 g) about 166. Multiply the weight in grams by 0.52 for a close estimate at any size.

A small Fortune of about 200 grams is roughly 100 to 110 calories.

A kitchen scale beats guessing from the word on the bag — and the apple count on a case is the quickest guide, since a 72-count fruit is considerably larger than a 125-count.

Per 100 grams of raw Fortune with the skin on: about 52 calories, 13.81 g carbohydrate, 2.4 g fiber, 0.26 g protein, 0.17 g fat, 107 mg potassium and 85.56 g water.

For a medium apple of about 255 grams that is roughly 133 calories, 35 g carbohydrate and 6.1 g fiber. The full table by size is in the nutrition section above.

About 32 to 38 grams of total carbohydrate in a medium apple, of which roughly 6.1 grams is fiber — so approximately 29 grams of net carbs.

Per 100 grams that is 13.81 grams. That is typical for an apple.

Roughly 35 grams of total carbohydrate in a medium apple, with about 6.1 grams of that being dietary fiber.

Essentially all of an apple’s calories are carbohydrate — there is almost no fat and, in this cultivar, about 0.26 grams of protein per 100 grams.

About 24 to 28 grams in a medium apple, all of it the fruit’s own — nothing is added. That is 10.4 grams per 100 grams of fruit.

Fortune is a lively, aromatic apple — sweet with a real spine of tartness, and a faintly spicy note that comes through in cooking.

About 6.1 grams in a medium apple with the skin on — 2.4 grams per 100 grams.

That is about average for an apple. Peeling costs you roughly a third of it.

Very little of either: about 0.7 grams of protein and 0.4 grams of fat in a medium apple, and virtually no sodium.

Apples are almost entirely water and carbohydrate — Fortune is about 85.56 percent water by weight.

About 107 mg per 100 grams, so roughly 273 mg in a medium apple.

That is typical for an apple.

About 11.7 mg in a medium apple — 4.6 mg per 100 grams.

Apples are not a major vitamin C source next to citrus; an orange carries roughly ten times as much. What there is sits mostly just under the skin and degrades with heat, so a raw unpeeled apple retains more of it than a baked one.

For fiber, yes — roughly a third of it sits in the skin, along with most of the fruit’s colour compounds.

Fortune skin is smooth burgundy red over green and, per the release bulletin, “not prone to russet”. It is thin enough to leave on for anything cooked. Rinse under running water and rub with your hands before eating, as with any fresh fruit.

Roughly two large, three medium or four small apples make a pound — three medium is the standard working assumption in American recipes.

The 1995 bulletin gives the size range as “large to very large”, so expect about two to the pound and sometimes fewer. A 9-inch pie takes four or five.

Parent and child, and the bulletin frames it deliberately: Fortune gives growers a mid-season variety that resembles Empire but has the processing characteristics of Spy.

Fortune is larger, spicier, more acid and much better in the kitchen. Empire is easier to grow, more precocious, and more widely available. Empire is the reliable one; Fortune is the better one.

Grandparent and grandchild, in effect — Fortune’s seed parent Schoharie Spy is a red sport of Northern Spy.

Northern Spy is the more complex and more celebrated pie apple, and a famously difficult tree: slow to bear, hard to crop well. Fortune keeps much of the character, is redder, sweeter, earlier and easier — the bulletin’s phrase is “with less of the production problems of Spy”.

Different eras and different arguments. Honeycrisp was released in 1991 and won on texture — that explosive light cell structure — and it took over the eastern apple business just as Fortune arrived.

Fortune is firmer and denser rather than explosive, more complex in flavour, larger, keeps about as long, and is slower to brown. Honeycrisp won the market; Fortune is the better cooking apple.

Both Geneva apples with McIntosh in them, and both good for slicing because both are slow to brown. Cortland is the classic New York slicing apple, tender-fleshed and mild.

Fortune is firmer, more acid, spicier, larger and a far better keeper — four to five months against Cortland’s weeks. For salads either will do; for pie, Fortune.

Two Cornell varieties seventeen years apart. Liberty (1978) crops annually without much help; it is a modest, pleasant, McIntosh-line apple that keeps a couple of months.

Roger Way’s name is on both bulletins.

Both Cornell, both late-ish, both slow to brown, both from Susan Brown’s programme.

Fortune is milder, spicier, thinner-skinned and unpatented. RubyFrost has the numbers; Fortune has the release bulletin.

Two Geneva varieties with long waits — Fortune 33 years, AutumnCrisp 41. AutumnCrisp is sweeter, more floral, browns very slowly and keeps badly. Fortune is spicier, more acid, and keeps four to five months.

Buy AutumnCrisp in September for eating; buy Fortune in October for eating, baking and keeping.

Grandparent and grandchild, via Empire. McIntosh is soft, tender-skinned, intensely aromatic and tart, and it collapses when cooked. Fortune is firm, spicy, holds its shape and keeps for months.

What McIntosh keeps is the aroma. Nothing smells like a McIntosh, Fortune included.

Rome holds its walls better than anything, which is why it is the classic baked-whole apple — and it tastes of very little raw.

Fortune holds its shape well without being rigid, and tastes considerably better. For a whole baked apple, Rome. For a pie, a crumble or a sauce, Fortune.

Northern Spy for flavour and kitchen behaviour, Empire for appearance and season. That is unsurprising, since those are its parents.

If Fortune is unavailable, blend the two: Northern Spy for the cooking and an Empire for eating.

If you bake and you want one apple that does everything, yes — it was bred precisely for that and an independent processor confirmed it works.

If you want the easiest possible tree, no. The faults section above is not decoration.

A demanding tree meeting bad timing.

None of that is about flavour. It is the same story as Golden Russet losing on looks and Lady losing on size.

Here, shipped from the farm when the crop is in, and otherwise from farm stands and direct-market orchards, mostly in New York and the Northeast.

You will rarely find it in a supermarket chain. See Ready to Ship for what is leaving the farm today.

Packed in trays or cells so the fruit cannot shift. Fortune is firm and reasonably robust, which helps, but it is a large apple and large apples carry more momentum in a moving box.

Full details on packing, transit and destinations are on our shipping information page. Refrigerate the box on arrival.

Yes. Case and bulk quantities are on our bulk and case apples page, and Fortune is a sensible variety to buy that way because it keeps four to five months.

A bushel runs about 40 to 42 pounds, which at roughly two apples per pound works out to around 80 to 90 Fortunes.

More than a commodity apple. The reasons are in the faults list: it needs more management, it can crack in a dry season, and the plantings are small.

Per pound it is fair value for a large, dual-purpose, four-to-five-month apple. It is not priced as a novelty.

Yes. The plant patent was applied for in March 1995 and has long since expired, so Fortune is freely propagated and commercially available from many nurseries — the bulletin said so even in 1995.

Read the faults section first. It is a rewarding tree and a demanding one. We sell fruit, not trees.

The bulletin describes the tree as vigorous and freely branching, with a standard growth type — not a spur type. Rootstock governs the final size.

Notably, it says Fortune performs well on dwarfing stocks, with M.9 favoured by many growers.

The bulletin is refreshingly simple about it: any diploid in the same bloom season. Fortune blooms mid-season, with Red Delicious.

Empire, Gala, Liberty, Honeycrisp or a flowering crabapple will all serve. Avoid triploids such as Mutsu, Jonagold or Shizuka, whose pollen is sterile.

Longer than most. The bulletin warns it may not be as precocious as other varieties like Empire — the Northern Spy habit coming through in milder form.

On a dwarfing rootstock such as M.9, expect three to five years rather than two to four. On anything more vigorous, longer again.

Yes, and disciplined thinning specifically. The bulletin warns twice that it will become alternate bearing if allowed to overcrop.

Thin to one fruit per cluster four to six weeks after bloom. Thinning also raises fruit size — on a variety already described as large to very large, that is a real selling point.

An honest yes-with-conditions.

If you want a tree that mostly looks after itself, plant Liberty instead and buy your Fortunes from us.

Ask us. We grow it, pick it and ship it, and most of what is written about this variety online is nursery marketing copy that omits everything the release bulletin admits.

Contact details and our general handling advice are on the Honeycrisp.com apple FAQ, and the full apple varieties guide puts every apple we grow side by side.