In case you’re interested in growing apple trees from seed, Steven Edholm has some great seeds available – and apparently he just added a few more that weren’t there when I placed an order a few weeks ago!
In case you’re interested in winter-ripening apples, he now has Lady Williams, Pink Parfait, Pomo Sanel, and Winter Blend seeds available.
I bought some. 
I just got my last order properly set up for stratification. But that Pink Parfait OP … 
I know, right?!
For me, it was the Pomo Sanel that made me go, “Must make new order right now! . . . And I’ll add a few seeds of those other three new ones that really interest me, too.”
You see, Pomo Sanel sounds delicious, and I haven’t yet found anyone who has it other than Steven Edholm, and he can’t send out scionwood because its tree has diseases he wants to refrain from spreading.
Ok, I am probably horrible for this, but when I went to read the details on Pomo Sanel, and realized it has banana as a major flavor note, I laughed. Banana for your dessert, it sounds like…
Right?!
I’m hoping to breed a population of banana-flavored apples. The idea tickles me pink.
I went out of my way hunting for My Jewel, which Steven Edholm said has the strongest banana candy flavor out of any variety he’s tried. He isn’t sharing scions of that for the same reason (his tree has diseases he doesn’t want to spread), so I’m thrilled that I found somebody else online who has a tree of it, and was willing to trade me some scions. Very nice of him!
For anyone else wanting to breed banana-flavored apples, here are the ones Steven Edholm has mentioned that often have a banana flavor:
My Jewel
Pomo Sanel
White Winter Pearmain
Maigold
Florina
On top of that, I found some apples of a variety called Opal at a grocery store while I was visiting my mom in Kentucky. Some of them had a mild “banana candy” aftertaste! Nice! So I saved all the seeds from every fruit that did.
My husband didn’t like those apples. He doesn’t like “banana candy” flavors. Neither does Steven Edholm, which is why he isn’t breeding apples that taste like that, which is why I clearly need to! 
Hmm, I’ve tried Opal apples before, and that candy aftertaste is the only reason I don’t like them. Otherwise, they’re a great apple. I guess the benefit of apples being mostly obligate outcrossers is that there’s such a wild variety of flavors and colors available, there are bound to be plenty of perfect combos for everyone!
Steven Edholm keeps complaining that My Jewel has a really, really strong “fake banana candy” aftertaste, so it sounds like your taste buds have similar opinions. 
I personally love the “fake banana candy” taste, so every time he’s tasted My Jewel on the camera, I’ve thought, “Oooh, I’ve got to get that apple variety!”
Well, I got sucked in. I wasn’t going to place another order, but the Pink Parfait got me. So I grabbed the winter-hanging lovelies:
Pink Parfait OP
Lady Williams OP
Winter Blend OP
And then I gave in and decided to get Chestnut OP and Summer Blend OP while I was at it. I have a ton of 1gal pots to play with, so my back yard is probably going to start looking like a nursery here soon…
Ha ha ha ha! Yeah, I originally thought, “When will I ever use all these big pots from purchasing trees?” My summers are so hot and dry that planting things in pots leads to their rapid demise.
Hoiwever, it turns out pots are great for winter sowing perennials that need cold stratification!
I also have a potential idea for how I could use pots in the summer and have things work. If I partway bury big pots deep in mulch right next to drought tolerant trees, I could put water-hungry plants in the pots, and water only the pots. Then “waste” water would flow out into the soil for the drought tolerant trees. That way, water won’t be wasted to evaporation out the bottom. They may work sort of like olla pots!
Maybe strawberries, which seem to want lots of water, belong in pots I treat that way?
Another option is tropical trees I’d have to keep in pots anyway, so that I can bring them indoors for the winter.
I do my strawberries in pots as a strawberry nursery. Or to be more exact in 16 gallon totes as you have a planting rectangle. I grew out new plants last half of 23 and just today finished transplanting them out from their tote into the ground. The totes have a few holes drilled in each end a couple inches off the ground so it stores water but prevents overwatering and any rain flooding by draining out excess water through the holes. The tote lid has the center cut out and tule fabric hot glued in place allowing light, air and water to enter but keeping insects away during the first few months of growth.
Hey Emily, In Ireland we have a native apple cultivar called “ARD CAIRN RUSSET” this has pure tones of Banana about it getting more intense the longer it is kept,
Growing apples from seed, do you know that taking a piece of scion wood from your 1 year seedling and grafting it on a dwarf rootstock will give you fruit of your seedling quicker so you can then value the type of seedling you have.
All the best…Kevin D
Ooh, thanks for the tip! That’s one I hadn’t heard of! I’ve definitely got to try that one.
It looks like it’s a very pretty apple, too.
I wonder if My Jewel might be descended from it? My Jewel looks similar in appearance.
Yeah, I’ve thinking it might be a good idea to cut off a branch from each seedling I get and graft it onto a mature tree, so I can evaluate their fruits in two or three years instead of nine or ten. Pretty awesome way to speed up the process of breeding.
I was curious about proper methods of cleaning and saving apple seeds and came across this skillcult video. This seems like a good place to post it:
Just. Wow.
I really want to get into apple breeding even more now.
I just so happened to go to his site last night and couldn’t resist the seeds…
November, Winter, and Summer blends
Chestnut op
Lady Williams op
King David op (excited about this one!)
Pink Parfait op
Pomo Sanel op
(and some off topic Peshwar white breadseed poppy 
)
Gonna be busy grafting next year if all goes well! 
I crossed my fingers for you! 
I just made my order too.
I tried to get a little bit of everything as to get the most amount of genetic diversity possible.
Everything else was sold out already.
This is brilliant! Now i’m even more excited about getting these seeds. Ill be doing the same!
Hello Emily,
I just bought a scion of Ard Cairn Russet, an Irish apple which is said to also have a banana flavour…I don’t know how well an apple from Ireland could do in your climate, but if you can get it in the US it may be worthy of being added to your project…
What’s awesome is I recently made friends with a couple who have 100 old apple trees on the land they bought. The hubs told me yesterday I could “do whatever I want with the trees, other than cut them down lol.” He’d told me there are “billions” haha of babies growing up around the big trees. After buying those seeds and thinking about it yesterday, I imagine I can dig up or scion and root some of those babies and grow them out and/or use them as root stock for Skillcult’s apple seeds. Apple Hubs also said he’d be fine with me air layering some branches, so I might do a bit of that this spring as well. They want more apple trees too with better edibilty/flavor, so I imagine we can graft mine onto their trees too.
Our friend is working on moving onto their land, and I think it’d be rad if we have a bunch of fruit tree babies and whatnot ready for him when he gets established there. That or start planting the trees while he’s getting himself together so he gets a head start. Yay, community!
I’m definitely interested in that variety! Someone mentioned it to me recently, and I went, “Oooooh” and added it to my list to collect.
(Was it you? Maybe on this thread?)
You’ll have to let me know how it tastes! If it’s delicious, and especially if it’s growing near other apple trees with delicious fruit, make sure to save those seeds.
I don’t believe it was me, I guess I only was reading in this thread, not yet replying, but I will add to this thread soon because I am already in the early stages of an apple breeding project. Funnily enough, my goals for taste are almost directly the opposite of your goals. I like apples with bold tastes, high sugar, high acid…
I bought the Ard Cairn Russet mostly as a curiosity for my partner, who doesn’t like apples at all, citting that they are too sour. It will take some years but when it fruits, I will tell you what he thinks about it!