Golden Delicious

Golden Delicious is one of the world's most recognised apple varieties, originating as a chance seedling in West Virginia, USA and introduced commercially in 1914. It produces medium-sized, smooth, pale golden-yellow fruit with creamy-white, crisp, juicy flesh and a sweet, honeyed flavour that is especially pronounced when tree-ripened. A late-season variety harvesting around May in NZ, it is a prolific, reliable cropper bearing on both tips and spurs. Requires 700 chill hours, so best suited to cooler NZ regions. Self-fertile, though crops improve with a nearby pollinator. Golden Delicious is also one of the most effective pollinators for other apple varieties.