Redstar Apple (Spring 2027)

This is our first year growing Redstar, so everything below is secondhand until we get more long-term data from our own mother trees.

Overview

Redstar is a big, sweet, crisp red eating apple that has proven itself in Fairbanks, Alaska. Steve Masterman at Alaska Fruit Trees calls it "a real joy to eat."

Origin and History

Nobody knows exactly where Redstar came from. It was named by Clair Lammers of Fairbanks, and Steve points out that it may well be a known variety under another name somewhere else. In Fairbanks, it's Redstar.

Fruit and Uses

According to Alaska Fruit Trees, the fruit is large (up to 3½ inches), red, juicy, sweet and crisp, "an excellent eating apple." It ripens in late August in their Fairbanks orchard. We don't know yet when it'll ripen here, and we don't have storage notes.

Growth Habit and Spacing

Ours are grafted on Dolgo full size rootstock, so give it room. Plan on 18 to 20 feet between trees, or tighter if you're committed to pruning every year. Be patient with it. Steve's tree was seven years old before it set fruit. Once it gets going, he says it's a steady annual bearer that sets heavily and needs thinning.

Pollination

Redstar needs a pollenizer. We're estimating it blooms mid-season, so pair it with something hardy in that window, like Haralson, Kerr, Trailman, Goodland, Frostbite or Otterson crab.

Cold Hardiness

Steve reports no tip dieback down to -40F. It did take significant dieback in one particularly harsh spring (2013) that killed a quarter of the trees in his orchard, but it came back and is fruiting again. He lists it with his zone 3 or colder apples and figures it's probably a bit hardier than that, since his orchard sits right on the zone 2/3 line. The documented number is -40F without injury. We'll update this once we have our own winter data.

About the photo: this isn’t Redstar itself. Photos of Redstar are either under copyright or simply unavailable, so we picked the open-source image that looks closest to the fruit. Photo: “Fresh ripe apples on a tree (54015357813)” by AS Photography from Poland, via Wikimedia Commons, licensed CC BY 4.0.