Wickson Crabapple

Overview

Wickson Crabapple is a high-sugar, high-acid Malus fruit prized for intense flavor and for adding structure to cider blends. It’s widely used as a “booster” fruit because it can raise both perceived brightness and fermentable sugars in blends, and it’s also valued for kitchen. Our friends at Western Cider in Missoula have brewed a killer Wickson varietal cider, and often use it in their blends to offer flavor complexity.

Origin & History

Wickson is an Albert Etter introduction from Humboldt County, California, generally reported as introduced in 1944 and named in honor of E. J. Wickson, a prominent California horticultural figure. Its parentage is commonly repeated as Newtown Pippin and Esopus Spitzenburg, but the historical paperwork is described as confusing/unclear in multiple sources; the safest accurate phrasing is that it is often cited as a Newtown Pippin × Esopus Spitzenburg-type cross, with parentage not perfectly documented.

Fruit & Uses

The fruit is small (crabapple-sized to “large crab” sized depending on grower and climate) and is known for unusually high sugar paired with strong acidity. That combination makes it especially valuable for hard cider and juice blending, and it is also commonly used where high pectin is beneficial (jellies/jams). In terms of the flavor for fresh eating, here are unedited taste notes from Luke when he tried the fruit fresh on 10/2/25 on Missoula, MT:

"Intense. Delicious and very bright and fruity. Slight citrus, melon, hints of raspberry and strawberry. Tangy with some nice sweetness. Mild astringency about 15 seconds after eating."

The fruit ripens in Missoula end of Sept./Early Oct. so it is fairly late for us in Missoula. Likely would not ripen in time in shorter growing season, such as parts of Alaska, even if it did survive into the -40Fs (we're not sure if it can, see 'Cold Hardiness' below).

Growth Habit

Wickson is vigorous and productive, with abundant bloom and strong annual bearing in nursery descriptions. It is also  a good pollenizer for other apples/crabapples because of heavy bloom and viable pollen.

Spacing

We offer Wickson on Bud 118 semi-dwarf. Bud 118 is a vigorous, cold-hardy semi-dwarf rootstock which is noted as semi-standard in the literature, but our experience growing it in Montana is that it is more so a semi-dwarf. Perhaps in warmer climate/longer growing season/deeper and less dry/alkaline soils that it would behave more as a semi-standard. Aim for 15 ft. in MT and perhaps further apart in better growing conditions

Pollination

Like most Malus species, Wickson is not self-fertile and needs a pollenizer. It is diploid and fertile, and examples of pollenizers for Wickson that we offer include: Centennial, Hewe's Virginia, Honeycrisp, Liberty, Newtown Pippin, William's Pride, Zestar!, Snowsweet, Spartan, and Wolf River

Cold hardiness

Wickson is commonly listed as a Zone 3. In our experience in Montana, Wickson withstood -38°F in Corvallis, MT from a 1/13/24 polar front, without any winter injury. Whether Wickson can withstand temperatures lower than this is likely, but how much lower we do not know. In order to be conservative, we are listing Wickson as a solid zone 3a.

Other Notes

Wickson has a long-running “identity confusion” history in fruit circles (it has been mis-sold under other names in some contexts), so sourcing true-to-type material matters if someone is collecting it for cider work. On disease: sources describe it as very slightly susceptible to fire blight, scab, and cedar-apple rust (not a “disease-resistant” crabapple), so good airflow, balanced fertility, and standard sanitation practices are the right management frame rather than promising resistance.