beech hill bittersweet

Beech Hill Bittersweet is a very large, old, wide-spreading seedling tree located at Beech Hill Farm on Mount Desert Island, ME. The tree and the farm are owned by College of the Atlantic. Our DNA profile (AMHO 409) shows it to be a child of the famous historic French cider cultivar, Bedan. In all likelihood, the tree is an ungrafted rootstock imported from Normandy in the late 19th century. Apparently there was a vibrant rootstock industry in northern France, and large quantities of seedling rootstocks were propagated from the pomace at the cider mills and shipped to the states. The small-medium sized, red-blushed, russeted, roundish fruit is mildly bitter, low in acid and should be good candidate for cider. The tree leafs out extremely late—one of the last in the orchard. We obtained our wood from the original tree at Beech Hill Farm. Currently growing at Super Chilly Farm.