Malus, Flowering Crabapple 'Maypole'

I have planted several of these over the last 18 years. One of these trees is now over 15 feet tall and has a trunk diameter over 5 inche...Read Mores across. These trees have had no disease problems and only require spraying to get perfect fruit.
The flowers are always very showy, and the fruit is red and up to 2 inches across. The fruit is very abundant with older trees and can be a minor inconvenience in high traffic areas(such as by patios) if it is not used. I would highly recommend this tree, but without pruning it will get much taller than ten feet over time. This tree has required no care at all once established, and without pruning it will develop multiple trunks but still have a fairly narrow columnar habit-the one that is over 15 feet tall is still only about five feet wide at it's widest and has three main trunks from about 4 feet up. Overall a great tree which has had no disease problems in my central Ohio location, which keeps it's burgundy foliage all season, and which nearly always has a beautiful pink flowering followed by abundant fruit.

My Maypole has been a delight ever since it was set out around May 1, 2007, but I do have a question about the fruit. The tree lives in ...Read MoreAtlanta, GA and begins leafing out near the beginning of March and has flowers by the end of March. Around the first of August, the fruit begins to fall from my tree. This seems a little early for it to be ripe, doesn't it? My source for the tree tells me, "When picking, just lift them upward quickly. If they’re ready, they will come loose without damage to the tree." Also, I'm told, the seeds will turn from white to brown. If I knew they were ripe, I'd pick the ones left on the tree and make jelly, perhaps. However, I do not know how to test whether the apples are ripe (I cannot do a taste test), at least not in any "noninvasive" way. Perhaps I must sacrifice a few to find out.