Apple product has improved since jony7/22/2023 When I asked the grower if he thought he could sell 'Gala,' his answer was "I don't know." In the early 1990's several new varieties were attracting attention, such as 'Gala,' followed by 'Braeburn,' 'Akane' and 'Fuji.' I remember the first commercial planting of 'Gala' that I saw in Virginia. It turned out to be a good gamble for him because he had apples before supply satisfied the demand. Don said he had just planted 10 acres of 'Grannys,' but he wasn't sure if Americans would buy green apples. When I was a grad student at Vermont In 1976, I spent a day with Joe Costante, the Vermont tree fruit extension specialist, and Don Heinicke, a USDA researcher, turned grower in Wenatchee. After 'Empire' the next major variety to have an impact on the US apple market was probably 'Granny Smith,' a chance seedling found in Australia in 1868. 'Jonagold' is a good variety from Cornell, but it was more popular in Europe than in the US. We can probably speed that process a little by grafting trees onto dwarfing rootstocks, but evaluating selections is still a lengthy process. Magness described the breeding and evaluation process and concluded that more than 25 years are usually required from the time a cross is made until the progeny of that cross can be adequately tested for commercial planting. The first variety that was widely grown that resulting from a breeding program was probably 'Empire.' In the early 1980s when Ernie Christ and I were discussing new varieties, he told me "Empire is probably the first apple variety from a breeding program to make it big." The original 'Empire' seedling was planted in 1945, and it was not widely grown until the late 1960s. Fred Hough told me that about one in 50,000 apple seedlings is superior to its parents.īy 1970 the most important varieties grown in America were all seedlings selected from the wild 'Delicious', 'Golden Delicious', 'McIntosh', 'Rome Beauty' and 'Winesap' were grown nationally, whereas 'Northern Spy', 'York Imperial', 'Haralson' and 'Melrose were grown regionally. This shows that some desirable varieties are poor parents and it is difficult to produce seedlings with good fruit quality. Many crosses produced no seedlings worthy of further evaluation. The University of Minnesota planted 4,000 seeds of open-pollinated 'Malinda,' and 300 seedlings were retained for evaluation. The most seedlings were obtained from the cross of 'Ben Davis' x 'Jonathan' in Iowa, but only 34 selections were retained for further evaluation. By 1937, 37 apple varieties had been released from American breeding programs, but only a few were widely planted the more important ones included 'Lodi,' 'Macoun,' 'Cortland' and 'Haralson.' Varieties commonly used as parents included 'Ben Davis,' 'Jonathan,' 'McIntosh,' 'Deacon Jones,' 'Northern Spy,' 'Cortland,' 'Oldenberg,' 'Ralls,' 'Rome Beauty', 'Wealthy', 'Winesap,' and 'Wolf River.' From most of these crosses, breeders obtained fewer than 50 seedlings. There were also breeding programs in Czechoslovakia, England, Germany, Sweden, and the USSR. In the early 1900s breeding programs were active at Land-Grant universities in ID, IL, IA, NY, ME, MD, MA, MN, MO, OH, SD, VA and the USDA. apple breeding program was a private program initiated by C.G. Most of these characteristics are still important to apple breeders. John Magness, Director of the USDA's apple and pear breeding programs, described the state of apple breeding in his chapter "Progress in Apple Improvement." According to Magness, the objectives of most early breeding programs included developing varieties with cold hardiness, resistance to diseases and pesticide phytotoxicity, late bloom, and varieties adapted to the south. Until recently, most of our commercial varieties originated as chance seedlings. at least seven varieties were known, and within 200 years the number grew to about 36. While sampling these new varieties and selections, I thought about the changes I have seen in the variety picture during my career and where the industry may be heading in the near future.ĭuring the past two millennia, thousands of superior seedling apple trees have been named and propagated. At the 2018 event, we were able to sample fruit from the Maryland program, the Midwest Apple Improvement Association, and Rob brought some samples from European programs. At that time the new varieties of interest included 'Gala,' 'Fuji,' and 'Honeycrisp.' The apple processors in the region were also interested in evaluating new varieties, and Tara Baugher, Bill Kleiner and I served on a committee with mid-Atlantic apple processors who tested some new varieties for juice, sauce, and slices. In the 1990s several such events were hosted in the mid-Atlantic region.
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