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Appalachian Apple hunter who rescued 1k ‘lost’ varieties (2021)

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Re: Appalachian Apple hunter who rescued 1k ‘lost’ varieties (2021)

#41

Post by throwawaygal7 »

floatrock wrote: post #33
walnutclosefarm wrote: post #13

Although I appreciate the work folks like Tom Brown do, the notion that he has actually rescued 1000 varieties is a bit of a stretch. An apple variety is only really rescued when it has found a home in commerce and some significant consumer base wants it. Otherwise it's just on life support in a museum, and maybe in a few home orchardists' little collections of trees - it's perpetuation still hanging by a thread. In…

> An apple variety is only really rescued when it has found a home in commerce and some significant consumer base wants it. This is such a sad viewpoint on the world when biodiversity is valued only if it is commercially exploitable. See other threads on what "home in commerce" really means: optimizing for transportability and uniformity at the expense of flavor and nutrition. Late to the heirloom party, but this sum…

Saving heirloom apples has zero biodiversity value, or near two it. All domestic apples are extremely inbred and from a one or two cultivars brought to Europe a few hundred years back. The reservoir of apple biodiversity , at least for sylvestris is in its native range where domestic apple cultivation is actively polluting the genome. I think that's like khazakhastan and western china.

Re: Appalachian Apple hunter who rescued 1k ‘lost’ varieties (2021)

#42

Post by nkurz »

walnutclosefarm wrote: post #14
GnarfGnarf wrote: post #6

Ironically, you will never find the best-tasting apples in your local grocery store. The tastiest apples are often smaller, brown or dark skin, not the big red 'juicy' apples the uninformed consumer thinks are the best. Viz. the Red "Delicious", whose flavor was bred out in favor of color and appearance. It is now insipid and flavorless. In the Annapolis Valley of Nova Scotia, the humble-looking Cox Orange is sweet a…

"Bred out" is a bit of a misnomer here. Apples varieties are propagated clonally through grafting. However, each new cloned tree originates from a single twig of a previous tree, and that twig originates from a single cell of the donor tree. Since cell division is not a perfect process, point mutations can accumulate over the generations from this process. In the case of Red Delicious, selections of point mutations (…

> Not my favorite apple of the 30 or so in my orchard

Great answers throughout this thread. But this comment raises the obvious question: then which one is your favorite?

(my answer is usually Wickson Crab: https://www.orangepippin.com/varieties/crab-apples/wickson-c...)

Re: Appalachian Apple hunter who rescued 1k ‘lost’ varieties (2021)

#43

Post by _a_a_a_ »

leipert wrote: post #24

Kind of related: in former Eastern Germany they bred all kinds of new Pear varieties. Pears are a little more finicky than apples and the fruit bruise more easily. Furthermore a lot of the varieties will go bad really quickly, so you basically have to eat them from the tree. Because of those reasons there are just one or two varieties available in stores and there is not a lot of commercial interest in Pears. With th…

As you seem to know something about this, what's an apple/pear hybrid like? I assume they do hybridise. How about pear/quince? That should be an interesting one.

Re: Appalachian Apple hunter who rescued 1k ‘lost’ varieties (2021)

#46

Post by threadweaver34 »

floatrock wrote: post #33
walnutclosefarm wrote: post #13

Although I appreciate the work folks like Tom Brown do, the notion that he has actually rescued 1000 varieties is a bit of a stretch. An apple variety is only really rescued when it has found a home in commerce and some significant consumer base wants it. Otherwise it's just on life support in a museum, and maybe in a few home orchardists' little collections of trees - it's perpetuation still hanging by a thread. In…

> An apple variety is only really rescued when it has found a home in commerce and some significant consumer base wants it. This is such a sad viewpoint on the world when biodiversity is valued only if it is commercially exploitable. See other threads on what "home in commerce" really means: optimizing for transportability and uniformity at the expense of flavor and nutrition. Late to the heirloom party, but this sum…

Tomatoes are the extreme of what's better from a home garden.

Re: Appalachian Apple hunter who rescued 1k ‘lost’ varieties (2021)

#47

Post by bbojan »

floatrock wrote: post #33
walnutclosefarm wrote: post #13

Although I appreciate the work folks like Tom Brown do, the notion that he has actually rescued 1000 varieties is a bit of a stretch. An apple variety is only really rescued when it has found a home in commerce and some significant consumer base wants it. Otherwise it's just on life support in a museum, and maybe in a few home orchardists' little collections of trees - it's perpetuation still hanging by a thread. In…

> An apple variety is only really rescued when it has found a home in commerce and some significant consumer base wants it. This is such a sad viewpoint on the world when biodiversity is valued only if it is commercially exploitable. See other threads on what "home in commerce" really means: optimizing for transportability and uniformity at the expense of flavor and nutrition. Late to the heirloom party, but this sum…

Or as my former colleague put it: I didn't know I liked tomatoes until the first time I traveled to Europe.

Re: Appalachian Apple hunter who rescued 1k ‘lost’ varieties (2021)

#48

Post by bagels »

floatrock wrote: post #33
walnutclosefarm wrote: post #13

Although I appreciate the work folks like Tom Brown do, the notion that he has actually rescued 1000 varieties is a bit of a stretch. An apple variety is only really rescued when it has found a home in commerce and some significant consumer base wants it. Otherwise it's just on life support in a museum, and maybe in a few home orchardists' little collections of trees - it's perpetuation still hanging by a thread. In…

> An apple variety is only really rescued when it has found a home in commerce and some significant consumer base wants it. This is such a sad viewpoint on the world when biodiversity is valued only if it is commercially exploitable. See other threads on what "home in commerce" really means: optimizing for transportability and uniformity at the expense of flavor and nutrition. Late to the heirloom party, but this sum…

Are apples one of those plants that require grafting to be true to type?

Re: Appalachian Apple hunter who rescued 1k ‘lost’ varieties (2021)

#49

Post by RosanaAnaDana »

throwawaygal7 wrote: post #41
floatrock wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> An apple variety is only really rescued when it has found a home in commerce and some significant consumer base wants it. This is such a sad viewpoint on the world when biodiversity is valued only if it is commercially exploitable. See other threads on what "home in commerce" really means: optimizing for transportability and uniformity at the expense of flavor and nutrition. Late to the heirloom party, but this sum…

Saving heirloom apples has zero biodiversity value, or near two it. All domestic apples are extremely inbred and from a one or two cultivars brought to Europe a few hundred years back. The reservoir of apple biodiversity , at least for sylvestris is in its native range where domestic apple cultivation is actively polluting the genome. I think that's like khazakhastan and western china.

To add to this, any seeds from wild pollination will result in new 'varieties'.

It's trivial to regain diversity from this species, and it's not like apple is on the edge of survival.

Re: Appalachian Apple hunter who rescued 1k ‘lost’ varieties (2021)

#50

Post by seszett »

_a_a_a_ wrote: post #43
leipert wrote: post #24

Kind of related: in former Eastern Germany they bred all kinds of new Pear varieties. Pears are a little more finicky than apples and the fruit bruise more easily. Furthermore a lot of the varieties will go bad really quickly, so you basically have to eat them from the tree. Because of those reasons there are just one or two varieties available in stores and there is not a lot of commercial interest in Pears. With th…

As you seem to know something about this, what's an apple/pear hybrid like? I assume they do hybridise. How about pear/quince? That should be an interesting one.

They don't hybridise as far as I know, or don't give anything long-lived.

An interesting hybrid though is x Sorbopyrus, a cross between a pear and sorb tree.

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