So have you compared the Milam and Red Winter Pearmain together, side by side and tasted together? If so do you think they are the same apple?
I have a Red Winter Pearmain from Trees of Antiquity. It has only produced a few apples, so far. They were on the smaller size.
The original Winesap. Not the later mutations/seedlings.
Iâd be curious to know how you know that with certainty?
A âmutationâ (bud mutation/sport/bud sport) would still be the same tree, the same DNA (fingerprint), just expressed in a way for the limb and/or fruit to be different.
A âseedlingâ would be a child tree, with typically the âmotherâ known but perhaps not the father. So anyway, an entirely new and unique tree with itâs own characteristics.. Even if there are notable similarities to one of itâs parents, itâs still new and unique.
Regarding Winesap:
Pomiferous has a lot of synonyms for it.. They also have text indicating it was discovered in the early 1800âs. Interestingly they say itâs a Triploid yet what MyFruitTree DNA sequenced and know as Winesap is not.
So will we ever know the full and accurate story on Winesap? HmmâŚ
Similarly I grow multiple Stayman trees, intentionally grafting scions from multiple people just to be certain I got the real thing. Theyâre all identical so at least none of those folks likely had mislabels⌠Anyway, I assume itâs the original as discovered by Dr. Stayman in the 1860âs.. But then is it? Iâm also growing an âOld Staymanâ some local orchardist made available at a county extension grafting class. Pomiferous lists an âOld Timey Staymanâ but have no details for. So is it what was originally discovered and what most folks know as Stayman today a sport of it? The âOld Staymanâ is similar but doesnât taste as good. So if I had been growing it and a sport formed that tasted like the current Stayman, Iâd certainly have propagated it instead!
Winesap preceded Stayman by 54 years and came from New Jersey. Winesap{OG} was well established in the east coast Nursery trade long before the civil war. And remains fairly popular.
I prefer the versions of Winesap and Stayman that please me the most.
The Paragon apple met its demise locally because it wasnât as desirable as the Black Twig.
Crappy apples just need to be gone like toe nail clippings, not curated.
My Stayman example was only to point out that it can sometimes be difficult to be certain.. That a tree weâre growing, with a particular name we attribute to it.. Is indeed genetically the same tree originally discovered and given that name.
You said youâre growing the original Winesap. I donât doubt that at all.. But would simply be curious to know how you can trace it to that original ~1800 tree.. And know for certain itâs not a sport or perhaps an entirely different tree someone called âWinesapâ.
They are most certainly not the same, which is why I prefer to refer to Stayman as just that âStaymanâ. As opposed to âStaymanâs Winesapâ. It is a âchildâ of Winesap, with an as yet unknown father (pollen donor) tree:
I grafted numerous varieties/cultivars initially, in hopes of finding at least a few that we really liked. Iâm just about to the point of culling ones which donât make the grade.. Iâd only keep Old Stayman, Stayman, and Snapp Stayman growing as a tree or a limb simply because itâs been my favorite apple for many years. Anything else, if itâs not outstanding.. Is liable to get the axe.
I found an old thread here. And what my buddy grows looks exactly like the picture Scott posted toward the thread end. They are small to medium, mostly red but not all. And yes the flavor is sprightly and fairly aromatic.
MyFruitTree at least DNA sequenced a Diploid âWinesapâ.. Hopefully that means itâs the original and not a sport or an entirely unique seedling of it.
Their extra comment about various seedlings (children) of it âinheriting the entire genome ofâ is interesting.. Would love to hear some expanded commentary from them on what that means.
Anyway, all âWinesapâ Iâve found and tried have been somewhat small and usually more green than red. So likely not the same as what youâre describing which are apparently much better as well!
I note Horne Creek altered their descriptions of questionable ascensions to âGenetically Identical toâ.
But in one case I may have made a case on OFLT. As it now reads: May be a sport or seedling of Red Limbertwig or visa versa. More testing required. I guess they concur OFLT does have a number of differences in their experiences.
Their extra comment about various seedlings (children) of it âinheriting the entire genome ofâ is interesting.. Would love to hear some expanded commentary from them on what that means.
Yes, more commentary needed for sure.
The Winesap I grow would be best described as medium. Some are larger than medium, some smaller. Iâve seen OF Winesaps on Tom Brownâs and Horne Creek displays. They are more green than red and greener than mine. My WS is not nearly as red as the VA Winesap.
Iâm of the opinion a tree can have sterile or very poor pollen and still be diploid. The reasons why may have yet to be discovered.
I donât give a rip about second rate apples, or old apples just because theyâre old, but this caught my eyeâŚ
So in the accessory page of myfruittree, there is a Hall apple and AHCR or Horne Creek submitted a sample that came back as a Red Limbertwig x Red Delicious.
The timeline in the description is interesting, lol.
One of the greatest finds in recent memory, Hall is one of the finest old Southern apples ever grown. It originated sometime from the late 1700âs to the early 1800âs on the farm of a Mr. Hall of Franklin County, North Carolina. It is believed that Magnum Bonum, another fine old Southern variety, was grown from seeds of Hall in 1828. Although it is an outstanding apple with exquisite flavor and great keeping ability, Hall fell from favor due to its small size which could not compete with the publicâs bias toward large apples. Credit and recognition must be given to the venerable apple hunter and collector, Tom Brown of Clemmons, NC, who rediscovered Hall in the mountains of North Carolina in the summer of 2002. Fruit is small and roundish to slightly conical in shape. Skin is smooth and thick, yellow covered with clear or dull red. The yellow flesh is is a good ketender, juicy, fine-grained, aromatic with a terrific flavor with hints of vanilla. Ripens late fall and keeper.
The Delicious apple was conceived in the 1870s.
Well I have a Hall apple I just grafted this spring from Big Horse Creek Farm so this makes me even more excited about it if it has Limbertwig DNAâŚ.that is of course if it is the same âHallâ as the one submitted. We can never be too sure about anything in the world of apples.
Looks like MyFruitTree have DNA sequenced two different trees identified as âHallâ so far. These are on the âAccessory Profiles with cultivar names but insufficient confidence in identity of DNA profile for Reference Panel inclusionâ spreadsheet tab:
Both have Delicious as one parent and one indeed has Red Limbertwig as the other parent.
FWIW they also indicate that both parents of Magnum Bonum are as of yet unknown to them:
There is a possiblity the second contributor (HAWC) ordered a simple test and didnât pick of the Red LT.
AHCR is Horne Creek. Full test.
I donât look at that as a contradiction from the standpoint of genetics.
I do wonder if the stories are correct particularly dates of origin.
Unless an apple variety was sold at nurseries, I have a hard time believing local seedlings would leave the county.
Iâm wondering if Century Farm and Horne Creek actually have the true Jim Kell or if itâs mislabeled like the Hollow Log I got.
I think it is less stories; but the very detailed Pomology and Nursery trade documents that question the trees tested. Or perhaps if the âfoundâ tree was correctly identified.
I am not sure. I am going to order Jim Kell from TOC; and Hollow Log from Hocking Hills this season.
I had a friend plant Hall in his orchard here years ago and itâs an all around dud here: dwarfed; stunted; meh apples. Good soil in his orchard; a dozen other varieties thriving.
I reached out to Cameron Peace (WSU MyFruitTree Project) with a few questions recently⌠He had some interesting and hopefully valuable insights.
It was recently mentioned how ploidy can increase in a sport, he states that that is unlikely to actually happen though. He seems more inclined to think that itâs naming confusion.. Like Winesap (diploid) and Staymanâs Winesap (triploid) which people have often used as if theyâre synonyms. Which theyâre not, Winesap is the likely maternal parent of Stayman. I didnât specifically ask about the comment on their spreadsheet âhave the Winesap genome completely inside themâ and would like to know more about what that means. Like is it describing an uncommon phenomenon?
The two âHallâ apples are on the Accessory Profile because the confidence isnât high enough yet to say which one is the true Hall. Both were âsimple DNAâ ($50?) tests.
Iâll just straight copy/paste this part:
Both Simple and Full testing provide definitive identity. For new DNA profiles, the Simple test identifies probable parent-child relationships (as opposed to Simple tests revealing identity for a DNA profiles that we already have definitive parentage for, in which case the identity determined means the associated parentage is also definitive). The Full testing identifies definitive parent-child relationships. For one or both parents that the Full test does not detect (because the parents are not in our dataset), the Full test information can jump the missing generation to identify probable grandparentage or at least general pedigree position.
Anyway, interestingâŚ
Itâs good to know both were simple tests.
The four letter code located in the accessory panel signifies who submitted the sample. That is the ID code. Iâm 98 percent sure AHCR is Horne Creek and ASSE is Seed Savers. I was told by management Horne Creekâs tests were full tests. This obviously contradicts what Iâve been told and Iâm not happy at all about this.
I will reach out to Dr. Peace to find exactly what kind of tests Horne Creek is ordering up. If itâs discovered theyâre doing simple tests, their endeavoring is a joke.
The simple test
Washington State Universityâs âSimple Testâ for apple DNA fingerprinting analyzes 48 hand-picked SNP (single nucleotide polymorphism) markers. These markers are used to profile the treeâs DNA and match it against WSUâs extensive reference database to identify the specific cultivar. [1, [2]
That is approximately .1% of the genome.
This year, I have ordered full tests Summer Banana, Royal Limbertwig, Dixie Red Delight, Virgina Sweet.
