“This study’s estimate of over 250 million M. domestica trees in eastern U.S. forests suggest a resource that might serve as an unintended gene bank of long-forgotten apple cultivars. Some trees will probably be historically documented cultivars not available anywhere else, sought-after but otherwise lost. Known cultivars can be identified among the extant apple trees in abandoned homesteads and orchards, but not all of the grafted trees can yet be assigned to a known cultivar.”
https://www.fs.usda.gov/nrs/pubs/jrnl/2023/nrs_2023_woodall_001.pdf
12 Likes
Interesting article, thanks for sharing.
I have hopes that someday many large, old apple trees will exist on this property and the new owner(s) will wonder where the heck they all came from.
7 Likes
More likely their seedlings.
The article does go into the percentage of dead trees and seedlings. Also the less likely chance of crosses with native crabapple species.
2 Likes
@jerryrva
I read it. The article concerns previously reported data. I interpret it as a pitch for more funded field studies.
I did not see it as a pitch for money. They identified specific states where living older grafted trees are still to be found but not for long. If it attracts someone with the right knowledge to make use of that forest resource then the tax money spent on the study was worth it.
4 Likes
It’s not too hard to scout around and locate historic heritage varieties. I located two this year, the ID is the tough part.
Dennis
Kent, wa
4 Likes
We haven’t heard from him in quite a while but @dbens, one of our membership here, does a lot of work in that area.
3 Likes
Thanks for sharing
It seems the will and the means to genotype and pedigree unknown apples is at an inflection point; this article cites the Dunbar-Wallis (2022) paper where she notes the progression in identifying from watercolor paintings of known cultivars, to the painstaking (and inefficient) “phenotyping” (is it a graft vs seedling, many cultivars are phenotypically similar, need 10 fruit to do this with a huge checklist per tree, only a few people can do this, etc) to microsatellite DNA (but “difficulties such as comparing cultivars between laboratories”) to finally microarrays (which are new and cheap and accurate)…
There is the Historical Fruit Tree Working Group (which the authors of this paper started)
“A shared interest in heirloom apple cultivar identification has brought together apple enthusiasts, ranging from scientists to historians to conservation groups and members of the public. This community (including all authors of this paper) has formed the Historic Fruit Tree Working Group of North America (Video 1). The Working Group’s mission is to facilitate the conservation of fruit tree cultivars in North America through documentation, identification, collaboration, and education.”
I wonder if the Forestry Service is helping build these databases or wants to do it on their own (for more money)
there are also fruit tree hunters outside of this (e.g., Eliza Greenman and also Buzz Ferver from Perfect Circle, etc (In search of lost fruit: the explorers tracking down ancient trees before they are gone for ever | Trees and forests | The Guardian)
WSU has a myfruittree.org program for $50 they will genotype your unknown tree when you send in a leaf or leaves (using the axiom apple 480k array)
The French did a genotyping of their GermPlasm using microarrays and found some interesting things (also using the axiom apple 480k array)
Reinette Franche is a huge founder (parent of King of the Pippins, aka Reine de Reinettes)
Margil is the parent of Cox’s Orange Pippin (not Ribston Pippin)
Braeburn is Delcious x Sturmer’s Pippin
King David is Jonathan x Winesap (not Arkansas Black)
Herefordshire Russet is Cox’s Orange Pippin x Golden Delicious
Wagener = Wagnerapfel
Calville Blanc d’Hiver is Calville Rouge x Reinette Franche
Calville Rouge d’Hiver is Calville Rouge x Reinette Franche
so it appears we are at an inflection point with the will and means to do this in an efficient and relatively cheap way
4 Likes
they dont all make the papers, but yeah there are a couple here for sure!
5 Likes