Jonathan was 1 of only 2 varieties I had to fruit this year. Well 3 if you count Wolf River that the coons got all of. But then it’s a young orchard, just coming into bearing, and the late freeze put a damper on that.
They were better than I remembered, been a lot of years since I’d eaten one though. Somewhat similar to Stayman which is the 3rd tree I got fruit from this year. I’ll be thrilled to discover better tasting apples in the years to come. But for now, it remains the one we buy a few bushel of and eat all winter long.
Never had an Evercrisp, will have to find some. Like Crimson Crisp very well. King David gets a big thumbs up. I’d reach for these before Honeycrisp if given a choice. Cosmic Crisp I like better than Honeycrisp though, wouldn’t mind a scion of and see how they’d do here (yeah I know, not gonna happen any time soon).
Had some excellent locally grown Golden Delicious this year. Had some Idared for the first time this year as well. Interesting taste, I’m not good at describing, but I liked it and I didn’t like it if that makes sense.
Even though I’m trying my hand at growing a lot of varieties, I’m happy to have 2 year-round “fruit stands” within 10 minutes of me. Each of which carry (at least somewhat) more than those standard “grocery store” varieties.
So what is the legal and or moral proscription to having scions from a tree in Washington being sent out of Wadhington, NOT FOR COMMERCIAL PURPOSES but just between us home growers
I’m pretty sure it’s illegal. So long as cosmic crisp apples are being made available for sale, stealing germstock doesn’t feel moral to me. (I am generally comfortable violating IP law when the owner is hoarding, but not when they are selling the product.) Your moral calculus may be different from mine, though
The odds of being caught seem low, so long as you use it yourself and don’t try to sell any.
You cannot legally propagate CC while the patent is in force and this includes scions. I’m not sure if they can prevent someone buying a tree in Washington and then driving it across the state border. The only way to stop this would be for the nursery to check drivers licenses.
You should also be able to ‘gift’ a whole tree to someone as it’s not propagating the material any further. ‘Used’ whole trees should also be able to be legally sold in informal markets (ie person to person). The difference here is there is no propagation of plant material, just a transfer of a legally purchased tree.
Edit: I have no desire for this variety as I was not particularly impressed with the apple. I will try again this year to see if I can get a better quality example.
If that is true, I wonder why their refusal to sell even single trees to out of state growers. I understand banning the sale of hundreds of trees to one buyer but individual trees are also not allowed.
They are trying their best to preserve the varietal name. They fear that commercial growers out of state may dilute the name. Perhaps the tree does best with lots of chill and they do not want sub-par fruit produced in low chill areas. I can see that as I’m trying to grow a Honeycrisp with less than 200 hours of chill each winter. It’s not going well and the tree is coming out this winter.
Unless there is a state law preventing the export of the tree, i do not see how they can legally prevent the transfer of small numbers of trees out of state. If they did try to pass such a law, I imagine it would get struck down in Federal courts as it violates Congress’s right to regulate interstate commerce.
the patent protection extends to controlling use of the plant. so I think they could go after someone exporting a whole licensed tree from washington:
“…protects the patent owner’s right to exclude others from asexually reproducing the plant, and from using, offering for sale, or selling the plant so reproduced, or any of its parts, throughout the United States, or from importing the plant so reproduced, or any part thereof, into the United States. This protection is limited to a plant in its ordinary meaning:”
personally I’m curious about it for the willamette valley in oregon since it does have scab resistance (from the enterprise parent) and my family likes the apple. and I don’t think they give a damn about backyard growers especially since this thing is going to be the new red delicious with incredible volume. so I wouldn’t lose a minute of sleep if I ended up with a tree tagged “wa 38” somehow
You could be right, but I think that this is the key phrase - “so reproduced” They are prohibiting propagation. If you bought a legal tree from a licensed nursery and later give it away to someone out of state, as long as it was not resold you should be in the clear. Even reselling ‘used’ trees would probably be ok.
From your link: “Grant of a plant patent precludes others from asexually reproducing, selling, offering for sale, or using the patented plant or any of its parts in the United States or importing them into the United States.” This may preclude anyone that is not a licensed nursery from reselling the CC tree.
CAVEAT: I am not a lawyer. If someone were to do this and get arrested, do not look at me as I know nothink!
Who obeys the 10 Commandments?
Who obeys the speed limits?
The only deterrent is when a police cruizer is sitting beside the road with a radar gun.
So it is with apples.
And the threat of getting caught scares many a tax cheat into reporting things he might well get away with. (Which is why around the first of February all leading newspapers and even ‘fake news’ carry a big hairy story or two about someone going to prison or having their business confiscated by the IRS.)
I was wondering about this as well. Nobody was required to sign a contract to purchase the tree, so what is there to enforce? If you buy a tree that was legally propagated, I don’t see how they could stop you from gifting it to somebody. Unless it is illegal to ship plants from WA to your state, who is going to stop you?
You may be required to be a resident of a state to purchase a firearm, but you can still transfer it to another state if it is legal there.
I grow Idared and my tree is very prolific.They are very good tasting apples and also very crisp as well. It is a very good all purpose apple for me here.
I believe that means you can not use the plant unless it was legally propagated. Once you own it, it is yours to use as you see fit. Acme Hammer Co can not dictate what sort of things I may pound with my hammer, unless they own it, and I am leasing the hammer. They would have to force every buyer to sign a contract limiting their use of the tree.
Where does it end? Can a California vineyard make it illegal to gift a bottle of their wine to a friend in New York? I totally understand how they can limit sales to state residents, and prohibit sales of the trees and fruit. I don’t understand how they can prevent me from leaving the state with my tree.
yeah, sorry, I quoted the wrong part and JCT quoted the right part. “Grant of a plant patent precludes others from asexually reproducing, selling, offering for sale, or using the patented plant or any of its parts in the United States or importing them into the United States.”
how is this different from a hammer? plant patents are separate from patents that cover hammers
where does it end? the article addresses that also, "This protection is limited to a plant in its ordinary meaning:
A living plant organism…"
so fruit or juice wouldn’t be covered
as for whether or not this is right or just… I’ll just note that invention protection was a founding principle of the united states and is included as something the us federal government should regulate, Copyright Clause - Wikipedia
and yeah it’s a little weird to apply it to living things, but it does seem to help encourage large scale breeding efforts if you can count on this sort of protection vs. if you can’t. we’re happily living in a time when a great number of varieties are exiting patent protection every year, so the system seems to be working as intended. just for example, flavor grenade pluot expired this year:
Plant patents just cover propagation/reproduction of the cultivar. In the paragraph, “Grant of a plant patent precludes others from asexually reproducing, selling, offering for sale, or using the patented plant or any of its parts in the United States or importing them into the United States”, the phrase, “or using the patented plant” refers to the use of the patented plant which was asexually reproduced without permission of the patent holder.
There is no regulation or authority given by U.S. patent law to dictate use of a patented cultivar, except when it comes to reproduction.
Keep in mind the owner of the “intellectual property” (i.e. patent) can also place additional requirements on the nursery which sells the trees, and/or on the grower who ultimately receives them, via a contract.
This is the case with Cosmic Crisp. Since the Washington State University developed the apple (with taxpayer dollars from Washington state) and since millions of dollars spent from WSU to promote the apple, those folks don’t want out-of-staters getting the benefit, at the cost of Washington taxpayer dollars.
My guess is that if you buy a Cosmic Crisp from Raintree, they could have you sign an agreement that you won’t plant the tree out of state. If they don’t make you sign an agreement, you’re in the clear to grow it anywhere. They may not make you sign an agreement for one tree, as it’s such a small deal, they aren’t worried about where you will grow it. It would still be illegal to propagate that variety though, because that would still be restricted under U.S. plant patent law.
They should just make links to make it easy for people who acquire certain trees to pay the proper royalties. I think most people would like to support the innovators and feel there is a better way to protect club brands while still allowing home owners the joy of growing them. They could still control the sale of these club trees commercially, restriction is probably not the most realistic way to approach things.
As the license fee per tree is probably only on the order of a dollar or so, it doesn’t make much sense for the patent holder to try and collect from individuals who want to propagate the trees on their own. It’d cost them more to process each payment.
They get their money from the large agricultural concerns who are propagating tens of thousands of trees and from the commercial nurseries who propagate thousands of trees. Us little guys aren’t worth it, but to stop wholesale spread of their patented trees, it’s easier and cheaper just to ban it entirely and make everyone buy from a commercial nursery.