That was an interesting discussion. And I noted that two of my favorites, Wealthy and Haralson, were among the most frequently found cultivars. Nice article.
This is another article with faulty laboratory hardware and mathematical methods. Basically, universities and government repositories were sold a bill of goods by lab equipment companies over the past 30 years, and additionally the biology community has held false beliefs about the mathematical analysis of genomic data for half a century.
Maybe this will help:
The attempts to determine plant relationships by PCR assay of âmarkersâ is like trying to determine telephone networks from satellite photos.
Hey! I resemble that remark. I spent 41 years designing and building telephone networks. I know where all the bodies are buried.
Most interesting statements in the article are about the unidentified varieties. How many âlostâ apple varieties are now found if we just knew the name they were distributed under.
Iâm wondering how they found âHaralson,â an apple developed during the 1920âs on 19th century homesteads.
I had heard about this research at the time and failed to understand the real significance of it. I was told that they were hoping to find âuniquelyâ WY apples, but the person who told me that might have been misinformed. Yes, apples grown on standard rootstock are drought resistant and can live an impressively long time. WY is very dry and wonât have the same disease pressures as many locations (e.g., very old American elms remain quite healthy on the western edge of their native range due to the drier conditions), so what did this research establish that helps? I would expect any disease resistant variety on standard rootstock to survive in WY⌠not that growing an apple (or even a human) in WY is recommended. Maybe they were hoping to find some long lost variety, and in that respect, it would be a noble effort. Maybe they were hoping for that.