www.pomiferous.com lists over 7,000
and I have a few that are not on their list.
So, my guess is 7500 does not include many Chinese or Korean apples, and probably quite a few others in lesser aware places on earth. Nor un-named thousands of seedlings at places like University of Minnesota, eastern Europe, and so on.
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There is likely a lot of unnamed cultivars that a lot of people just threw in their back yard to see what would grow. Each apple grows a new cultivar so in theory there could be millions if not trillions of unnamed cultivars. I remember when I was looking for which mulberry people would share stories of crazy mulberry varieties growing in their yard that tasted amazing but they did not know the name of the cultivar or even if there was one. I heard stories of mulberries tasting like a banana.
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Devā¦ looks like you are a new member. Welcome!
Yesā¦ Iāve joined yesterday onlyā¦ thanks
I remember reading about the forests of apple trees in Kazakhstan. Every one of those trees were seedlings, so every one was itās own cultivar. U of MN has a bunch and so does ARS/GRIN. Iāve got 3 or 4 Kazak varieties here.
BBC - Travel - The birthplace of the modern apple
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Yes, Iāve watched several videos on Kazak. apple forests.
I have one numbered Kaz apple, donāt know anything about it until I get fruitā¦and I
have one numbered Chinese apple that is supposedly red fleshedā¦again, hasnāt bloomed or fruited yet, but possibly it might this year. One purchased and one traded for among group.
Itās speculative of course how apples got to Europeā¦but probably through trading routes. Maybe by Romans, but probably by Celtic migrations.
Apples came to Americaā¦perhaps as early as on the Mayflower.
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Red Delicious is still the top cultivar here in India. Possibly as per BrambleberryMeadow:
To give credit where itās due, Red Delicious climbed to fame mostly for traveling well and looking pretty for a long time. It does those things well. Now that our ability to transport and store perishables like apples is much better, there isnāt any need to compromise on flavor, so itās fallen out of favor.
Transport and storage is still an issue here.
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Is the original Delicious apple, called Hawkeye or Hawkeye Delicious here in the US, grown in India? Itās not as attractive as modern Red Delicious, but itās a much tastier apple and well worth trying.
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There were many local apple varieties in India that have gone away. I donāt remember their names but some were quite good ā not as pretty as Red Delicious but way higher eating quality
India still imports a ton of WA grown RD. Maybe domestic growers are now growing them also to capitalize on their popularity. Very unfortunate trend.
They have been growing red delicious here for more than half a century. The imports started recently I think. Indians love there apples red and sweet. Golden Delicious is grown as a pollinizor but never found any market. Now the red stains of gala are doing better.
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