Interesting reading?

General Fruit Growing
1

I have a small Olga Crabapple tree in my nursery bed that is from USDA wood grafted on an interstem root (Bud9/M111). I was planning to move a few trees to my small sunny patch and was considering the Olga as one of them, so I started Googling for more information and came up with almost nothing, except for one publication I found particularly interesting - a 1927 report from the Agricultural Experiment Station of the South Dakota State College of Agricultural and Mechanical Arts, which is now known as South Dakota State University.

It is a pretty detailed report of plant introductions they made from 1895-1927, including background on general trends for the region, etc. What made it interesting for me was the little snapshot from the past, the different varieties they thought were promising, issues growers faced etc. It even made me start googling for a few of the other listed varieties to see a what’s become of them.

I thought others might find it an interesting winter distraction, so here is the link:
http://openprairie.sdstate.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1223&context=agexperimentsta_bulletins
Be advised this is a PDF file (a scan of the original with torn pages and all) and your browser may ask you to download it or launch it in a new window depending on your browser.

I think Olga will get her place in the sun. What’s not to like?
"Flesh is yellowish white, crisp, juicy, acid, of good quality. Red core outline in flesh. Very good to eat raw as it mellows. The fruit cooks up very quickly, as easily as the Duchess (parent) apple itself, and the sauce is of an attractive deep salmon red. "

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Absolutely love the idea of saving the old genetic material. Several of us Iowans here are looking about for old Ia. State introductions.

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That was a good read, thanks for posting. It’s easy to forget just how important a few good crabapple trees were to every homestead. I’ve been more interested in planting a crabapple, just need to make a choice. So many trees in that article have been lost to time, a real shame. It surprised me how interested they were in the sand cherry, and was good to see they worked with our native plum. I’m short on space, but this year I’ll add a crabapple, a few native plums, and just one more apple. I enjoy the old papers, again thanks for sharing that one!

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