Preserving - and even enhancing - genetic diversity among food crops is important for a number of reasons that I won’t list here as I’d probably just be preaching to the choir.
Here’s a suggestion for those of you who discover, develop, or grow fruit plants that display particularly interesting characteristics, are genetically dissimilar to the major existing cultivars, etc.: Unless you have some reason for keeping the material to yourself (e.g., you are seeking to develop cultivars for commercial purposes), why not make a point of seeking to distribute genetic material (e.g., seeds, scions) among participants on this forum and elsewhere?
For example, if you have some of the Kazakhstan apples that made it to the US via the work of the USDA’s facility at Geneva, NY, you could offer seeds collected from the apples or scions from the trees.
As another example, several people here have reported discovering wild apples that show particular resistance to disease or pests while still being good to eat. For example, IIRC, a year or two ago someone in the NE said he’d come across an apple tree with fruit similar to Golden Delicious that appeared to have grown as a chance apple seedling. He said the tree appeared to be free any of diseases and the apples seemed to have most avoided pest attack probably due to being russeted.
Maybe there is more of this already going on than I realize. Even if that’s the case, consider this post as an encouragement to anyone who has access to plants with interesting genetics and isn’t already sharing genetic material to consider doing so.
BTW, if anyone has (or will have) seeds from interesting trees, please feel free to let me know as I might like to try growing them. Likewise, if anyone scions they’d like to share, you are also welcome to tell me. There may still be a window of opportunity to graft scions this spring.
That’s been the mission of the California Rare Fruit Growers Association. It would be nice if someone would organize a similar group on the East Coast and Central USA.
There is also the Facebook group → North American Scion Exchange
Agreed, it would be nice to have such an organization covering the East Coast and central US. However, the organizer won’t be me! (Too many other responsibilities already!)
This year I received scion from all over the USA. I must have had 50 cultivars, I’m still grafting the figs and mulberries. I got them here, and at Ourfigs. Peaches are tough, and I’m not the best grafter, so not everything took, I’ll be asking for more next season. It looks though that I got takes on
Clayton, Gold Dust, Old Mixon Free, Red Skin, Kaweah, Indian Blood Cling, and pf24C. Nectarines looks like I got
Fantasia, Red Gold, and Arctic Jay. It’s possible the scion could still fail, but many I have multiple takes, hoping at least one survive. Others were just grafted last week, so don’t know yet?
Plums are so easy! I added Hollywood, Inca, Howard Miracle, and Rosemary. Well a bunch more too. All obtained here. We already have a nation wide exchange right here.
Thanks to all who traded or gave me scion. I will pay you back in the future, what I have is available to anybody here once grown out.