Can a tree that is triploid produce a sport that is not?
Interesting backstory,
We should all know the story of the Delicious apple concerning how it emerged from a Belleflower stump. I have my own tale.
My Mother in Law had a mystery tree on her place that was quite tasty. Back in 2002 or 2003, I took an apple to a local apple expert, and him and his father looked at it briefly and decided the apple was a Black Twig before tasting it. This particular apple had the signature Winesap shape (V shaped minus the point at the bottom). Both confirmed Black Twig after tasting it with near certainty. Back then, the fruit ripened mid-late Sept.
The tree had been largely neglected over the years due to it being a full size tree that is not grafted. It was overcome with black rot and I cut the tree down in 2021 minus a sprig growing near ground level. It bore in 2024 but was finished producing apples by Labor Day. I noticed the apple shape was a tad different.
2025, circumstances are different. The Yellow D which had been the primary pollinator blew down during the Summer of 2024. There are only three apple trees left. Winsesap, the purported Black Twig, and a young Summer Banana apple tree. There are no other apple trees within about a mile. The Summer Banana shouldâve not had any apples in 2025, but it did. Not many, but the amount one would expect if the only pollinator was a juvi tree. It is clear to me the purported Black Twig is not triploid. Furthermore, the fruit skin on this new apple seems to be thinner, apples more elongated, flavor and texture a little more refined. This is the conclusion after two years of bearing.
Are you certain the stump regrowth was not from a seedling rootstock?
Side note: The âDeliciousâ apple (really âHawkeyeâ) was not a stump sprout from âBellflower.â It was an unwanted seedling that popped up and was then cut down a couple times before finally being allowed to grow. âYellow Bellflowerâ is credited as being one of the likely parents based on that variety having some similar characteristics and also being present in the orchard where the new seedling popped up.
It seems to me that if the experts identified your tree as Black Twig, that that means that your tree originally must have been grafted. There simply is no other way to get a tree of a known cultivar.
That means that when you cut it down it regrew a new branch from the original rootstock, which was not Black Twig, but probably a seedling apple.
And that means pollination happened just naturally between the seedling apple and Summer Banana.
I did receive an opinion from a geneticist through an intermediary. The aforementioned intermediary works at the University of Kentucky. The geneticist asserts triploid trees are highly stable, and while a variant sport is possible, but very unlikely.
Concerning the propagation question, the tree has quite a history. It was propagated in 1976 by root sucker. It was blown down during hurricane Hugo in 1989. Another root sucker was selected to continue. The tree was IDed as a Black Twig in 2002. I sawed the tree down in 2020 due to black rot spreading through the limbs and as stated earlier, preserved an existing sprig that had attained some size from the trunk.
The parent tree planted in the 1940s was probably grafted on a Russian full-size rootstock. The man who planted the parent tree was dyslexic and illiterate and probably did not give a flappy damn about graft union depth planting instructions and probably buried the union for the purpose of propagating. I did have an experience with a rootstock tree that was purportedly a Horse apple. It was a very early apple of related to a Yellow Transparent/Lodi type apple.
Summer Banana apples were propagated by root at the same farm in 1976 and they are true Summer Banana apples. Summer Banana trees on their own roots produce 2x more root suckers than M111 rootstock. It stands to reason if the graft union on a grafted tree is buried 2 inches, one will end up 20 suckers that are all Summer Banana.
Iâve arrived at the conclusion the tree is not triploid, and probably never was. We will probably never know if the Paragon was truly different than the Black Twig and whether or not the purported twin of different origins was triploid or not.
The business of labeling heirloom apples with no distinct features is messy. Apple explorers have done great work, but their work is not always accurate. The folks at Horne Creek in NC have discovered some interesting facts concerning names and apples. If you are feeling the need to geek, review the Big Horse Crk website pics of the Red Rebel and the Kinnairds Choice. Recent DNA tests of these two varieties at Horne creek suggest these two are the same. This does not mean there is no Red Rebel apple, it just means the one provided to Horne is really a Kinnairdâs Choice. I should add itâs a great apple.
Iâd take that with a grain of salt as far as whether or not this tree is own root. Itâs not uncommon for people to dig up root suckers from apple trees and graft onto them, so it could still be a grafted tree.
My mother in law was the one who planted the tree in 1976 at her new home site. She did not graft it. End of story. She had a sizeable collection of full-grown trees propagated by root suckers.
My MILâs eldest sister was the apple explorer of the family. She would purchase trees, share root suckers with the rest of the family. Only one given to my MIL emerged as a rootstock variety.
It sounds like she may have built up a collection of trees of her own personal curation so they might not even be varieties that were ever named. With the abundance of seedling apple trees all over the country, and the fact that she was able to reproduce them true to type from root suckers, she may have actually been propagating off of superior feral trees she found rather than from named varieties. That could explain why itâs been so hard to match them up to known cultivars.
No. You make the assumption the graft unions were above ground when the original trees were planted.
Two varieties were retained on this homestead. The other variety was a Summer Banana and this particular variety is very distinct, and matches every single detail mentioned in David Vernonâs description.
Deviant sports happen. Some are quite dramatic. The Bartlett Red Max pear discovered as a bud sport on a Bartlett, and sold by now defunct Millers Nursery, and was a real humdinger. My father grew the Red Max and I own a Bartlett. The Red Max has zero similarity to the Bartlett. The Bartlett Red Max has red leaf stems, solid burgundy color with no green. The flesh was smooth as velvet and dripping with juice. The flavor was heavenly sweet and rich.
That all being said, I was just informed by Dongyun Lee of WSU the tests do not detect sports. This is a huge issue that cannot be ignored given the amount of apple varieties that are derived from sports. This will likely cause absolute chaos. This could explain why the Turley Winesap, Red Royal Limbertwig, Myers Royal Limbertwig DNA results at Horne Creek came back as the same apple.