I think it would be great to have a type of grower dedicated to growing seedlings from seeds sent to them by other backyard orchardists. For instance, there could be someone dedicated to trialing cold hardy plums. Others could send them a bunch of cold hardy plum seeds (ex: Toka) that were potentially pollinated by a wide variety of Japanese, American, or Myrobalan-cross plums. It wouldn’t take much space to grow hundreds, or thousands of seedlings big enough to get some scion wood from. I would think you could get a few cuttings in a year or two. The scions could be grafted onto a mature tree, or even sent to others to graft onto their trees for trial. I think this would be the fastest way to trial fruit from seedlings, rather than letting them grow to fruiting size, but I could be wrong. Just brainstorming.
Right now I have a moderate amount of varieties, but I recently got scions from some rare Ukrainian plum varieties. I would love to eventually cross them with other cold hardy varieties like Toka, generic Prunus Americana, Shiro, etc… Unfortunately, I have a bad habit of taking on more than I can handle and end up doing everything with only about 60% of the ideal effort. However, I could easily send seeds to someone else dedicated to trialing seedlings.
As an aside, here is a list of the Ukrainian varieties I have bench grafted this year. (Not 100% sure they will take yet.)
Kirhizka
D-7413
Honey like (medova)
Alonushka
Eldorado
Peach like (persikova)
Hertsoh large
Ochakivska yellow
Vilora
Any chance anyone knows anything about these varieties? I found info on a few of them, but I have to translate the web pages and the info is spotty. I’m not even sure I’m spelling the names correctly.
The masses aren’t raising survival food as might have been the case 175 years or more ago…
anything resembling John Chapman might be happening in jujubes or honeyberries on a very limited front…but not like apples in the 17-19th centuries.
I’m planning on doing this with plums, apricots and maybe peaches in Western Oregon. We have great weather for most of the season, we just need to get past bloom and we’re golden, we even used to be a huge prune producing region. I’m trying to get a lot of Eastern European diploid plums to breed with larger American bred plums and pluots. First qualification will be ease of pollination, but flavor will be number two. We have such idiosyncratic conditions in the PNW though it wouldn’t apply to most of the rest of the country.
As far as a modern variety that was a chance seedling in an orchard, Ambrosia apple is one.
I figured why not. I’ve never grown out an apple seed before. Given that it will be years before I will know what comes of these unions but that is growing tree fruit in general. So many factors affect what you get and for people like me who have been relegated to what comes through on commercial shelves it will be years before I can formulate an opinion of the more “exotic” varieties that I’m growing in the first place. Why not add some seedlings to the lengthy endeavor and roll the dice on what I’m going to get.
All 4 of my grafts on B.9 took. I’ll be interested in seeing how these trees develop in the orchard. Oh, and the area on the trunk that I thought was dying off was just changing texture and it’s fine. At least I finally got this tree propagated.
Yes, classic example of poor choice of trait selection. I can understand the motive, but these two things- fresh peach and shelf life- are completely at odds. No amount of incredible breeding, IMO, will turn an artificially ripened peach into something that can compare to a tree ripened fruit.
I take your point about perhaps the over ambitiousness in some sense of backyard breeding efforts. But I do think humble efforts can produce exceptional results. And having a big collection of all of the best cultivars is a good starting point for happy accidents to happen.
The thing is; for every institutional breeding program there is, you have thousands of backyard orchardist just keeping an eye on seedlings. The reality is that this veritable army of enthusiasts end up having more eyeballs on potential new varieties.
Those ‘odd flavors’ are the thing that’s made apples such as Honeycrisp a phenomenon, as it has been used frequently in the breeding of the U of Minn apples that are enjoyed today.
The genes of the unusual are that MN447.
Yes, odd flavor of honeycrisp indeed. As in, “that’s odd, this apple is crunchy as hell but tastes like nothing”. I don’t want to beat a dead horse, but the success of honeycrisp seems largely about the power of suggestion. As Shakespeare wrote, “what’s in a name?”. It does a have an appealing texture. I had a chance to try some single variety sweet cider made from it a couple of years ago, and it was really apparent how pallid its flavor is. The funny thing os that cider was being sold for a premium, since honeycrisp enjoys such brand recognition, and so it’s superiority is enshrined.
I’ve not eaten frostbite, but I’d like to try it sometime. Sweet 16 was a U of MN release too. That’s an odd one. I like it myself, though many don’t IME. Some people say it tastes like anise. Others say cherry candy. I’m more in the latter camp. Eden sounds like one to try also. In my apple collection, Ive strived to focus largely on varieties with intense flavors which is where, along with ease of growing/ resistance to bugs and disease, and keeping ability, my interests mostly lie. I may consider adding frostbite and Eden.
I don’t mind your opposing opinion of Honeycrisp…but I suspect if you’d ever eaten a tree ripened one raised at 3,000 feet elevation, you might have a better opinion of it. Apples from supermarkets aren’t going to win many taste tests.
Sometimes MI, NY, OH, NC apples are for sale in the fall here that came from the orchard or a fresh market reseller…that are indeed good apples from the grocery.
The best Honeycrisp I’ve eaten to date was the first ones purchased from an orchard’s roadside stand…about 15 years ago.
I’ve never had one from Kroger, walmart, or other places that come close.
As for Frostbite…a couple picked before they were ripe…just had a mild sweet and not much else sort of taste. (Picked before the squirrels did…and saved the seeds…some of which did in fact germinate.)
I do like a good honey crisp but often such a thing is hard to find at the super market. I finally broke down and planted a tree, I usually reserve my limited space for cider and more heirloom varieties.
As much crunch as a honey crisp may have it can’t hold a candle to a lot of varieties in flavor profile. For example a chestnut crab has an explosion of nuance that few apples can match. Heck it came from the same breeding program that produced honey crisp much later. Those guys seem to know what they are doing.
I think a great disservice is done to Honeycrisp when it is grown in areas much warmer than zone 5a. There may also be something about the soils where it’s grown. Most native soils in MN and WI are not calcium deficient.
My understanding is that the U of MN didn’t release and name Frostbite (MN447) for a long time because they didn’t think anybody would want to grow and eat them due to how “weird” it tastes.
It’s probably another variety best grown in the north. I’ve heard people in warmer areas say that it doesn’t taste like much of anything.
Most New England type flavorful apples have been blah/mealy/insipid for me, the high nightime temps here don’t allow sugar conversion to taste compounds is what I’ve understood from university research. Celestia is one supposed to be better in our area, have you tried it?
