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Apple History

Spring 2000, Volume 2, Number 1

Goodbye 1999 ...Hello 2000

We ended the millennium with 5277 seedlings ready to send to the membership for testing and evaluation with 3000 more needing another year in the nursery plus about 10,000 seeds ready to geminate for 2000.

1999 started with 18,000 seeds from Dr. Jules Janick at Purdue and Dr. Joseph Scheerens at Ohio State. The seeds were turned over to Dr. Diane Miller, who in my humble opinion is a miracle worker, at the Ohio Research and Development Center (OARDC). She understands our needs, believes in our mission, and has been effectively assertive on our behalf. This is especially gratifying considering that as Dr. Jules Janick once told us "Universities and their administrators became fatigued with apple breeding" when they began to realize that apple breeding is no longer a scientifically "hot" topic and has little hope of bringing big money into research coffers in the near future, if ever, through royalties. Fortunately, Dr. Miller clearly sees that the OSU opportunity lies not in royalty income but the salability of our program to private and public funding sources who share our vision of reducing pesticides in the environment, lowering the cost of apples for consumers and producers and enabling communities throughout the Midwest to have profitable local apple growers serving their local communities. Since we are selecting for late and/or hardy bloom as well as disease resistance, this is especially true for growers and communities located outside the zone of maritime influence.

A fundamental problem at the moment is that if we want our work done at a traditional land grant university they have to see where the money is coming from to keep them in business long term. It Is eventually possible, and perhaps pretty soon, that we may have to spend most of our money on a part-time "director of development" whose job is to find the real money necessary to continue the research. The attitude of land grant universities seems to be less of "how can we help you?" and more of "can we find projects with enough mutual benefit that you are willing to partially or fully fund our expenses?".

This is not entirely unreasonable. It in fact reminds me of our 4-year-old granddaughter who, when recently asked to come help her dad with a project, looked him in the eye and asked -what's in it for me dad?". It is a question universities haven't traditionally asked farmers because of the following line of reasoning: it is reasonable that everybody, i.e. the government, should shoulder most of the cost of research that leads to lower cost or better food because history shows new agricultural production advantages are quickly competed away by lower market prices leaving consumers as the primary beneficiaries of new technology. Most farmers don't benefit more than any other consumer. This is why farmers showed little initial enthusiasm for the B-S-T hormone treatment to boost milk production or Round-Up Ready soybeans. They give you a slight profitability advantage for a few months but soon you must adopt the new technology just to stay in business. Historically. the end effect of new agricultural technology, in most cases, has been: added production, lower prices, fatter consumers, and poorer farmers.

The big problem with the old system of government funded research was lack of real accountability. Just as "work expands to fill the time allotted to perform the task" (Grahm's Law), "junk expands to occupy the space in which to store it" (Mitch's Law). So it is that research always expands to use all available funding.

Seedlings ready to ship to member testers are as follows:

$70/Tree Plan

The Washington State Apple Commission pays about $350,000 per year to produce and evaluate about 5,000 new apple seedlings according to Dr. Bruce Barritt, project leader for the Washington State Apple Breeding Program. I don't know exactly how they get rid of all this money but I am sure there are stacks of documents that justify every penny of expense. For starters they pay $65,000/yr. for the "project leader" who is Dr. Barritt and to speed up results they propagate untested seedlings on M9 roots. Four or five years after sowing seeds they are evaluating apples!

The $.43 Plan

At the opposite end of the spending scale, if someone were to plant about 10 trees each of four or five great breeding parents into 7-gallon pots and then set the pots together at an isolated location in combinations of desired parentage the task of making the controlled crosses would be simplified and of minimal effort.

Next, seeds are sent to a west coast nursery where direct seeding in the field results in a 4-6' tree for $1 at Protree Nursery in California, or a 2-3' tree for $.43 at Meadow Lake Nursery in Oregon. They wouldn't be as thoroughly screened for scab resistance but scab susceptibles could be eliminated the first summer in the field here just like the PRI program has always done with fire blight and mildew. The scab losses are predicted to be about 250/6 for progenies where both parents are scab resistant and 55% in progenies with only one scab resistant parent.

Having these trees planted. cared for and evaluated by volunteer member testers, who are encouraged to seek S.A.R.E. (Sustainable Agricultural Research) grants from the North Central Regional ETA as demonstrated by Jim Eckert, an innovative M.A.I.A. board member from Belleville, IL. The 'bare bones' cost to MAIA of producing and evaluating 5,000 seedlings per year is about $340,000 per year less than the Washington program with money left over for drinks and pizza at the annual apple cultivar tasting party. But there is nothing to taste until six or seven years after we saw the seeds.

Under this plan university personnel would be welcome to collect whatever data they wanted from the trees or fruit for whatever purpose matches their needs. And they would not be bogged down in production projects beneath their academic dignity while the growers sidestep the voracious financial appetites breeding projects can apparently develop.

1999 Budget - $1.80

Last year our procedure was to have university breeders make the crosses for us in exchange for a few hundred dollars to offset extra technician time and send the seeds to O.S.U.'s Dr. Diane Miller, who germinated the seedlings in an O.S.U. green house, transplanted into size "27" tree tube trays, screened them for scab and by June sent the scab resistant seedlings to a M.A.I.A. designated nursery for summer grow out. This procedure cost O.S.U. about $5,000 worth of materials and extra technician time to produce about 8,200 scab resistant seedlings.

It then cost about an additional $.80 per seedling to plant them in a commercial nursery where they grew the remainder of the year, overwintered in the ground, dug and shipped in March to cooperating member evaluators.

The advantages of this approach are:

1. No space or time is wasted on scab susceptible seedlings soon after germination.
2. The greenhouse scab screen introduces the seedlings to five different races of scab whereas .natural" field testing exposes the seedlings only to whatever scab drifts in this year.
3. Involving university personnel incubates other beneficial ideas, observations and discussions. New discoveries and processes are often serendipitous events, unplanned and occurring where and when we least expect them. Chances for such enlightenment should be better among inquiring minds in a university habitat than among widely scattered growers who seldom see each other. An internet list-serve might help but I fear most growers aren't "into" apple breeding or the net.

Volunteerism

The present system is heavily subsidized by two partnering groups. O.S.U. with their greenhouses and staff and M.A.I.A. with their test orchards and volunteer caretakers and evaluators.

Clearly there is wide spread consensus that volunteering to take the responsibility for providing space and time associated with the 10 year evaluation of new seedlings is the key to making the present system workable. It not only relieves a university from the major cost of the breeding program but the M.A.I.A. is a multi-state, regional grass roots political support group that can be used as a spring board for obtaining funding by endorsement and support of university research needs. It strengthens our position politically if we have as many members as possible testing at least some trees, even if only ten trees. It shows politicians, potential donors and funders of our project the extent to which we are personally committed to protecting the environment and lowering food costs.

Loose Ends

From the outset M.A.I.A. has been adamant that they own and control the distribution of progeny seedlings and newly named cultivars otherwise there is no reason to be a member of the organization. It does however seem reasonable to recognize the contributions of various groups by allocating to them portions of future royalty proceeds derived from the sale of new cultivars if and when there should be any. No one expects this to ever amount to very much money but the time to settle on a plan for royalty distribution is now. well before there is anything to distribute.

How it looks from here is that the marketer of any new cultivar needs 50% of the royalties to promote and sell it, as is now common throughout the tree fruit industry. Under our present system, it looks to me like the remaining 50% should be divided among three groups: universities, M.A.I.A. and the person or organization that cared for the new cultivar during its 10 year initial testing and evaluation period.

Traditionally there has been some sort of recognition and possibly a token royalty share or naming right given to the person or organization that makes the actual physical cross. In recent years there seems to be widespread consensus that, although an essential part of the process, cross pollination is the least difficult and most fun part of a hybridizer's job. It pales beside the effort associated with 10 years of care and evaluation or five months of intensive care in the greenhouses, but it should be said that M.A.I.A. members are really appreciative of the efforts of those making the crosses because pollination comes at a time of year when they are least able to take the time for making the crosses. History always notes who made the cross and acknowledges their creativity. Perhaps more important is deciding what to cross with what.

Sometime this month Mitch Lynd and someone from the O.S.U. Dept. of Horticulture and Crop Science will try to hammer out an agreement with the O.S.U. lawyers that ties up all the "loose ends" they can identify. Hopefully this will head off any misunderstandings before they occur. As of this writing we are "miles" apart on some issues while in close alignment on the larger issues. There are days when I wonder why we ever got involved with a university but I'm also certain they often wonder why they ever got involved with us and this project. Like any successful marriage it takes a lot of honest communication. confronting the hidden agendas, baring our souls and reassuring ourselves of the value of the continuing relationship.

Kazak Trees

Our trees from the forests of Kazakstan have all been planted at The Dawes Arboretum in Newark, Ohio. The 1993 and 1995 part of the collection has been duplicated and is growing in pots ready to be planted at a back up location this spring.

Passing the Torch

MAIA received a letter from member Mr. John W. Kreutziger Jr. in York, Nebraska calling our attention to a little apple (Malus Brevipes) with as much as 26% soluble solids and insect resistance from a natural chlorinesterase Inhibitor. Dr. Jules Janick received some of the pollen from Mr. Kreutziger this past spring and it was used successfully to produce 206 seeds from a GoldRush × M. Brevipes cross. Soon afterward we received word from his son that Mr. Kreutziger had died but prior to his death he expressed the joy of knowing that his work with M. Brevipes was continuing.

Average Bloom Date

The average 1999 bloom dates for the apple cultivars in variety block in North Carolina were published in the "Apple Production Newsletter" by Marvin Owings Jr., Henderson County extension agent.

Suncrisp, Honeycrisp and Melrose (not in the Henderson County variety block) are, in the judgement of many of us, the best candidates for breeding parents outside the D.R. (disease resistant) apples because of their productivity, flavor, keeping quality, size and relatively late bloom. Rome has superior growth habit (terminal bearer and big bourse buds) plus later bloom, but so does Scarlett O'Hara plus it has mildew and scab resistance, hangs better, keeps longer, tastes better and is much juicier, all making it a better parent. Scarlett O'Hara's moldy core and fire blight susceptibility are two flaws that must be counteracted by the parent it is crossed with. All of these are very large and can counteract the small fruit size problem that plagues most of the PRI selections.

With regard to the disease resistant possibilities, GoldRush, in spite of its flaws of small fruit size, prominent lenticels, earlier bloom and late harvest date, still expresses more desirable traits to an extremely high level than any of the other D.R. selections; i.e. keeping quality (8 months). soluble solids (18%), high acid, precocity (blooms first year out of the nursery), non-browning flesh, reported to have moderate vitamin C levels, annual cropper and perhaps most important, consumers that like it, really like it.

Two other yellow D. R. selections that looked outstanding this year were Co-op 44 and Co-op 40. Co-op 44 tasted best and had a finish about like Smoothie Golden Delicious but Co-op 40 was pretty good and had an even smoother waxy glossy skin. While both have Golden Delicious in their pedigree, neither has it as a parent.

Suncrisp [(Cox Orange Pippen × Courtland) × Golden Delicious] is an awesome apple and an excellent choice for bringing the best traits of Cox Orange Pippin into the D.R. program. Suncrisp x either Co-op 40 or Co-op 44 avoids the inbreeding vigor suppression that Suncrisp × Co-op 29 or GoldRush would induce because of their Golden Delicious parentage. Gala [(Cox Orange Pippen × Red Delicious) × Golden Delicious] is another possibility. for bringing some Cox effect into the program but Gala, though smoother finished, is smaller sized and short on flavor compared to Suncrisp, which carries a hint of anise and a stronger dose of that big robust distinctively Cox world class flavor. In addition, I would rather have Cortland (tip bearing and later blooming) as a grand parent than Red Delicious with all its undesirable baggage.

One other apple that has surfaced as outstanding this year is Co-op 43 a red colored delicious type that keeps in regular storage until mid May or longer!

1999 Purdue Crosses

Fireblight City

A fireblight epidemic swept through Ed Fackler's orchard in the spring of '99. In early April when most apples were in pink and the high temperatures were in the high 50's (F) the orchard was hammered by a hail storm. By bloom time fireblight symptoms were rampant and there had been nowhere near enough warm days in the 70's to cause one to expect such an outbreak based on the heat driven "Maryblight" model.

Many of us now wonder how many fireblight outbreaks have occurred because of night time spring hailstorms we were unaware of. Trauma injury to leaves, shoots and bark from hail is usually followed by fireblight infections regardless of the temperature and time of year. Coincidentally, the highest probability month for hail here is May, followed closely by June and April. This may also help explain why some people seem to get fireblight when others don't. Hail is extremely local and unreported in most cases. Most hail storms are less than half a mile wide and though some are much larger and have ranged across several counties it is considered uncommon. For every time in the last century we had a hail storm that hit our entire Morse Road orchard (four times), we had at least six or eight incidents of hail damage in only part of it. Never in the 45 years that we had orchards in both Etna Township and on Morse Rd. (eight miles north) did we ever have hail strike both orchards in the same year and never did we have serious fireblight in the Jonathan trees at the two sites in the same year. Several times, we did see serious outbreaks at one site with a very light scattering of strikes at the other. Since 1975 the only time we have sprayed antibiotics for fireblight is after a known hail storm and only once during the period have we had a serious fireblight infection and it was at Etna only. Our experience and Ed's suggest that, although the right combination of high temperatures and moisture alone may trigger a fireblight outbreak, trauma is a bigger deal.

During a well replicated root pruning experiment, Dr. Dave Ferree observed abundant fire blight in the trees he defruited or deflowered, while the full cropped trees standing next to them remained untouched by fireblight. This suggests there is more to fireblight than temperature and moisture. Dr. Ferree noted the leaves on the defruited trees were actually cracked by excess starch loading, while the leaves of the fruiting trees were not.

Maybe with regard to fireblight and hail storms a few hail Mary's are as useful as Maryblight predictor. More importantly, future cultivars for the Midwest need to be fireblight resistant. The following observations made by Ed Fackler on about 6/l/99 showed relative F.B. resistance ranging from none to over 800 strikes per tree.

Bold Face = scab and mildew res.

The Lynds consider the F.B. risk associated with Rome as acceptable, having never had more than a few outbreaks since 1919, while Jonathan has often been devastated.

For what it's worth we pulled out 5000 trees of Braeburn, all 50 Spitzenburg and never planted more than our two test trees of Ginger Gold. We still struggle with Jonathan but I'm not sure why.

Spring '99 Crosses

My favorites in order of preference:

Co-op 44 × Suncrisp, objective is a disease res. Suncrisp or a more flavor intense Co-op 44.

Co-op 31 × Co-op 25, objective is a Co-op 25 without fireblight. and moldy core, or a larger and sweeter Co-op 31 with a Co-op 25 growth habit.

GoldRush × Honeycrisp, objective is a larger GoldRush with a crispier flesh or a D.R. Honeycrisp with more flavor.

CLR13T45 × Suncrisp, objective is a disease res. Suncrisp or a more productive and higher flavored CLR13T45.

GoldRush × M. Brevipes, objective is a larger M. Brevipes (26% soluble solids) or a 26% s.s. GoldRush. We are, at best, hoping to obtain a "bridge" apple that will need upsizing. Probably should have crossed with something huge in the first place. M. Brevipes is about a half inch in diameter. It seems physiologically unlikely to obtain 3-inch apples with 26% s.s. but M. Brevipes is so different it may generate a whole new cast of flavor characters in addition to its outrageous sweetness. Hopefully some are good.

Ed's favorites are GoldRush × Sweet 16, CLR13T45 × Sweet 16 and Co-op 3l × Sweet 16. The objective is to upsize GoldRush and 31 and up the flavor of 31 and CLR13T45 while shifting the bloom dates of all the above later like Sweet 16. %

WHAT'S HOT

On Feb. 8th Steve Doud, Mitch and Penny Lynd joined Anna Whipkey and Dr. Jules Janick at the Purdue University's apple storage building to examine apples that had been stored since the previous autumn. We tasted dozens and dozens of the disease resistant cultivars from the Purdue test orchards. Most were discarded for one reason or another but the following were worth continued research.

All the above crosses with the CTR prefix are from a new and second progeny of the Golden Delicious × Co-op 17 cross that earlier yielded GoldRush plus several other very good apples. In some unpublished research done at Purdue University it was shown that Co-op 17 had some resistance or at least less attractiveness to three different insect pests. These were lab. feeding preference tests and to our knowledge never verified in the field but interesting. Co-op 17 also has a waxy smooth ceramic finish, very long keeping quality and hangs on the tree until Christmas

SARE GRANTS

by: Jim Eckert, Bellville IL

Three M.A.I.A. members have received a grant to cover the expenses of establishment, maintenance and observation of apple seedlings from our crosses. The source of funds is the USDA - SARE (Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education) program. The U.S. is divided into four regions; each region evaluates proposals and awards money. Boundaries and contacts within each region are shown below.

April 28, 2000 is the deadline for producer grant proposals. If you have interest in funding a seedling planting in 2001, you will need to meet this time frame.

There are other possibilities. In Illinois the State Dept. of Agriculture has grant money available for sustainable agricultural projects, and I suspect other states have similar programs. Grant applications I have investigated often share common -buzz" words - sustainability, disease resistance, low pesticide use, family farms, etc., which are compatible with our apple breeding project and membership.

If I can be of any assistance call 618-233-0513 ext. 115 or e-mail - eckert@eckerts.com.

Apple Marketing 101

The consumer is the judge and jury that decides the success or failure of an apple variety, not what you or I or anyone else in the apple industry believes a quality apple should be. Eye appeal, taste, and size are all critical factors in marketing but the bottom line is: apples have no value unless consumers will buy them.

They also have no value unless the growers will grow them and lately production is so out of sync with demand that growers are less than thrilled about growing them.

From a wholesale marketing and promotion standpoint one regional sales desk should handle sales and promotion. Licensing and production should be responsive to marketing not vice versa. As demand grows, production can be permitted to grow. Profits by all the players in the game are essential or there is no reason to play the game. New Zealand growers understand this real well, the MAIA would be well advised to watch their efforts closely and imitate their carefully orchestrated marketing procedures rather than go on a production binge while hoping demand will materialize by some sort of magic and deliver profitable pricing to uncontrolled production.

We at the Fruit Growers Marketing Association appreciate your hard work on this breeding project, are supporting you financially and are eager to help you devise a profitable marketing plan for the "killer" apples we are certain you will develop. Direct farm marketing should be profitable for your new apples and done fight, wholesaling them can be many times more profitable. We stand ready to help you make this happen. Best wishes and keep up the good work.