Orchard People

[00:00:00] Introduction to Apple Diversity
If you've been growing fruit trees for a while, you'll know that apple trees have incredible diversity. Of course, you've got, red apples and green apples and russet apples, but each apple has a different shape and size and flavor and aroma. So if you go to a supermarket, you'd think there's just a few cultivars of apples that you can choose from, but there is such diversity.
And I really saw that firsthand.
[00:00:29] Exploring the USDA Apple Collection
I went for a visit to the USDA's apple tree collection in Geneva, New York recently, and it's an incredible place, and they have literally more than 5, 000 different cultivars or types of unique apple trees there. That's a lot of apple trees. And each tree produces a fruit that's maybe a different size or a different color, a different flavor.
There are some apples that are very big and there's others that are just as small as little grapes. There's some trees that have leaves that don't even look like apple tree leaves. So I was so excited that I really wanted to do an episode on this apple tree collection.
[00:01:10] Meet the Expert: Ben Gutierrez
And I have a special guest today and my guest is Ben Gutierrez.
He's the curator of the USDA's apple and tart cherry collection. So we're going to talk about both those in the show today. But first, I would love to hear from you during the live show. I'd love it if you can just send in your questions or comments, or even just email us to say hi. So you can send your comments or questions or your hello to info.
That's I N F O at orchard people. com. And now let's chat with Ben. Hi, Ben. Welcome to the show today. Hi, Susan. Thanks for having me on. So tell me a little bit about the USDA collection. I understand that there are literally 5, 000 unique trees. There's one of each tree, is there? I'm a little bit partial to our collection and its fame and I don't know, just the excitement for fruit that it elicits.
But we're really only one of 20 sites.
[00:02:14] The Importance of Genetic Diversity
And so we're part of the United States Department of Agricultural National plant germplasm system. And that's a mouthful, but it's these diversity collections that you highlighted for apple, but for all of our major crops. And so it's this kind of safety net and I don't know. I don't know.
It's just this imagination tank right that you can, create and push agriculture into the future and making sure that we have food to eat, but also that food is. Thrilling and exciting. So whenever I get opportunities to do this, I, again, I feel a little bit like the Lorax, right? Like I'm speaking for the trees and sometimes that's intimidating.
Not only The, difficulty in public speaking, but like the intensity, it would, it, which people respond to apples, right? Like I'm sure that I'll get corrected from some of your listeners and I get, yeah, fan comments all the time and emails like, Hey, this information's incorrect, please fix this.
And it makes my job easy. Cause we've got all these, Enthusiastic, fans of Apple that just want to make sure that the collections pristine. Okay, so you've got this huge collection. You talk about how it's, for protection. what do you mean by that? To protect these species?
Yeah, so, I should emphasize that, the collection is unique in its composition. typically when we think apples, you think of what's at the grocery store, right? But there are over 50 different species of what we would call apples, and some fall into the crab apples, and some you wouldn't even consider as apples, they might be smaller like cherries or completely inedible, but all of these kind of conserve to push apple into the future.
A lot of our exciting flavor comes from these wild relatives. And yeah, so there's about 5, 000 different things that are here that, some resemble what you'd see in a store and some are, vastly different. And definitely the flavors and the, habits would, startle you.
Absolutely. They startled me during my visit. Oh boy. Did that. You need to come back and taste them too, because that's when the real magic happens.
[00:04:22] Public Engagement and Open House
And that's exactly what we're going to get to in the show because you guys do an open house once a year where you open your doors and all of us can come and we can actually taste these different apples.
Is that correct? Yeah. Yeah. So September 14th this year, it's usually in September, which kind of maximizes the peak ripeness of the collection, but as you can imagine, some fruit are dropping now, they're ready to harvest and some will go and never ripen because of the Geneva climate. they just don't have enough growing days here.
So it's it's a huge window of opportunity to come and taste fruit. But since we're not like, our priority is to keep these things safe, right? to keep them maintained for the future. we can't always have the public come and visit. So our 1 day a year is. It's a, yeah, a gift, like an opportunity because we have so many requests and we can't simply, yeah, simply can't keep up with them.
let's have a look at a couple of emails. We've got one from Matt. Matt says, Hello, Susan and Ben. Is Ben associated with Cornell University? Thank you. Oh, and we live in Buffalo, New York.
[00:05:29] Collaboration with Cornell University
So yeah, so our site is. Like tightly linked with Cornell. So we're on the Cornell university campus, which is based in Geneva.
Like I, yeah, Cornell's mostly in Ithaca, but we, there's a satellite campus here. Which is famous for like it's apple, breeding program. So things like Empire and like the newest ones, Snapdragon and Rubyfrost have come from Geneva. Ooh, I've never tasted those two. I wonder if I come to the apple tasting, will I get to taste the new ones?
So we don't have any of the, patented cultivars in our collection. So everything that we have is public released, meaning like it's fully accessible. There's no restrictions on growing it. So snap, dry it, like again, patenting, controlling the varieties is a way that like growers and breeders can maintain quality in their varieties.
We have a great question from Jim. Thank you for writing this, Jim.
[00:06:24] Understanding Plant Genetics
Hi today, Susan, listening to you from Washington, D. C. What actually is plant genetics? Thank you very much. Thanks, Jim, for asking that question. It seems like a basic question, but yeah, what does that actually mean? yeah. so. to get to go really basic like plants have genetics just like humans and animals do like we were just talking because I have just recently had my fourth child born.
And it's just amazing to see like yourself in the next generation so plants, like all living things really do this they pass on their genetics to that next gen and that's what makes. like all the exciting diversity possible, right? the, real part of our collection is not just genetic plant genetics, but it's plant genetic resources.
So it's resources that can be used for breeding or for cultivation or for exploring new traits and understanding the genetics of traits and how they work so that we can better leverage those traits in, agricultural systems. like one, one cool trait is like columnar. So if you may have noticed, if you drive upstate New York, you won't see like the giant orchards anymore.
You'll see what looks like vineyards, but they're actually tightly clustered, tightly grown apple trees. And so one of the cool traits that some apples have is that they grow as a column instead of the spreading tree that is typical of an apple. So that's like a genetic trait that makes it ideal for growing in a, in a high density vineyard style.
And so you guys have a number of these columnar apple trees, I guess that are varieties like that are cultivars, or are they wild trees that just grow like that? Yeah, so it could come from anywhere. So one of the kind of the sources for columnar is a thing called Wijcik Mac. Which is a spontaneous mutation of the normal McIntosh that's just changed it, by, one or two genes to make it, grow in a completely different habit.
Oh, so does that mean all columnar apple trees, there's not a lot on the market, but I think I've seen a couple, they would come from the McIntosh. They would be a descendant. Yeah, or there are other sources of math or other sources of columnar traits out there. Oh, there are like a really cool 1 that start from the regular McIntosh.
Okay. we've got an email here from David. David's to, hello today from Ottawa, Ontario. What is the main difference besides taste between tart and sweet cherries? Neat question, because from my part perspective, I was shocked to know that tart and sweet cherries don't cross pollinate with each other.
So there must be a difference. What is the difference? so tart cherries and sweet cherries are different species. And what a tart cherry is, it's a hybrid between a sweet cherry and a European dwarf cherry, a ground cherry. And and their genetics is a lot more complex. Instead of having two copies, a copy of their genetics from mom and dad, like humans, right?
They have two from mom and two from dad, forming what's, what we call a tetraploid in genetics. So that's what limits some of the compatibility between sweet and tarts. But some of the sweet, some of the tart cherries are as sweet as a sweet cherry. It's only just like the higher acidity of the tart that kind of makes that, profile difference.
other major differences are like the gummy texture. Like I, I prefer the tart cherry over the sweet. I know like the world is going in fruit, cultivation, like really firm, really crunchy fruit. Like even blueberries explode in your mouth with like a crunchiness or crispiness.
Or I guess they would call it maybe firmness, but I love that like gummy texture of a tart cherry. It's just different and you get more of that soothing apple pie or cherry pie feeling like aroma and experience. a lot of what you guys are doing, and I know Aroma is big for you, so here you are, and you've got this huge collection of apple trees.
We're going to talk about the sour cherry trees as well. Is your job just to take care of these trees and make sure they don't die, or what are you doing with these collections?
[00:10:42] Challenges in Apple Cultivation
Yeah, so that's the first priority, is to maintain what we have. And figure out what we don't have and go out into the world.
And 1 of the ways we figure out what we don't have is we have to. So there's historical research and looking at, the list of about 7000, 8000 known cultivars and seeing, what don't we have? We only have about 1400 cultivars in the collection and do we need all the rest? And so 1 thing that breeders and researchers are excited about is what other profiles and flavors are like, interesting traits?
I know the red fleshed apple. Was a huge like market interest, right? so you bite into it and not only is the skin red, but the flesh is red. And that's really cool. And that's that was rare in the market. So novelty because I don't know. I don't think Apple's really at risk for extinction.
we've done such a great job, some cultivars, might fall out of cultivation and be lost to humanity. And that's really tragic. But in terms of, keeping apples sustained as a crop, I think we're. There's a lot of hope, right? But it's not just, you can't just keep it. You've got to find interesting, exciting things to excite not only the growers, but the consumers now.
So new flavors, interesting fruit sizes, like going back from like the giant pumpkin apples to like maybe smaller bite sized apples. that seems maybe might be a trend in the future. You mentioned russeted, like I love russeted apples and they really stand out in the market. let's get more interesting colors and shapes and flavors.
some of our flavors, are tropical, and, or, licorice flavors. some of those, would maybe offend some consumers, but, delight others. And, that's, again, that's, the joy of, fruit, right? we can have all these different flavors and profiles, and there's somewhat, there's an apple for everyone, I think.
I love your idea of a bite sized apple where you eat them just like a little apple snack, something like that. That would be fun. we've got an email from Monica. Monica writes, Susan, is your guest a published author on this subject? If so, where? Thank you from Orlando, Florida.
Yeah, great question. Yeah. So, we've published scientific articles on our work, my work specifically as a graduate student and some of the research that we've done here. Mostly they go to the dark catacombs of scientific literature where no one really reads or gets excited about it.
We've written a few book chapters, but again, it's, we're not, we don't always do the best at communicating openly. this is our digestible research, yeah. In paper form, right? So that's not something that we're we hope to work on. Yep. Absolutely. I think it's helpful. okay. I'm looking at this collection of apple trees inside my mind's eye and you've got 5, 000 different.
Trees, how many of those are, for instance, heirloom trees, how many of them are modern fruit trees and what are the rest? Yes, yeah, I mentioned that about 1400 are cultivated. And that could be anything from heirloom to what we call, pre breeding material. So what I think most fruit enthusiasts don't know is that there's a whole intermediary stage between something that was, like, beautifully grown and cultivated hundreds of years ago to the modern apples in the grocery store today, and that there's, literally for every one apple in the market, there's probably, 1, that just never made the cut.
That could have like amazing quality, but they're just not quite there. And like an apple that to make it to market, you've got to display something else on the shelf almost right. or convince growers to uproot an entire orchard or convert it to growing a new cultivar. So some of this like intermediate stuff is like super exciting because All of the interesting traits are already there combined and ready for maybe another round of breeding.
So breeding is just like taking two apples and control pollinating and like looking at their offspring and making a selection from those to find something exciting and new. And you just, you keep doing it, right? you come up with a snapdragon apple, so now you use snapdragon in your breeding program.
carry on to find the next best apple, right? I have a feeling the newest apple. I have a feeling that these days a lot of breeders are using Honeycrisp as their one of the parents because Honeycrisp are so popular and everybody wants the crunchy, juicy, sweet. Apples, but what you're saying is there's other choices as well, because I do find that the new apples are all very similar and honey crispy.
You don't get a lot of unique flavors in the new apples. So why don't we push ourselves outside our comfort zone and try something different? that kind of thing. I've got an if I could, I might offend some people, but there's this thing that we always throw around consumer preference and.
When they come to the collection, they're amazed by the flavors. But like the literature is oh, consumer preference doesn't favor that. Like consumer preference says, I don't know. It's like this mysterious force that's like speaking for all of humanity, right? all of America favors this and really, I don't know that we're as fixated on certain cultivars or traits as, it, seems.
I would be very interested, in hearing from people, both on YouTube Live, I'm going to look at your comments in a minute, and in email, for the listeners, what are your favorite cultivars? Are you a honey crisp person? Do you only crispy, juicy, and sweet apples? Or are you open to trying other things?
what is your favorite cultivar? I would love to hear from you with comments, so put them in YouTube Live or send me an email. We've got an email from Tom who says, Hello to Susan, Poisoner and Benjamin. I have always thought about this. Is there a place in the world where all the varieties of apple seeds are kept just in case of a tragic situation in the world?
And if so, are they rotated to keep fresh? Thanks. Wow. Yeah, and it's interesting here because Tom's mentioning the seeds. Yeah. So tell me about the backup plan. Yeah.
[00:17:10] Backup Plans for Apple Preservation
if something happens and there is some sort of, meteorite that lands on your orchard in Geneva and destroys all the trees, what is your backup plan?
Is it seeds? Is it something else? No, that's a great question. And something again, that's what I lose sleep about, right? Because we've had similar incidences where the collection is at risk. Fruit tree cultivation typically is done through clonal propagation, meaning like if you take an apple seed from a honey crisp, you're not going to get a honey crisp.
You'll get something maybe similar, maybe worse, maybe better. Probably worse is how the trend goes. Is it, a cultivar represents just an a fixed unit, right? Of the perfect genetic combination, right? if, I don't know, if, Honeycrisp were a poker hand, right? Like it'd be like a royal flush in some, people consider, right?
this is great. this is a perfect combination. But if you reshuffle the deck and go into the seed, the next generation, like you might get some of those cards that made up the royal flush, but not probably not all of them. And you may get a better hand or worse hand. And that's just how genetics go right with apples.
some crops do self. pollinate or they can be cloned or propagated through seeds. Apple, cherry, grapes are not one of them. So cloning it is what we've done for thousands of years. And some of our cultivars date back that long, which means this is a legacy. This is, Sisyphus pushing that boulder up the hill to keep this cultivar alive.
Someone has to keep propagating it. And whether it's your listeners or like a government institution, I don't think we can do it all on our own. there's too much out there. For us to be the only site that is involved in this, and there are colleagues of ours in the United States and worldwide that also participate in this level of conservation.
are the Geneva backup plan is through preservation. not only do we keep seeds of wild, which those don't need to be cloned, and that's fine. the genetics are preserved in seed, but certain cultivars. Can only be preserved as scion wood. So the scions are cryogenically frozen, which is is using liquid nitrogen, which is negative 320 Fahrenheit.
It's cold and dormant, and so you can store apples this way and then rehydrate, warm them up, rehydrate, and then just graft like you would anything else. And so if we lose a tree, this is our backup system, a rocket crash lands in the collection or something else happens, like we've got a system to secure that.
So these little frozen, they're little frozen pieces of branch, like they're scion wood, or are they buds that you've preserved? So it's frozen buds that are cut into one inch sections. So when I make a request back from our Fort Collins, this Fort Collins, Colorado was the site that developed this.
And this is another USDA partner who like specializes. We specialize in keeping the apples here. They specialize in making sure diversity collections are backed up, whether it's seed or as a sign letter, budwood. yeah, so it's, a tube full of buds. And then you just can rehydrate and, bud graft like you would in the winter.
Okay, so that's the backup plan. And I know that you guys had two years in a row, a fire blight in the orchard that took out a whole load of trees. Yeah. and so did you have to go and dig into the, archives there, to, graft new ones, or did you lose any of those cultivars forever, or? Yeah, so some, we pulled out maybe 50 that we just could not physically graft from.
The wood was too infected in Geneva, so we just made the request to Fort Collins and, a few weeks later, here comes the wood and we can graft and get those trees re established. But we've had a cycle of fire blight. So we've put a hold on. So the collection has a few gaps.
It's safely backed up in Fort Collins, but we want to make sure we're out of the woods with our fire blight issues. And it seems like that we are and that's been devastating. The last, since 2020, the world is falling apart with. COVID 19 and we had our own little pandemic in the collection with fire blight.
And again, when everything is different, you have a different response. So some things are doing fine, they're thriving amidst all the infection and other things just instantly collapse. And that was an opportunity and a challenge for us. it certainly gives you some information as to which trees are going to be resilient in the face of fire blight, Yeah. we've got a question from Brian who asks, Hello, orchard people. What is germplasm utilization? Great question. Germplasm. So again, germplasm is another term for genetic resources and it's just, it's the germline. it's that. It's the unit that can contribute to the next generation, whether that's a full grown tree or a seed, right?
And so it's, just one of our jargon terms that we use a lot. So you, guys like your jargon. Yeah. So it's a unit that can, so like a leaf wouldn't be germplasm, because that can't, unless you consider like cloning, which if you want to clone an apple tree from a leaf, that's certainly possible.
I actually think I shared a video on some of how we've done that too with you. So yeah, you can take. Apples and put them in tissue culture. If drafting isn't successful, right? Grafting is like the easiest method to propagate a tree, but certain things that are really difficult to work with, or you've got too much infection leaves might get you.
some tissue culture that you could grow and clone a tree from amazing. Amazing. That's like Frank and tree kind of stuff there, but not necessarily. Yeah, not necessarily. I'm just looking at the comments here on YouTube Live. Thank you guys for tuning in. we've got a question. Let me just see. John says, My favorite eater is Blenheim Orange.
By the way, I have tasted Blenheim Orange. That was quite nice. John says, Dad raised them in the UK and they were delicious. I was lucky enough to get one last year and can't wait for it to produce fruit. Now, John also has a question. How much of the flavor or lack of it is down to the variety versus how they are grown?
there's a lot of Honeycrisp research that was done on our campus and we weren't necessarily leading it, but we got to, we got invited to do some taste tests for Honeycrisp. And Honeycrisp, you think would be like, this is a dream, right? I'm going to go eat all these Honeycrisp. growing from all these different sites and organic conditions and different apple root stocks and see it was one of the hardest experiences that I've ever been through because some of the fruit tasted so bad, like honey, without the right conditions, just tastes awful and bitter and.
so it has a really strict like nutrient requirement to produce optimal fruit, which is some of the reason why some cultivars cost so much, because it's like a premium to keep these things like, yeah, to well produced and well grown to actually, make that grade a apple cut. So there's a lot like there's a genetic fact factor that we see a lot.
And then certainly like the environment, like too much sun or too, like too much rain and heat, like pushes ripening. And you don't get that full flavor development in the collection. And that's always disappointing when you go to your favorite apple and it's, just not quite the same year after year.
I wonder if it's Honeycrisp in particular because I feel like there's more if you're getting a McIntosh apple and of course, I'm from Ontario. So I'm very proud of McIntosh apples. They come from here, but you get less of a variation with McIntosh apples. Whereas I agree with you with Honeycrisp apples.
When I first tasted them, it was just heaven. And now I'll spend a lot of money sometimes to buy them and I'll think, why am I spending so much money? This is really not such a great apple. I wonder if Honeycrisp is just one that's a little bit more finicky and that you get like a McIntosh you can put anywhere and it'll produce the same tasting fruit.
Do you think? It could be. Some of what I loved in John's comment is he's he mentioned his dad, he mentioned the UK, And I, certainly think there's, like a nostalgia to some of the fruit that we grow and like when you're tasting a fruit and you feel like you're six years old again, it doesn't matter the quality.
Like I love McIntosh because it just fills your mouth with that juicy. It's almost like carbonated, right? Like it has this unique mouthfeel. I don't care how starchy or bland it might really taste, but like it takes you back to a place. And that's what's it. magical about like our heirloom fruit, right?
Like when you tell the story and you, picture John in the UK, his dad's like, it, like you get sentimental and everyone has that for certain fruit. And I don't know if you like, certainly you could stack them up and look at their qualities, like objectively. And say, this one tastes better, but I think we're a lot harder on the commercial apples without a history.
we just expect the world of these things, and it's not. I've grown tomatoes, and sometimes the tomato tastes amazing and, makes you just want to, I don't know, put your feet up in your hammock and just, enjoy the rest of the day. And sometimes your tomatoes just don't turn out, and you want to rip up the whole plant, right?
[00:26:47] Understanding Fruit Variation
And it's the same variety, and it's just, again, there's, so much variation, but I think consumers just have this idea that, our food Like our agricultural systems are so fine tuned to make fruit taste. Identical each time you get it and it's just not like these are living systems grown by humans from by living people with different environmental conditions, and they can't control the weather.
We can't control the seasonal effects and there's variation and we just need to appreciate that. Lovely, lovely comment. We've got this, email from, Gayle.
[00:27:22] Favorite Apple Varieties
So Gayle writes, enjoying the show today with Susan P, a fun question. What is the favorite variety of apple for Susan and Benjamin? What do they like best to eat?
Thank you. I'm going to let you answer that one first. I have a kind of funny one to say for mine. What's your favorite, Ben? I don't know that I have favorites. Just for that reason I mentioned, again, I've got four kids, which one is my favorite? They're all very different, right? And I think you get stuck when you have just a favorite that you, again, professionally, I don't think I'm allowed to have a favorite, but there's certain ones that I look forward to every year and I'm, devastated when the crop load isn't that great.
[00:28:01] Exploring the Kerr Apple
So Kerr is one of them. So this is a hybrid between a classic crab apple dole go. And Harrelson, a no name cultivar, but you combine those two and you get like the crabbiness of dolgo, which like a little subtle hint of tropical and it's got this almost purplish blush to it. So it's magical and it's small.
It's no, it's almost maybe a little three quarters the size of a tennis ball. And so it's one of those like pocket apples that you can just stick four or five in your pockets and go for the day. But again, the flavor is just I don't know. It's, it really startles you when you first try it.
And, is that one that people actually sell or it just happens? So this was developed, geez, maybe the 1950s or maybe earlier. What's the name again of the cultivar? Kerr. KERR, not CUR. Yeah. No, this Kerr. Okay. That sounds like one I definitely wanna try. my favorite in one of the heirloom apple tastings I've been to, and I've been to many of them, there was this apple that was so magical and so different from everything I've ever tasted.
It was called, I think, Horneburger Pfannkuchen and we would joke and we called it a hamburger pancake, but it's a German apple and my German language skills are zero. So excuse me for, mispronouncing it, but it was such a fabulous flavor. It was like a mix of sweet and tart and special, and it was green and it was delicious.
And I may never have it again, but that is, for Gail's question that I think is my very favorite because it was an incredible experience trying it. have you heard of that one? I wonder, I haven if you have it in your collection. Yeah. You'll have to send me the name and I'll Yeah, I'll, okay.
We'll look it up. Yeah. Yeah. Hamburger pancakes. Es pancake . One of the challenges is in our work is like some of these cultivars are so old that they've been named and renamed by so many different cultures, and so we call it one thing, the UK calls it another and let's coalesce, let's make sure we're not all chasing different things when really it should be one thing that we're after.
Yes, absolutely.
Okay, Ben, actually, we got a couple more comments about the Kerr apple, K E R that you were discussing, that I'm very curious about right now. let's see, Jerry says he thinks it came from Morden, M B, Manitoba? Yeah. Could it be? I think it's a Canadian apple. It's a Canadian apple in your USD Canade.
Oh, that I'm so proud. Okay, I am so proud that one of your favorite apples is from Canada. That makes me feel great. Thank you, Ben. You've made my day. and Jerry also says that Kerr is said to be superb for juicing. did you know that? I haven't, no, and that's the interesting point about apples is, my husband was app, asking this question as well, are some apples in the collection, really amazing for juicing others.
He was asking specifically about dried fruits. If you were to dry all the apples in the orchard, all the different ones, would they all taste like a dried apple or would they have different flavors in the dried apple as well? yeah, diversity in, terms of flavor and how you prepare these things.
Yeah. Yeah. So, typically when we do any kind of evaluations, it's just on fresh fruit because that's the easiest way. And we'd rather, you could do, 2000 evaluations or you could do 10 on dried prepared fruit and so like how the input required to do the processing narrows down what you could evaluate.
So I've done some personal, like taking some home and making applesauce. And, the flavor goes away with Kerr. so it really does seem limited. And I've, done the dried experiment, too. drying them down in a, just dehydrator. And seeing, does that interesting flavor carry through?
And in my case, it didn't really seem to very much. But that doesn't mean, like, all the apples would be. I would love to see, that licorice flavor. some golden delicious if left on the tree a little bit too long start to develop, an anise. And I love that flavor, right? but again, the consumer preference about 50 percent of the population when they do the taste panels, hate it, like absolutely hate it.
And it might never make it in the market, but what does that make it through in an applesauce? or in a, I don't know, in a dried setting, a preserved setting. That would be really interesting. I love the licorice flavor. I, it's yummy. So yummy. so the processing that we have explored with, collaborators is insider.
So a lot of cider is a huge, booming industry in New York State, and I think maybe all across North America, rediscovering our cider roots. And exploring new cultivars for cider production has been a top priority, not necessarily by our group, because again, we're not well suited for, the fermentation and other processing required, but some of our collaborators, specifically at Cornell have, explored that quite extensively.
Amazing. Cool. Okay. here's an email. Let's see what we got. We got a couple more emails. Mike writes, hello to Susan and guests listening to you from Toronto, enjoying the show, lots of info. Thanks. Thank you, Mike. It's just good to know you're out there.
[00:33:42] Fire Blight Disease
Erica writes, Hey, to you, a question, Susan and Ben, Oh, what is fire blight and what are the symptoms of it?
We love you in Burlington, Ontario fire blight. Oh, that's a, such a scary disease. Tell us about it. Yeah, it's aptly named cause like it just sounds devastating, but it's, a bacterial disease that enters apples through either young succulent tissue or through bloom, like through the open blossoms, and it can just quickly devastate an orchard and spread through hot, humid climate.
which is what's becoming more the trend in New York State, at least, and it comes in all sorts of strains or varieties of bacteria. So some, the one that we were battling was, immune, right? Like it had streptomycin resistance. So the standard commercial antibiotic that would be applied is streptomycin.
When we saw like it had zero impact on controlling the disease, like we quickly diversified our program. Maybe we were overdue for it. So maybe this was a blessing, but so we've now, added more organic practices to mitigate the spread and, kind of infection of fire blight using coppers and, different products, different antibiotics.
Yeah, it's, ugly and it looks, it'll turn, it looks like your tree was struck by lightning. Like someone set fire to a branch and it just quickly spreads from tip down into the trunk at which point you may as well rip the tree out. And Erica, there are fire blight resistant trees. So a lot of the teaching that I do is for home growers.
I have online courses teaching them how to care for their fruit trees successfully and organically. And one of the biggest secrets is buy an easier to grow tree. And so there are fire blight resistant trees because fire blight is nasty and it's spread. So in our orchard now, we have, I think five apple trees and I think all except for one are fire blight resistant and the remaining one, I'd call it our little fire blight tree.
It's always battling a little bit of fire blight and we cut it off and battling it again. It's trying, but yeah, it's a nasty disease. It's good to be able to recognize so you can deal with it right away. we've got a comment from Eric who writes, Red Astrachan recently was found not to brown. did you know about that?
Not that specific one, no. Yeah, that's a, lovely looking apple. And Carol says hello from Central Western Illinois. Hello, Illinois. Hello, Carol. And we've got Carla who writes, Susan, does your guest have a book out? If so, where is it available? Thank you. Yeah, everybody always loves to, we gotta get you writing a book.
Ben . Yeah, I have a personal novel that I'm writing, but it's Oh, is it about apples? You've gotta, if it's about apples, we might be interested. It should be.
[00:36:42] Tart Cherry Collection
okay, so let's move to talk a little bit about the tart cherry collection. If you have 5,000. Unique apple trees. How many tart cherry trees do you have in your collection?
Yeah, so this is like the orphaned collection. So the apple has been famous since like it really was brought to Geneva in like the 1980s. And like Michael Pollan wrote a book chapter about it in like the Botany of Desire and like just people are so drawn to the apples. The cherries came here In like the 1990s and really have been so poorly explored.
But yet when people like, when we dive into it, like we find so many exciting things. And so we're trying to, I don't know, maybe it's a philosophical exercise. if we get excited and we find interesting things, other people get excited. About the tart cherry industry and making it grow. So the tart cherries in general.
So torture, like I mentioned, there are different species, like a different end product, usually for processing, but the juice market is really growing as like a, nutrient rich sports recovery drink. So there's like all these like Cheribundi and different manufacturer processors that really want athletes in the showcase like this isn't prune juice.
This is like this is for active like energetic people. And so but the market in the United States is solely dependent on a single cultivar, Montmorency, and frequently we'll have, just a late season frost that just wipes out at a whole crop. And whereas in Geneva, like we have Montmorency, which, tends to fare okay, but we have later blooming things that just are always more sure to have a reliable crop.
So the, late blooming trait could really, I think, just revitalize the American tart cherry industry. But there's, if we're selling it for nutrient quality, there's interesting flavors, there's more nutrient or like antioxidant rich cherries that we could be, just processing and blending into juices.
Yes, I've actually heard that tart cherries help you sleep. There's some sort of, nutrient in there that helps you sleep. You mix it with magnesium powder, tart cherry juice, sparkling water or something, and it puts you to sleep, right? Yeah, it's probably on one of those. Yeah, she's done more for the tart cherry in like her silly TikTok video than I have in the five years that I've been the curator.
you guys are influencers, but yeah, there are nutrients like melatonin is reported to be really rich and diverse in cherries. And sometimes when we talk about like nutrients in our fruit, we assume if I say vitamin C, you think of an orange. not all orange varieties have high vitamin C.
Some of the apple cultivars have higher vitamin C than like maybe a navel orange. And so like, when we say melatonin is in cherries, not all cherries like produce it equally. And that's, what's exciting from like. a genetics or a chemical perspective. And that's what our research here in Geneva has been focusing on.
So you can, you guys can help to breed a super cherry, like a, super powerhouse cherry that makes you strong, gives you muscles, makes you good looking, all that good stuff, right? Exactly. Yes. Magical super cherries.
[00:40:05] George Washington's Preserved Cherries
I understand that, that somebody presented you with a bottle of preserved cherries.
Tell me about this. From the 1700s. Tell me this story. Yeah, so this is, again, this is so amazing because we've been, like, fascinated by fruit. As long as humans have been, like, really cultivating and working, in, in horticulture and agriculture, we've been obsessed with fruit. And so we got a call, this is the dream call that every, you wait for, I'm going to be an archaeologist one day, right?
And so we got a call from Mount Vernon, which is the, heritage site for George Washington. the, our America's first president, I have one of our founding fathers and a legend in American history, But also like he was a major agriculturalist as well. So underneath in their mansion, they found cherry preserves.
And this was a historic find like intact fruit, like in bottles that like, it's just unheard of to see really anything of that quality preserved. And so we got the call because they assumed it was. they saw pits, so they presumed like, okay, let's reach out to this research group because maybe they can tell us what cherry it is.
So we got to go like to the site to see the bottles, to see the fruit, to touch it and explore some of the contents. And so that made national news when they found two bottles and they found 36 after that. And so we have multiple years and dating back to 1770s, And really close to, the American Revolutionary War is when they think the last bottles went into the ground, and then they were covered and forgotten until just earlier this year.
just the excitement of, again, going back to, fruit cultivation is that we don't just, grow whatever fruit trees. we grow cultivars, and we get attached, and we love the cultivars that we grow. there's a good chance that whatever the Washington estate was growing is still extinct, or still extant today.
so we can maybe identify through genetics or morphological characteristics, what that cherry is, which, again, is that going to change the world's, I don't know, is it going to revitalize the whole cherry industry, but it brings back a part of history. And, tells a uniquely American story about, our one of our founding fathers and one of the cherries that was has been in cultivation that long.
Okay. I have so many questions. 1st of all, would you eat those cherries? Were they growing things? did anybody taste them after, 300 plus years? No, absolutely. No. Would you die if you tasted 1 of those? I don't know what would happen because we're 1st of all, this is a specimen. this is.
I'm going to save it for research, not for my own consumption, but that's, I love that. That's always the first question is how did it taste? Yeah, exactly. That was my first question. Would you even want to eat it? My second question is, did you actually take a seed and have you done the research yet to find out, is this Montmorency or is it something else?
Did they have Montmorency in the 1700s? That may be. Yeah, they did. It's a Montmorency kind of 400 year old French cultivar that we know like Jefferson. Thomas Jefferson, another, compatriot, right? another contemporary of Washington had, used and was reported at his estate. no, we haven't tasted it.
these, this was pre, commercial or pre home preservation, right? these weren't, heat treated. These were probably just stuffed in wine bottles and, they have some documentation for how it was done, but it's not, The vacuum sealed canning that we think of as as modern canning, right?
Like the bell jars and yeah. So, these were corked at some point, but the corks, so the bottles were just wine bottles, repurposed stuffed with cherries, put in a clay pit and then buried back in the clay, and then would be dug up when it's time to eat. And according to the literature that they found would taste amazing, fresh, like within a year of consumption.
like 250 years. Who knows what's happened. So the corks have degraded and fallen into the bottles, but somehow the fruit was still preserved. And colleagues have done, microbe testing and found, they were fairly sterile. And, so we're still exploring the contents, but, yeah, there's a lot more to discover.
Oh, I can't wait to hear more. So we pulled out some of the contents of the bottles. Like the bottles are now like being preserved by a conservator, but we have the content so we can go and count pits, take measurements. we've popped a few of the pits open to see if there's a seed. So the cherries pit isn't the seed.
The seed is still inside. And it looked like some of them were still waterlogged, which is. expected because they're like suspended in water. It's not ideal for seed preservation, but at least we're still confident we can get DNA isolated and match the fingerprint of the Mount Vernon cherries to like modern cherry and maybe or maybe find like a missing link or something there.
Oh, that's so cool. I can't wait to hear more about it as you guys discover more. okay, let's see. Back in, let's look at YouTube Live. We've got Yael tuning in from Alaska. Hi, Yael. Nice to see you. Yael says, great show and fantastic guest. Thanks, Susan. Then we have a, a question from a, does your guest have an Instagram account?
It would be great to follow along with the awesome work they're doing in Geneva, New York. And what options there are for us pedestrians to engage? Yeah. So what social media do you guys have? I don't because we're like, associated with the United States Department of agriculture, we want to make sure that we're, unified in our messaging.
So we work with our U. S. C. A. communications office to showcase our research and our work and. So I don't have a personal Instagram account. Maybe I'm old fashioned, but maybe I need to start one. I love the idea though, that is suggesting so that people can follow what you guys are up to. What is it?
Cause I know you do a lot of amazing research, with the aromas of. there's so much I wanted to talk to you about. I don't know how it's already the end of the show. I wanted, I know very quickly before we talk about the open house, you guys are using drones in, in a sense to do part of your research.
How does that even work? Yeah. Yeah. so before we talk about drones briefly, cause that project failed.
[00:46:48] Citizen Science and Apple Conservation
And, but, I would be remiss. So there's so much citizen science that can be done for these, For especially for heirloom apples like there's a rich community of heirloom apples enthusiasts like the Montezuma like orchard restoration project like they're huge and identify this is like the apple sleuth, the former FBI agent that goes out into the wild and finds exciting things like the main heritage orchard, like john bunker is this like living legend for apple conservation and Todd little seabold out of the college of the Atlantic like these are like.
just pure enthusiasts who do this for the love of it and they, love this grassroots level work because certainly I can't go out into every backyard and find fascinating trees or heirlooms that like, maybe it's important to have in the collection, but together we can. So citizen science could really drive forward a lot of this conservation work for tree fruits, not just apple, but for any of the fruits.
So can people reach out to you? Let's say I have a fabulous tree in my backyard that grew from seed and it's really interesting. would I email you and say, Hey, Ben, I think you need this in your collection. Yeah. Yeah. And then I might connect you to seed savers if the expertise is better suited there or to again, our friends in Maine, our friends in the West.
And yeah, so it's, there's a rich network, especially for Apple to get this work done. another question I know people will have is, because I know a lot of people who listen to the show do grafting and budding, and can people get scions from you with all those trees? Yeah. Is that something that you do?
So typically the, our national plant germplasm system does not distribute for hobby use. Which is a shame, but like, when you understand, the magnitude of the people requesting, we want to make sure that we're best preserving the collections and getting those into the hands of, researchers or commercial development.
And also, we don't want to undercut, the nursery industry. Fedco Trees has a tremendous, catalog of heirloom apples and, actually the quality that they might get from them is probably better than the quality, the two sticks that we would send out from our collection. So like we encourage people to go to these other sites because most people just want a full grown tree, not through, grafting.
And so one thing we do is we partner with California rare fruit growers. Or our friends in Maine and provide bulk sign would at like sign exchanges or other activities like that. And so we're more than happy to do that. Because it's not mailing out 500 packages to different people.
It's 1 large order going to 1 site that like a community can share and engage with. I'm sure that any of the listeners who are involved in the North American, NAFEX, North American Fruit Exchange, they might be very interested in that because they have a lot of passionate, wonderful, very knowledgeable members, and I'm sure that they would love to get involved in that.
A couple more questions. We've got Joan saying, hello from New York. So Sundance Adventures says, I'd love to connect. I'm running a family orchard on Route 66 in Northeast Oklahoma. Let's chat sometime. And Joan says, are wild black cherries included in the sour cherry group? Yeah, so there's actually three sites for cherries.
So cherries part of a larger genus of plants called prunus. So they're all the stone fruit. So there's. stone fruits in Davis, California. There's stone fruits in the National Arboretum. So sometimes those more ornamental or the black cherries might fall into the National Arboretum. We have a few of them as seeds here by Prunus serotina or Prunus virginiana.
The things that they typically call black cherries. But those are, again, those are fascinating because they have a really rich nutrient profile. So if you could bring those into modern cherry breeding, like again, you dazzled consumers with like interesting colors and, enriched like nutrients, different flavors.
I love the bitterness of some of the wild cherries. Prunus pensylvanica, the fire cherry, which is native in North America, has like a melon, like a really mild, like you wouldn't think it's again, it's mostly pit, you get very little flesh, but it, makes great preserves and there's documentation of native peoples using those.
fantastic.
[00:51:20] Open House Event Details
we got to wrap up. So very quickly, tell us if we want to get involved and come and visit on the Open House Day in Geneva to visit the Apple Collection. how do we get involved in that? Yeah. So just come. There's no reservations needed. I've shared the address in our little announcement, but.
Yeah. It's in Geneva, New York from on set Saturday, September 14th from 10 to noon. And there's more fruit than you could ever imagine trying to taste. Oh my gosh. That's fabulous. I will put a link to that in the show notes, both on the YouTube video and, on the podcast video. Ben, thank you so much.
I feel like we just started this conversation and it's already coming to an end. I don't know how that exactly happened, but thank you so much for coming on the show today. Maybe you'll come back another day and do a follow up conversation with me. Happy to. Thank you, Susan. That's wonderful. you are listening to Orchard People, a radio show and podcast brought to you by the Fruit Tree Care Training website, orchardpeople.
com. And if you want to listen to this show again, or if you want to tune in and listen to other episodes, all you have to do is go to podcast. org. orchardpeople. com and you will see all our other podcasts on great topics. Thank you so much for tuning in everybody. It's been a super fun show and we will be back again next month with a very interesting topic.
So I hope to see you then. Bye for now.