At some point, the trees begin to fruit and the real fun part starts as we get to taste the fruits of our labors. One thing I’ve learned is to give the trees a few years to fruit before judging them too harshly. The first fruits are often different and not typical or exemplary. They can be small and stunted, have very different texture and different ripening times than they will later. I’ve also seen several cases where red flesh development improved over time. In general, quality is likely to improve as the tree establishes and fruits over several years. If the apple is super good the first year, that is usually a good sign and it will probably only get better.
It is hard to say all the things that go into deciding whether something is worth propagating or not. One thing I do is compare to what I already have growing. If it fills some niche that nothing else seems to, then that is valuable. I have a couple of seedlings, Twang and Integrity that in some ways are not that exciting. They are not sensational in any way, but they fill a role that other apples in the season do not. They are very similar when cooked and both hold their shape very well in a pie, which is an uncommon trait. Some of the most famous pie apples are much softer and collapse into a saggy pile when cooked. They also both appear to be scab resistant and Twang is unusually dense fleshed for an early apple, ripening in August. Twang can also make for decent eating at that season, again, when there are not a lot of apples to choose from. Twang is earlier and Integrity overlaps and follows it. They make a good set for beautiful, healthy cooking apples that have some use for eating as well.
I think these apples have potential for market, either selling at farmer’s markets, or especially directly to chefs and bakeries as early cooking apples that are probably superior to anything they could get in a store. Either could be better for eating, or be more exciting with more different flavors or red flesh for instance, but they fill a role that other apples don’t at that season. Having collected hundreds of varieties, I have stuff to compare to. They also have much potential for improvement by crossing with other apples. Those are the reasons I released them.
With red fleshed apples, we are still in the infancy of their development. I’ll release red fleshed apples now that will probably not make the cut in another 15 or 20 years, though I am already being more selective based on my results alone. Those apples are still exciting, delicious and fun given the current state of development for red fleshed apples. They also have great potential for further breeding and I want them out there being used for that. My best red fleshed apple so far for overall dessert quality is probably a certain King David x Rubaiyat cross. It is likely very susceptible to scab though. There are always things that can be improved in any apple.
One thing I would not do is compare your apples too much with commercial apples in terms of marketability. Those apples are chosen to perform in the industrial food model for many reasons, only one of which is flavor. As home and small scale growers, we can choose from a much broader range of traits like size, season, storage ability etc. The bottom line for me is do I want to grow it and eat it and if I do, others probably do too. A few of them I’ve released more for breeding purposes, like Appleoosa. In the case of Black Strawberry, it is just too intriguing in flavor and appearance to keep it to myself, and again, it has high potential for breeding. A friend in Canada has fruited both and loves them. It sounds like they are actually going to perform much better up there as dessert apples than they do here, and I suspect that will be true many other places as well. There is only one way to find out though, grow them everywhere and see what happens.
We will all probably end up discarding fruits that may do much better elsewhere. That’s okay, just keep growing more and we’ll end up with plenty of good varieties. My success rate seems to be similar to others I’ve talked to. There are smaller percentages something like 10 to 15% on either end that are either horrible on one end, or worth grafting and growing on the other, A smaller percentage of those good ones are really special. In between are a bunch of take-it-or-leave-it apples that are okay, but don’t distinguish themselves enough to bother propagating.
When tasting I use a balance of analysis and instinct. Analysis is good for detecting flavors, noting texture and stuff like that. It is easy to get lost in analysis though and an apple is more than the sum of its analyzable parts. At the end of the day, the most valuable assessment is your own instinct, or natural response to the fruit. Do I want to keep eating it? Sometimes an apple can seem very interesting, like I should want to eat it, but I could take it or leave it.
When I get something that I want to finish, or want to take a second bite of before I even finish the first bite, that ranks the highest among every other factor to me. After going through the rows tasting, I will think back to what seedlings I was most compelled to eat. This can even be true for cider apples, maybe more so. If you have a cider apple that has some bitterness, or a crappy texture for eating, but the flavor is compelling enough that you want to eat it anyway, that is probably a good sign. Black Strawberry is a good example of something that is so delicious that it is easy to ignore its shortcomings.
I hope someday that we will have a place online to showcase our apples, tell our stories, allow others to review our fruits, link nurseries that carry our trees and accept donations in some way. It is certainly possible to come up with an apple that has real commercial potential, especially when breeding with modern varieties. Few of us will want to engage that process in any way that is going to make an apple famous though. It is more likely that we would work with an established company that would be licensed to test, grow and distribute it. I would consider this if for no other reason than that a lot of people would actually get to eat them. It is more likely that our apples will eventually be used to breed new commercial varieties, but that is okay too. I have no problem with anyone using my varieties to breed commercially if it means that apples improve and people get to eat something interesting and delicious.
I have been approached by quite a few people now that offered to collect a small voluntary royalty for me when grafting and selling trees of my varieties. I like that approach and I think a more social solution like that has advantages over legal solutions. Legally, no one can patent a variety that you create and release into the public domain. It doesn’t mean they won’t do it anyway, but it is outright patent fraud. Anyone can use the pollen or seeds to grow new varieties though and that is how it should be. I don’t want to be restricted to what pollen and seed I can use and no one else should either.
As far as patents go, the standard plant patent is only 20 years and does not protect the genes, just the actual cultivar. There are big companies out there trying to claim ownership and patent and control specific traits and genes. That is a very bad development and should not be allowed to happen. That doesn’t mean that patenting itself is bad though. Patenting a plant is really no different than patenting a product. In fact, it is better, because plant patents expire quickly. It is just a way for breeders to get paid for their work. No one can do large scale breeding, involving multiple generations without some kind of income. The knee jerk response to basic plant patenting has no real basis in reality as far as I can tell. I have not heard a single interesting argument for forgoing all plant patenting. If fact, I’m not sure I’ve heard any arguments other than patenting any living thing is bad, without an actual argument for the position. This is self referencing logic, like- It is bad. Why is it bad? Because it is bad. I am personally more interested in releasing everything into the public domain, but I would consider patenting a few things, with allowance for anyone to graft it for non-commerical home use. People will anyway.
So that is the end of this series updating what I would do now and am doing now. The future is bright for amateur and small scale plant breeding in general, and certainly for apples. What we really need to happen is for average people to understand that they can do this and don’t need a lot of information or skills or permission from anyone. It is so much fun and such an ongoing adventure that the rest will take care of itself. We really will need a central place for us to showcase our work though and that could also serve as a breeding ground to create more breeders with forums and tutorials. I don’t think I have written down my ideas on that. If anyone feels compelled to take up that challenge, I’ll work with you, but no way can I actually create that myself at this point or probably ever.
Our food system has given us a lack of diversity and a lot of low quality food. An overlooked and important part of taking back our agency in what we eat is breeding and selection by the people who actually grow and eat it. Everyone who engages in breeding and selection on any scale furthers that agenda. Good luck. I look forward to hearing about and maybe growing and tasting what you all come up with in this adventure. Just the seedlings I have growing here and all the seed I’ve sent out and the pollen I’ve sent out, will yield a lot of amazing new fruits. Combine that with other people that have been also doing this for a while and new people going their own ways with it and things are going to get very interesting. Eventually this work we are doing will have to work its way into commercially available apples too. Thomas Jefferson said “The greatest service which can be rendered any country is to add a useful plant to its culture.” I might say that the greater service would be to somehow foster more people into that work and create a self perpetuating culture of breeding and selection that will blossom into a plethora of plant diversity. That is the long game. Individual breeders die off, who will replace them and take the work in new directions? That is what we should be interested in. The rest will take care of itself.
