have you ever walked into a grocery
store and wondered where all those
varieties of apples came from you might
find snap dragon pixie crunch cosmic
crisp jazz or ambrosia next to the more
familiar Red Delicious and Granny Smith
these delightfully descriptive names
belong to just a handful of the over
7,500 apple varieties in the world this
huge diversity exists largely because of
humanity's efforts to bear new fruit
fruit breeding is a way to fulfill the
expectations of farmers and consumers
who seek specific qualities in an apple
on the one hand farmers may want them to
be disease resistant and to store well
on the other consumers are swayed by
appearance taste and novelty so breeders
have to consider everything from how
well apples grow in certain climates to
their color taste and size and sometimes
finding the perfect fit means breeding
something new to create apples with
desirable characteristics breeders first
need to find parent apples that carry
those characteristics once the parents
have been selected they have to wait
until the trees bloom in the spring the
breeder takes the pollen from one bloom
called the father and transfers it by
hand to the other parent bloom called
the mother through a process called
cross-pollination once the mother bloom
turns into an apple the seeds are
collected and then planted it takes
about five years for these seeds to grow
into trees that produce apples but
because of the way traits are inherited
all of the seedlings produced will have
different sets of genes and
characteristics this means that to
achieve a desired quality it takes a lot
of offspring
not to mention patience on the breeders
part when a seedling does bear fruit
with the desired qualities it's selected
for further evaluation of the original
cross'd seedlings about one in every
five thousand makes it to this
prestigious stage they're then sent to
new farms where breeders can assess how
various climates and soil types affect
the plant's growth
the fruit of the seedling and its many
clones must then be collected and
sampled to ensure consistency breeders
study about forty five traits in an
apple like the texture and firmness of
the flesh when it ripens how sugar its
juices and how long it stays fresh over
several years they weed out all the bad
apples selecting only those whose fruits
are the best these exclusive plants
officially form the cultivar or new
apple variety to ensure an exact copy of
this cultivar all apple trees must be
grafted from the original seedling
branches called Scion wood are cut from
the original tree and grown to generate
more Scion wood segments of these trees
are then grafted on to reap stock that's
the lower section of another tree that's
been chosen from a different cultivar
for its superior roots and growing
ability finally this fusion creates a
new apple tree with the desired
qualities each new plant takes up to
four years before it starts producing
the fruit we eat apple breeding may be a
difficult art but it's accessible to all
universities companies and even
individuals can create new cultivars but
to fully own an apple the breeder faces
a final challenge naming the fruit after
a cultivar is patented a breeder chooses
a name for its trademark that final step
grants them long-lasting rights over the
apple and its clones that name must be
completely original and the catcher the
better of course with over 7,500
varieties and Counting that's why we
have apples called pink lady sweet Tango
kiku and ever crisp the more we work
with nature's bounty to breed new
cultivars the more creative and
delectable these names will become