Bloglet e-mail subscriptions

For those intrepid souls who actually scroll down that far, you'll note that I've added an option for e-mail subscriptions to the blog via Bloglet. Since I've been known to go ages without a post, this is a nice option for those hardcore readers who otherwise would show up every day in the vain hope of finding a new post.

The down side is that Bloglet is vaguely defunct. However, it seems to still work, just with no support. But if it stops working, don't complain to me.

Actually, do complain to me, so I can remove the link, but don't expect me to fix anything, because I can't.

Elderberries

I feel an unusual fondness for elderberries, considering that I've never grown them nor I do eat them particularly often. I suppose I'm not entirely unique in this respect, as plants of the genus Sambucus have long been revered by a number of cultures. Supposedly to this day there are places in northern Europe where some men still doff their hats when passing an elderberry bush, traditionally considered the home of spirits (granted these may well be crazy old men for all I know, but it's kind of a nice tradition).

There are a lot of non-spiritual reasons to like elderberries, too. On a personal level, they remind me of when my uncle, car broken down at the side of road at the and waiting for a tow, discovered elderberry plants at the edge of the woods, heavy with fruit, and proceeded to load up on as many as he possibly could, taking cuttings from the plants for good measure. We planted the cuttings (they root easily, just dusted them with rooting hormone and stuck them in a bucket of sand) and made wine from the berries. The pure elderberry wine was pretty good, but the wine from 4/5 NY73.0136.17 grape juice blended with 1/5 elderberry juice was absolutely wonderful.

They also remind me of when a former co-worker of mine once brought in an elderberry pie, which we ate during coffee break one friday morning. One small problem: she didn't realize she needed to add sugar. Elderberries are not a sweet fruit. When my uncle and I made wine with them, I think the sugar levels came out at at about 1 Brix (compare to 10+ for almost all ripe fruits you eat fresh, and 20+ for most grapes). The pie was nearly inedible, but we all worked our way painfully through it until she finally sat down to try her own piece, at which point we were immediately instructed to stop eating and showered with apologies.

With the correct sugar added, though, they do make a good pie, as well as jelly. There's some interest in them as a 'nutraceutical', being extremely high iron, among other things, and the juice can be used as a dye. And they're easy to grow and quite productive, with very few pests or diseases, although they have real problems with viral diseases some places and occasional troubles with powdery mildew. They're widely adapted, with a native range covering most of the U.S. and Canada. The plants are quite attractive (there are even some ornamental cultivars), and don't mind partial shade as far as I can tell. I recently read that they seem to tolerate juglanone, the toxic substance secreted by the roots of black walnut (Juglans nigra) and butternut (Juglans cinerea) trees, so perhaps they're a good use of the shady empty space under such a tree. They're fast-growing tall shrubs, ranging up to 12 feet high, with very pretty fragrant flowers and a handful of long canes. The clusters of zillions of shiny berries look quite tempting when ripe, though they turn out to be disappointingly tart (some types are sweet enough that I enjoy them fresh, but my wife assures me I'm weird in this way.) The native Americans used it both as food and as a mild laxative and treatment for measles.

On another personal note, every time I think about a fruit in which little breeding has been done, I get a little surge of excitement thinking about the possibilities, and elderberries certainly have not been bred very much. A survey of planting recommendations will turn up a list of the same five or so cultivars every time: 'Adams No. 1', 'Adams No. 2', 'Johns', 'Nova', and 'Scotia'. The first, and for a very long time, only player in the not-so-competitive world of elderberry breeding was the Cornell, at the New York State Agricultural Experiment Station. This program released two cultivars in 1926, on behalf of a Mr. Adams, but apparently could only come up with one name, resulting in 'Adams No. 1' and 'Adams No. 2'. (An old flyer for 'Adams Improved Everbearing Elderberry No. 2' is viewable here.) For a good thirty years or so, this was it as far as named cultivars. The Kentville, Nova Scotia station got involved at that point, first naming and releasing 'Johns', a wild selection which had been in wide cultivation for some time, and then a series of releases in 1960: 'Nova', 'Scotia', 'Kent', and 'Victoria'. All of these, I believe, are open pollinated selections from 'Adams No.2'. 'York', Cornell's third and final release, is a cross between 'Adams No. 2' and 'Ezyoff' (another cultivar which seems largely forgotten), so the currently available named varieties are highly dependent on a single genotype. (I've often though it was too bad that after 'Nova' and 'Scotia' from Nova Scotia, the Cornell program didn't pair 'York' with another cultivar named 'New'.)

It seems as though there would be plenty to work with if some one did feel inclined to breed them. The genus Sambucus contains a number of species with a wide range of traits. S. nigra, the European Black Elderberry, and S. canadensis, the American Elderberry are the two most commonly cultivated for fruit, although others are edible. There's quite a range of traits available, with striking variability in fruit and leaf color, as well as in fruit and cluster size. I think there is some breeding for ornamentals going on, given the appearance of a few new ornamental cultivars in recent years, but I think both Cornell and Kentville have been out of thre breeding game for quite a while. East Malling Research in the U.K. appears to have a program, releasing 'Gerda' and 'Eva' in recent years (sold as 'Black Beauty' and 'Black Lace', respectively), but these appear to have been selected primarily for appearance, not fruit.

If I ever have tons of land, which is looking a tad unlikely, I'd probably take a crack at it. Still, they're nice enough looking that I'll probably throw one or two in the yard once we finally get settled somewhere.

Newton's Apple, Redux

As I was downloading David Karp's mangosteen photos, it dawned on me that I'd never posted the photos of East Malling's 'Flower of Kent' apple tree that one kind reader from the U.K. sent to me. This tree is cool for two reasons: not only is it a clone of the tree from which Newton's legendary apple fell (if it fell at all), but it is also the source of the budwood which generated almost all other trees said to be propagated from Newton's apple tree (I think it accounts for all of them in North America, but I could be wrong.)





It looks kind of lonely there, as though it wandered into the lot and never found its way out. Actually it looks like one of the orphan trees I sometimes see in breeding programs, left standing alone in the middle of a field long after all its siblings fell prey to a breeder's deadly judgement.

Budwood was taken from the original tree at Newton's Woolsthorpe Manor before its demise in 1814, and grafted to trees belonging to Lord Brownlow of Belton. From there, wood was sent to the research station in East Malling. Kew Gardens also has a 'Flower of Kent', propagated from a different tree at Woolsthorpe in 1943, and some believe there are two distinct strains of the cultivar, one from the Kew source, and one from the East Malling source. Tradition maintains that it was the actual apple tree from the story that was the source of the Brownlow and East Malling trees, but no one really knows at this stage, I suspect. Heck, there's really no clear evidence whether the whole apple store is true.

Seeds from 'Flower of Kent' flew on one of the Apollo missions (hidden in a pen, if I recall, but there were a number of tree seeds that visited the moon on Apollo 14, so they may have been among that group), and three of the seedlings grew for years at the New York State Agricultural Experiment Station in Geneva, NY. (Anybody know what became of these?)

Mangosteens!

No, they're not teenage mangos.

David Karp, the "Fruit Detective", and author of an assortment of great fruit articles, has a piece out in the New York Times on this realitive rarity. I don't know how long non-subscriber access will last, but for now you can read it here.

Update: Okay, so I moved too slowly. All you non-New York Times subscribing types (I really ought to subscribe, considering I buy it more days than not) can turn to a life of piracy and read an illicit copy here, sans photos, for as long as it lasts.

Update 2: For good measure, here's another earlier non-Karp New York Times piece on mangosteens, no doubt questionably reproduced as well.

Update 3: And because David was nice enough to contribute them, a rare treat here on the Fruit Blog: in-line photos! The idea of the "Photo of the Day" thing was to limit hosting requirements, but since that issue has been solved, there's really no need to be so restrained, so I'll put one here and one over in the sidebar. (These are copyrighted by David Karp, so please don't use them without permission). So, without further delay...mangosteen!:



Update 4: Oops...still getting the hang of the photo thing. That should fix it.

Ettersburg Apples

I've honestly never heard of Greenmantle Nursery, but I'm really impressed with the descriptions of Albert Etter's apples, as well as their crab apple page. It's good to see Etter getting a bit of his due. I'd like to find some one selling his strawberries as well.

Anybody ever seen 'Alaska'? I never have...I'm just curious if it really is as truly white as the picture on that page shows.

John Schmid: The Hunt for an Improved Melrose, pt. 2

And now the exciting conclusion...

When full production began in our special orchard at Jackson, it soon became clear that no tree stood out as being as superior as the russetted trees were bad. We had to depend on statistics and the computer to choose selections.

Each year yield records were recorded and a 10 fruit sample from each tree was brought to Wooster for evaluation. We were looking for better color, but any improvement would be welcomed, so the data we collected was average fruit weight, length/width ratio, color intensity, percent color, firmness, soluble solids (sweetness), and since russet was a problem some years, a russet rating. Over the next five years, this fruit evaluation made up a large part of my winter’s work.

When the evaluation was over, we made eight selections based on computer analysis that scored better than the standard ‘Melrose’ in color, percent color, and yield. We found no selection that was superior to the standard in any other measurement.

During the years of this study other, better coloring strains of ‘Melrose’ had been identified in France and England. We obtained trees of each and had grown them in our orchards at Wooster.

A commercial grower in Ohio found a sport of ‘Melrose’ in his orchard that seemed to be a spur type. We were able to obtain bud wood and propagate trees of this strain. (A “spur type” has shorter internodal lengths, thus having the advantage of growing more fruit in a given space.)

At this point we were ready for a replicated trial. We propagated our eight selections, the two from France, the three from England, our Ohio spur type, and standard ‘Melrose’ as the control. An orchard was planted at Wooster consisting of six trees of each.

Once more yield records were taken each year. Again 10 fruit samples were taken and data collected. After ten years and six years of fruit data the experiment was finished and all data was submitted to computer analysis. The summer of 2000 was my chance to announce the results to the world, well, to the Ohio fruit growers that attended the Horticulture field day at Wooster, Ohio.

Some of our eight selections were slightly better in color than standard ‘Melrose’, but not as good as the French strains, ‘Melrouge’ and ‘Melred’. In all other measurements, none of the selections or strains was better than the standard.

If you plant ‘Melrouge’ or ‘Melred’, you will get a slightly better colored ‘Melrose’ in most years. Sorry, just an incremental improvement; no real scientific breakthrough here.

The spur type? Well, it turned out to be a true spur type. Want to plant it? I wouldn’t recommend it. The spur type averaged less than one apple a year per tree in our trial.

. . . so much for nearly 25 years of research. I use this as an object lesson for why there are fewer and fewer tree fruit breeding programs at our state universities. You are not guaranteed success, no matter how much time, effort, and resources you bring to the program.

When it was first introduced, there was great hope for mutation breeding. Lots and lots of cuttings, budwood, and seedlings got irradiated, dipped in mutagens, etc. In the end there was comparatively little to show for it. There were a few success stories (the self-compatible sweet cherry, for example, as well as some growth habit mutants in tree fruit), but for the most part the mutants it generated were of limited utility. And when you think of it, it's not that surprising. Mutation breeding is a little like trying to fix a watch by hitting it with a hammer. Much of the time, it'll just break completely. Some of the time it'll keep running, but not as well as before. And sometimes, very, very rarely, there is a tiny chance that it might actually work better. Breaking chromosomes is no different.

That said, given the track record of natural mutant sports in apple, fruit color is probably as good a target for mutagenesis as any trait, since single locus mutations can clearly have a profound effect on fruit color.

John Schmid: The Hunt for an Improved Melrose, pt. 1

I'm pleased to present another contribution from John Schmid, a veteran of many years in the apple program at Ohio State, in an era when public fruit breeding programs were more plentiful and better funded. It's a bit longish, and he's kindly divided it in half, so I'm going to post part one now, and part two later this week, I think:

I had just started work at the OARDC when a project was launched to find or develop an improved ‘Melrose’ apple. About 25 years later, I was given the honor of presenting the results of this project at the Horticulture Field Day in Wooster.

In the late 70’s, the Ohio government had just proclaimed ‘Melrose’ the state apple. The researchers and apple growers in Ohio knew that unlike several popular cultivars, ‘Melrose’ was a high quality apple and well adapted to Ohio, They decided that every effort should be made to ensure that ‘Melrose’ would become popular. As I stated in my earlier post, appearance is the weakness of ‘Melrose’, so the project was to find or create a better-colored ‘Melrose’.

Years earlier, red sports of ‘Delicious’ started to show up in Washington commercial orchards in great numbers. It was suspected, but to my knowledge never proven, that the scion wood used to propagate those trees was somehow exposed to radiation. So in 1977, the Ohio team set out to duplicate this accident with ‘Melrose’.

Large amounts of scion wood was collected and sent to the Ohio State University Hospital in Columbus where the wood was exposed to radiation. Calls to radiation experts found that no one had a guide for how much radiation was necessary, so the scion wood was divided into three lots and exposed at a best guess rate and rates to either side of it.

One thousand rootstocks were purchased and a crew of grafters was recruited (technicians and grad students who couldn’t find an excuse). During the grafting, it was noted that the scion wood seemed to be dry.

That spring, very few grafts “took” after being planted out in the nursery. More calls to more radiation experts suggested that we were off by a factor of 10. Instead of “shaking up the genes” in an effort to find a beneficial mutation, we had fried the graft tissue.

In the nursery, the few grafts that took were flagged and the graft-less rootstocks were maintained to one shoot for the rest of the year. That fall, bud wood was collected and exposed to lower rates of radiation than before. Surviving rootstocks were double budded where possible to ensure the most viable trees for testing. Each bud could be THE ONE.

After a year’s growth in the nursery, the new trees were dug and planted out at OARDC’s branch in Jackson, Ohio. Where there were two buds growing, both were allowed to remain. In all, there were just over two hundred trees under study. Manpower always being at a premium at branch stations, the trees were sprayed, but not pruned beyond what was necessary to get tractors through the aisles.

As the first fruit appeared in this special orchard, it became evident that we’d indeed “shaken up the genes”. A couple of trees had only a few apples, but those it had were 100% russetted. Another had fruit that was not only 100% ressetted, but also had knobs or lobes like a potato! Much conversation was generated after we exhibited these samples. A contest of sorts ensued to name these “sports”. Many names were suggested, but since Dr. Ferree was heading the effort, the one that I liked best was ‘Ferree’s Seek Much Further’. We were undaunted by the levity, if the genes could be shaken to produce such a monstrosity, surly they had been shaken to produce a better ‘Melrose’ as well.

The 'Melrose' apple was developed by Ohio State, and much effort has been made to encourage its adoption, with mixed results. It is, however, an unarguably better apple than much of what is bought today. I wonder if the lack of good red color would have been as much of an issue today, when there are "red" fruited cultivars like 'Fuji', which not only is consistently poorly colored, but which often has a sort of a greenish-brown cast which to me suggests a poorly ripened fruit. (That said, a good 'Fuji' is a wonderful apple...color really has very little bearing on eating quality).

Oh, and for those who don't recognize get it, 'Ferree's Seek Much Further' is a play on 'Westfield Seek No Further', a very nice antique dessert apple with one of the cooler fruit names out there. (There's an apple named 'Slacken Your Belt' or something to that effect that I read about a while ago, and I haven't had any luck tracking any information down about it. That's got to be right up there for the all-time best name. If any one knows anything about it, drop me a line).

Anyway, more to come on 'Melrose' and the perils of mutation breeding. Stay tuned!

Back from ASHS

Well, I'm back from the ASHS meeting in New Orleans. Actually, I've been back for nearly a week, just been busy. A good meeting, maybe not the best I've been to, as attendance seemed to be down somewhat (might have been my imagination, I haven't seen the numbers). Still lots of the usual folks, though fewer of the Cornell people I usually try to catch up with. I can't believe it's been five years (almost to the day) since I worked there. Quite a few of the Arkansas and ex-Arkansas crowd, though, and it was good seeing them.

One of the highlights of the meeting was the American Pomological Society's session on blueberries. They had samples of a number of blueberry cultivars, including 'Rubel', which was one of Coville's original selections from the wild, and frankly it was better than 90% of what you get in the grocery store. Surprisingly good, really. I'd even consider planting it if I had a site. It would be interesting, if the all still exist, to line up all those original selections and see how they compare, as well as if one could see any of them reflected in today's. The session had quite a few speakers, covering a range of issues. Of particular interest to me was Arlen Draper, who I had the pleasure of meeting and chatting with briefly before the session. The man probably knows more about blueberries than anyone living, and was George Darrow's successor at the USDA. I got a little flash of what ASHS meetings of the 1950's might have been like as he spoke, in his white shirt and dark tie, with no slides, just speaking from the podium...I pictured a whole room of identically dressed men (probably some of them smoking), and talk after talk like that. He was good enough to pull it off, but I wonder if everyone was (of course, if you aren't used to PowerPoint, you don't expect that from a talk either...I suppose they probably had slides or overheads).

My wife once told me: "One thing I like about you is how fond you are of older people". It was amusing to hear her say it that way, and I never really thought of it that sense, but I've always had a deep respect, almost awe, for the giants of horticulture, and I feel deeply privileged whenever I get the opportunity to meet one of the men who laid the foundation for much of what we take for granted in the field today. 99% of the population neither knows nor cares who these people are, but I feel truly proud that I'll be able to say that I've met men like Arlen Draper, Jules Janick, Nelson Shaulis, and Jim Moore (I'm even Jim Moore's "academic grandson").

Anyway, other highlights included a day-long and surprisingly engaging session on intellectual property rights, primarily targeted at breeders. One speaker gave the statistic that where they've investigated, roughly 30% of patented fruit trees were illegally propagated (that is in the U.S., in Australia it's 15%). I'm not surprised it's high, but I'm a little surprised it's that high. It's a testament to how little enforcement there really is, because really, what does a fruit tree cost, compared to the money made off of it? Royalties may amount to a good chunk of change when purchasing hundreds or thousands at a time, but if there was a real risk of having to pull out producing mature trees a few years down the line, it wouldn't be worth it to anyone. Also discussed was the implications of the revised plant patent law, and how it's being used to limit breeding. I personally think that interpretation is a load of nonsense, and any common sense reading of the law should make that obvious, but clearly not everyone feels that way. One of the lawyers present suggested that valid or not, breeders at public universities need not worry, because the Constitution prevents people from suing states in federal court. An interesting observation, though it's worth noting the other lawyer there did not agree.

My own talk was in an inappropriate session at the very end of the conference, and was poorly attended, but it garnered lots of interest anyhow, and many people approached me before hand to discuss the work. I have a number of collaborations in the early stages as a result, and I'm excited to see how it all plays out. Had a good talk with Doug Bielenberg from Clemson about his work on the Evergrowing mutant in peach, which I've seen him present before. An interesting story, and I'm trying to keep close track of his work to see how it works out. Also met (or re-met) some folks from Cornell that I didn't know from my time there, and had a good talk about things Rosaceae, and especially strawberries, as well as things Cornell and things grad student.

I also had several exciting job prospects. One of them is in industry, which I'm still trying to get my head around, as I honestly never really thought about it because, really, how much private fruit breeding is there? It's an opportunity to work with the absolute cutting edge in fruit breeding, but it also brings a change of mindset and culture, so I need to really thinnk about it, but I think it's probably too good an opportunity to turn down. (My odds sounded good, but I don't actually have it yet, so some one else may make the decision for me.) Not my only opportunity, but the first one that requires action on my part. Very exciting, regardless. I must say the whole grad student thing is starting to wear a little thin.

Anyway, now I'm back and it's back to the grind, with slightly increased urgency. I'm really going to try to get back to regular posting here and do a few more genetics pieces. Some exciting stuff going on in the lab, but I probably ought to publish it the regular way, rather than on a blog. Tough to resist, though. Probably better that way. I think I bore about 90% of my readership when I start talking genetics. Luckily none of you are paying for this. (If you'd like to send me money, though, you can e-mail me and I'll make arrangments).