Posted on 04/15/2020 11:59:45 AM PDT by Artemis Webb
PORTLAND, Ore. — A team of retirees who scour the remote ravines and windswept plains of the Pacific Northwest for long-forgotten pioneer orchards has rediscovered 10 apple varieties that were believed to be extinct — the largest number ever unearthed in a single season by the nonprofit Lost Apple Project.
The Vietnam veteran and former FBI agent who make up the nonprofit recently learned of their tally from last fall’s apple sleuthing from expert botanists at the Temperate Orchard Conservancy in Oregon, where all the apples are sent for study and identification. The apples positively identified as previously “lost” were among hundreds of fruits collected in October and November from 140-year-old orchards tucked into small canyons or hidden in forests that have since grown up around them in rural Idaho and Washington state.
(snip)
Each fall, Brandt and Benscoter spend countless hours and log hundreds of miles searching for ancient — and often dying — apple trees across the Pacific Northwest by truck, all-terrain vehicle and on foot. They collect hundreds of apples from long-abandoned orchards that they find using old maps, county fair records, newspaper clippings and nursery sales ledgers that can tell them which homesteader bought what apple tree and when the purchase happened.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
Carizzozo is still famous for their cherry cider.
Good to read about these rediscoveries.
Somehow this makes me happy - that someone cares enough about apples to do this.
Cider apples have real character. Some are also good eating apples. They might be small and aren’t always pretty, but boy are they good.
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You can sell them all, well a good 95% at least. They do not have to be pretty.
Going to be a couple more years until ours are ready. But they should give a decent return. And it keeps us off the streets and out of mischief.
Thanks Artemis Webb, great to read about this. The old varieties were pretty specialized, and pretty special, but they tended to have some problem (like, difficult to ship, or alternatiing on-off years). There are hobbyist growers who maintain small orchards with, say, 111 trees comprised of 111 varieties. The estimate of different varieties of old was perhaps 3000, kind of a lot, really.'
I recall reading about these lost apple hunters some time ago. Forgotten apple varieties that got shoved aside as mass production and uniformity was demanded by big grocery chains.
I read about the Cosmic Crisp awhile ago - it is an interesting story. I bought one to share with my wife and the kids. (Yes - just one!) We all thought it was really good. $2.50 an apple good? Not sure. (It was some price like that iirc).
From 1943 to 1955 as a child I lived in the original house on one acre of land that was part of an original Dutch land grant property 2 miles from New York City. Woods had grown up on 1/2 the land but there were some old pear trees there. I would gather the fruit as it fell and mom would trim and can it with cinnamon and clove. Fond memories. We also had original grapes, black raspberries, blackberries, an apple tree and rhubarb that were there when we moved in. Then my father plowed up most of the grass and we had a very large Victory Garden until we moved. I learned a lot about canning, gardening and hard work. My father did let me sell surplus, so I also learned how to earn money which I was allowed to keep.
Good stuff. Thanks
I have taken to honeycrisp and cosmic crisp for flavor.
I’ve also found that unwashed apples have some really bad preservative flavor on the skin.
Growing up, ‘Johnny Appleseed’ was a hero of mine. Here in East TN I look forward to the apple season, for a drive or two through the mountains of Western NC where the apples and applesauce vendors set up road-side booths. Sometimes you find a local honey vendor among the Apple bins. Best honey in the world!
Don't tell Eve. 😇
I thought the Northwest was Microsoft Country.
With or without Eve, an apple has appeal.
Great article.
“I read about the Cosmic Crisp awhile ago - it is an interesting story.”
Since the market is now glutted with Honeycrisp apples (also still quite expensive - why so pricey when they’re so plentiful?), breeders are developing whole other lines with the ‘crisp’ in the name.
Should be good eating in the near future! What a time to be alive! :)
“Washington Red Delicious. Yuck” lol some of the best apples I ever tasted. I was at the Yakima firing center in eastern Washington and would pick Red Delicious in the orchards near by.
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