You need to take a page from the American Kennel Club, they're purebreds not inbreds. Sounds much better that way.

Very interesting article ... makes all the talk about planting seeds seem more realistic to me than before. Thanks for posting it.

This is a 2nd document confirming the huge amount of cultivars 100 years ago. The BBC radio show mentioned pears, now here is apples. These documents certainly show a trend of monoculture, which is not good. Probably part of it is the lack of need to garden that happened between now and 100 years ago Because when one starts to do it themselves, one is interested and intrigued by the choices. Since the demand for apple trees that do not meet commercial standards declined a lot, many probably are lost for good. Hopefully the trend now to get back, will at least possibly pull some rarer types back into the mainstream.

That link is awesome thanks a lot konrad!

Its amazing what we have done due to industrialization and highly commercializing out food.

There are quite a few people trying to preserve and breed old genes. There are some people who cross breed with khazakstan apples, which is where apples are native, and the gene pool is extremely diverse.

All of these groups are trying to cross for disease resistance, and bring back the proper taste of apples. We bred out disease resistance due to inbreeding, but we also bred out taste in exchange for shelf life and for transportation (exactly what the article stated)

Awesome stuff. Thanks for posting.

The best way to maintain species diversity is to save the original habitat- I've read that the genetics of all cultivated apples is rather limited compared to what still grows in the hills in Central Asia.

I know that Cornell growers have gone there for breeding materials but I haven't heard of any introduced results.

Here is a link that might be useful: origin of apples

Thank you Konrad, excellent as always. More photos please. Mrs. G

Very interesting...thanks for sharing this.
That apple "Discovery" sure was pretty and had a very nice round shape.

I wish some group somewhere would begin an extensive program of breeding apples for heavy disease resistance. To be honest, I often times find myself wishing Monsanto would breed a virtually disease immune variety that produced it's own insecticide like their Bt corn.