It lost out because it wasn’t the shiny, red apple Jude Schuenemeyer
Despite its admirable culinary attributes, by the mid-20th century it had started fading into obscurity — pushed out by a move towards monoculture. “When the Red Delicious came out around 1900, it was just another apple,” Jude recently told CNN. “By 1920, it became the dominant apple. It was a shiny, red apple that grew pretty well everywhere.”
Now, after nearly two decades of searching, the Schuenemeyers have rediscovered the Colorado Orange, and hope it will soon be available at farmers’ markets, restaurants and grocery stores.
They first read about its unique qualities at a county fair. In 2014, they thought they had found the “lost” apple, but it turned out to be a false alarm. Despite the accounts of “many old-timers,” genetic fingerprinting revealed it to be a York Imperial.
Photo by Courtesy of the Montezuma Orchard Restoration Project
Continuing their search over the years, there were more disappointments. But in December 2017, they had reason to be hopeful. The owner of a tree in Canyon City claimed it was a Colorado Orange and “the apples looked the part: oblate, ribbed, yellow and orange in colour, obviously a late-winter apple,” Addie told CNN.
They sent samples to horticulture scientists at the University of Minnesota for DNA testing and the results — “unique, unknown” — encouraged them. The next step was comparing some of the specimens they had gathered to four watercolours, each painted by a different United States Department of Agriculture artist in the early 1900s.
Throwawaylikeme90 on September 26th, 2020 at 02:42 UTC »
Every time I read an article about heritage apple preservationists it makes me more and more angry that Red Delicious became dominant, because for all intents and purposes it’s a pretty lousy variety with historically good marketing.
impressive_specimen on September 26th, 2020 at 02:23 UTC »
The fact that it benefits from so much time off-tree and in the cellar to ripen makes it so strange to me that this one fell out of favor. Having a fruit with a shelf life of like nine months, in which the longer you wait the better it tastes is pretty handy and completely bad ass.
Passing4human on September 26th, 2020 at 01:46 UTC »
Thank you for sharing!
It's interesting how apple varieties disappear and are rediscovered and rescued from the brink of extinction. There was a cultivar called the Harrison that was widely grown from the 1700's on but almost became extinct in the 1930's. The reason? Prohibition. It turns out the Harrison was good for hard cider and little else, and with cider outlawed the orchards were largely razed.