Imagine reaching into a tree branch and picking an apple that is unusually tall and thin. Kandil Snap, native to the Black Sea region. An adjacent row of trees, 11 trees to the north, has the same exotic deep purple color. black oxford applesresembles a large plum.
Adds over 1,000 fruit genus Malus. A fall-themed rainbow of reds, oranges, yellows, greens and even purples abounds in this scene. Apple Biodiversity Collection Located in Annapolis Valley, Nova Scotia, Canada.
Apples don’t make a basket of pies or fall leaf peepers. Instead, scientists are working to understand the genetics that make this apple variety a bonanza, with the ultimate goal of improving the fruit in different ways. climate.
Sean Miles, who started the orchard in 2011, said: The urgency to get all this work done. “
In case you didn’t know, many of the apples that have been popular in grocery stores in recent years have been researched for the quality of different types of apples, such as Cosmic Crisp from Washington, Snapdragon from New York, and Honeycrisp from Minnesota. originated in the efforts of scientists who crossed the . When About 7,500 varieties There are many things to discover in apples of the world. The next generation of apples for grocery stores could come from research orchards like Nova Scotia, the newest.
Dr. Miles didn’t start out as an apple gene enthusiast. He is allergic to raw apples and has an itchy mouth if he doesn’t cook them. He previously worked in human genetics in the United States. Stanford University School of MedicineIt was his love for his now-wife rather than his love for fruit that prompted him to move to the Annapolis Valley, where she makes wine. Since apples were the main crop in this region, Dr. Miles ventured into the apple genetics business. He joined the Department of Agriculture at Dalhousie University in his 2011 and received funding to start the Apple Biodiversity Collection, earning the position of Canadian Research Commissioner.
Not all efforts to maintain apple diversity have been surveyed globally.a 2019 report A study published by the Global Crop Diversity Trust found 40 apple diversity collections worldwide, seven of which were established in the 21st century, but the orchards in Nova Scotia were not included as it was not an exhaustive list. was not The report also notes that more than half of the 40 orchards surveyed are in North America or Europe. There are only three of them in Central Asia and the Caucasus region, from which scientists believe that many modern apple varieties originated.
The report calls for a global organization of those who grow these collections to ensure the long-term protection of the world’s apple diversity. But today, “there is still a long way to go before there is international coordination to maintain apple diversity,” he said.
In the United States, it is administered by the United States Department of Agriculture. The most diverse collection of apples in the country The collection’s curator, Ben Gutierrez, says it’s one of the largest collections in the world, located in Geneva, New York (the site also includes grapes and cherries). Most of the over 5,000 apple varieties are planted on 30 acres of orchards. The tissue of each type of apple is stored in a giant freezer so that if weather or disease harms a particular tree, researchers can reintroduce that variety into the orchard.
More than half of the apple material in the USDA collection is wild, with nearly 4,000 samples including trees and seeds.
“Although not immediately attractive from a fruit quality perspective, these wild apples have great potential for disease resistance, climate adaptability, or other unexpected high-value traits, and are the potential of Malus cultivars.” It is important for understanding the history of evolution and domestication of modern apples,” said Gutierrez.
In Nova Scotia, creating the Apple Biodiversity Collection was a laborious six-year process. We planted 4,000 small trees, tore them down after a year, stored them in the damp sawdust in our giant refrigerators over the winter, and replanted them the following summer to allow them to mature. Dr. Miles and his colleagues waited by labeling every tree with a name.
Canadians have partnered with USDA orchards in Geneva to source raw materials. Having so many of the same types in both locations “provides insight into how the trees might perform in another location,” Dr. Gutierrez said. He added that the Nova Scotia grove is more research-focused, so it was designed with randomization, replication, and other factors in mind to “increase the relevance of the data.” .
Sites like Nova Scotia help expand the range of future apple possibilities by preserving different varieties of apples and studying the genetic basis of different traits.
firmer apples. sweeter or more sour. Some apples even have red flesh inside, according to François Lawrence of the French National Institute of Agriculture, INRAE.
When it comes to cooking the new look of a fruit that looks perfectly baked, apples are more difficult to work with than many other crops, as it takes five to seven years for the tree to bear fruit. It takes researchers about 15 years to breed and test a particular apple before the variety reaches growers.
James Ruby, Professor of Horticultural Science at the University of Minnesota, said:
Dr. Ruby’s claim to apple fame is his involvement in Honeycrisp, which was developed at the University of Minnesota Horticultural Research Center in the 1960s and 1970s. He started working at the center in his 1982. This was about a decade before Honeycrisp hit the market in the early 1990s. At the time, some growers and “perhaps some journalists” were skeptical that new apples were needed.
“When I first tasted it, I knew it was something very different from anything on the market.
Honeycrisp and many other commercial apples are produced by a technique called controlled crossing, which involves taking pollen from one type of apple tree and applying it to the flowers of another tree. Cornell University Department of Integrated Plant Sciences said Professor Susan K. Brown of Cornell University, who leads the oldest apple breeding program in the United States. Also in Geneva.
Recent apple successes by Dr. Brown, research specialist Kevin Maloney, and a large team of collaborators at Cornell University include the RubyFrost and SnapDragon types, which debuted for consumers in 2013. yoke.
Firecrackers, another one Works of the Cornell Group“was one of many names suggested by testers and matched a variety with explosive flavors,” said Dr. Brown.
Other researchers have pursued genetic modification methods that alter existing apple varieties by inserting genetic material. Some of his GMOs already on sale include Arctic apples, including the “Arctic” version of Fuji, Gala and Granny Smith apples.
Different from genetic modification is CRISPR, a technique that directly slices and edits the genome. CRISPR could be important to the future of apples and food in general. For example, “If you want to understand the function of a gene, you can use CRISPR to disrupt it,” says his David Chagne of the New Zealand Plant-Food Research Institute.
There have been some preliminary successes — an Italian group has demonstrated in a 2019 survey For example, CRISPR could be used to reduce susceptibility to fire blight.
But CRISPR is no magic paring knife. Some countries, such as New Zealand, do not allow CRISPR to be used in commercial foods, Dr Chagne said. Another problem with CRISPR is that regenerating woody plants from a single cell is not easy, Dr. Myles said.
The Canadian group is getting into the CRISPR game, but the challenge of apple’s long development period also remains an obstacle: even if Dr. Myles’ team were able to edit the Honeycrisp plant to make apples a little tastier, it wouldn’t. takes 5 hours. Number of years for the first test fruit to grow.
“It may be a while before people see these things on grocery store shelves,” Dr. Miles said. And our group hopes to be a presence that lays the foundation for that. “
Characterize apple flavor Or, to make sure the fruit is ready to be harvested, researchers must personally sample them. So, taste and spit.”
Sophie Watts, a doctoral student at Dalhousie University in Miles’ group, said she likely tasted about 800 apples from the orchard “in the name of research.” For example, there are some apples in the orchard that “have a banana, a hint of citrus, and taste exactly like cotton candy called cotton candy.”
A sample of 75 wild apples from the orchard “most of the time tasted pretty bad,” she said.
Watts also emphasized the Nova Scotia Laboratory’s role in conserving biodiversity. “It’s important to maintain as much crop diversity as possible so that we can rely on it to breed new varieties adapted to the changing world,” she said.
Dr. Myles’ team performed basic genetic sequencing of all trees in the Apple Biodiversity Collection. one publication after another Delve into the genetic basis of apple traits. The group, for example, has identified genes that control how much apples change during storage.
Still, Dr. Miles warns that no single genetic modification will change the world of apples.
“I wish it had the properties to knock it out of that park,” he said. And, as you know, it triples the yield and makes it more resistant to all kinds of diseases.”
He added: But science doesn’t work that way. “