Saturday, October 21, 2017

A boom in heritage apples, in the UK

The Guardian, in a story published on Apple Day (today), describes

a burgeoning movement of growers and enthusiasts using old books and modern DNA testing to identify, propagate, and popularise Britain’s wealth of rare apples.

According to the story,

Britain is enjoying a remarkable apple boom, as hundreds of new community orchards revive lost varieties and contribute to a thriving heritage market.

These include many varieties not catalogued by the National Fruit Collection.

One organization even employs an Apple Diversity Officer. Now, there's a job to dream on!

3 comments:

  1. Excellent. I met my local (eastern Washington) apple detective at last year’s Farm and Food expo. Nice guy and we had a good after class discussion.

    A few months later he made the newspaper with a story just like that one by finding a lost variety- an overgrown, forgotten tree in the corner of an old farm property.

    Thanks for the link.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. @copper, would that be David Benscoter? I think I saw that newspaper.

      Delete
  2. You are correct, that's the guy.

    I found the article:

    http://www.spokesman.com/stories/2017/mar/02/two-more-lost-apples-found-at-steptoe-butte/#/0

    ReplyDelete

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