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| Curation is key. |
Gene sequencing is helping the National Fruit Collection (UK) to prune its orchard and improve its classifications.
I reviewed the NFC's searchable apple database in 2008.
Advances in gene-sequencing technology are spilling into the orchard. DNA analysis set the record straight about the parents of Honeycrisp in 2017.
Last month, the journal Horticultural Research published an analysis of genetic diversity in American apples.
In the United Kingdom, the NFC is using this technology to identify duplicates in its collection, correct errors, and improve the quality of information about apple cultivars.
Pruning the Collection
For apples, that work is described in detail in an appendix to "The Long Term Housing, Maintenance and Scientific Curation of the National Fruit Collections" (Defra Project code GC0147, Annual Report 2018/19, Appendix 2).
A result is that many apples in the collection suspected of being duplicates, as well as some that were not, will be removed this year.
Thus, Maid of Kent will give way to Bismark, Red Musk to Seabrook's Red, and Sykehouse Russet to Court of Wick.
On the other hand, researchers found Missing Link to be mis-indexed and not, after all, similar to, let alone the same as, Bedfordshire Foundling.
Keepers, both.
The DNA profiling programme has shaken to the roots some long-held beliefs about our UK collections. The next piece of the puzzle is to get a DNA fingerprinting process that allows the comparison of UK/Europe and USA holdings.
ReplyDeleteNotable revisions are the wide-spread and popular East Anglian variety Chelmsford Wonder giving way to the obscure and rare Surrey variety Mitchelson's Seedling, and the Irish mainstay Bloody Butcher being rolled-over in favour of the only-ever-found-in-collections Hungarian variety Vajki Alma.
No doubt it is only a matter of time before science sets us straight about the lineages of any variety we'd like.
DeleteThe technology has advanced from theoretical possibility to massive undertaking to feasible. Technically trivial is next, I guess.
So are you saying that they are actually removing apples from the collection, or just correcting names?
ReplyDeleteThe report says that when the gene analysis finds that an apple is in the collection twice, under different names, one of the apples is reclassified.
DeleteI don't know what that means in practice, but I suppose that Maid of Kent is about to be relabeled as Bismark.
I suppose it is possible that the tree is removed.
Does that count as a removal, or a reclassification, or both?