[NAFEX] apple flavorings and plum curculio
Douglas Woodard
dwoodard at becon.org
Tue Nov 13 19:54:43 EST 2007
Changes in a cultivar through vegetative "sports" where say a branch
after a certain point on the branch bears perceptibly different but
similar fruits, are thought to be due to single-gene mutations which
occurred during the growth of the plant, and are considered to be the
same cultivar. A mutation which decreases or increases russeting, or red
colour, may affect a lot of other things including flavour.
We normally speak of "breeding" when a flower is fertilized, a seed is
produced, and a new plant is grown by intent from the seed; i.e. the
whole pack of genes is shuffled (roughly speaking). Actually, groups of
genes may be re-assorted, but at any rate there is a change in the
assortment of numerous genes.
The poster might more accurately have spoken of "selecting" the
russeting out of Golden Delicious.
I thnk there is some suspicion that russeting at least when due to
genetic causes often tends to be associated with slightly better flavour
Doug Woodard
St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada
William C. Garthright wrote:
>> I completely agree that Yellow Delicious has suffered in flavor in the
>> course of breeding the russetting out of it.
>
>
> This may be a foolish question, but how can they breed the russetting
> out of a particular cultivar and still call it the same cultivar? I
> thought that all trees of a certain cultivar were clones of the
> original. Not so?
>
> Thanks,
>
> Bill
> Lincoln, NE
>
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