Healthy soil and sustainable growing

["Tradingpost" <tradingpost@lobo.net>]

Bringing Back Heirloom Apples
By Erika Freeman, "Forgotten Fruits," September/October 2010
What you can do to find and savor these forgotten fruits.
http://www.eatingwell.com/food_news_origins/seasonal_local/bringing_back_heirloom_apples

Red Delicious, Granny Smith, McIntosh: these names are so familiar because 
only 11 varieties represent 90 percent of all apples sold in chain grocery 
stores. Few of us know Black Oxford, a purple-black apple with crisp white 
flesh; or Roxbury Russet, which dates back to the early 1600s and has a 
guava-nectar taste; or Rhode Island Greening, traced by legend to the Garden 
of Eden. More than 15,000 apple varieties have been grown and named in North 
America, but today’s orchard keepers only have access to 3,000 (the loss of 
diversity is ascribed to the decline of independent nurseries). Renewing 
America’s Food Traditions (RAFT) Alliance has declared 2010 the year of the 
heirloom apple. RAFT has targeted 90 varieties in each of the three regions 
with highest-surviving apple diversity—the Great Lakes, New England and 
Appalachia—to restore. Bringing back heritage apples can require some 
creativity: John Bunker of RAFT put up “Wanted” posters in counties where the 
“lost apples” once grew. Thus alerted, old-timers have helped relocate 
obsolete apples. To find an heirloom apple orchard, download Forgotten Fruits 
Manual and Manifesto - APPLES from raftalliance.org.
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paul tradingpost@lobo.net