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  • From: "Mark Lee" <markl@nytec.com>
  • To: "North American Fruit Explorers" <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: [NAFEX] Spartan apple parentage
  • Date: Mon, 20 Oct 2003 10:09:27 -0700

I was enjoying a Spartan apple this morning. I decided to check into its
parentage. I found a number of references to it being a cross between
McIntosh and Yeelow Newtown Pippin. And then I ran across this research...
http://www.durable.gc.ca/radio-video/video/menu10_e.phtml
"The Spartan apple is one of the more famous varieties coming out of
Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada's apple breeding programme in British
Columbia. But its parentage is shrouded in uncertainty, according to recent
DNA testing. Developed in 1936 by R.C. Palmer in Summerland, B.C., the
Spartan quickly rose to the upper echelon of the apple pantheon, and is
still the third-most widely grown apple in that province. It was originally
thought to have been a cross between the stalwart McIntosh and the Newtown.
Now, it seems, Newtown's claim to parenthood would get thrown out of court:
forensic evidence shows the pollen was not his. Thus Spartan is of unknown
patriality, a happy fluke of plant breeding."

-Mark Lee, Seattle




  • [NAFEX] Spartan apple parentage, Mark Lee, 10/20/2003

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