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Title: story about Runkel or Fowlerville apple

The Runkel Apple still appeals to local fruit eaters after 30 years
Friday, October 20, 2006
BY CASEY HANS Ann Arbor News Staff Reporter
In addition to being the center for agriculture with its annual county fair, the Fowlerville area also can claim it's own sweet red, fleshy fruit.

Say hello to the Fowlerville apple.
Otherwise known as the Runkel Apple, it is grown west of the village at an orchard on Stow Road owned and operated by Joan Runkel, whose dad, Walter, first discovered the apple seedling in his back yard in Lincoln Park in 1940.

Walter Runkel used to eat a variety of fruits while walking and discarding the seeds and pits, resulting in the chance seedling, his family says.

Locals have known and enjoyed the all-purpose apple for 30 years, since it was brought to Handy Township and propagated in 1976 at the orchard where Joan Runkel now lives with her husband Ryszard Prolniczak.

On a recent Thursday during U-pick hours, Joan Runkel was found sorting and bagging apples, as was her mom, Luise Runkel, who was polishing and filling bushel baskets for her Southfield neighbors who had requested them.

"The chance tree is what got us into this,'' says Luise Runkel. "He (Walter) was born on a farm and never thought he'd be doing this. (The seeding) was just a little nothing when he moved it.''

Ten years after transplanting the seedling to his Southfield yard in 1950, it began yielding fruit. A television engineer for WWJ-TV, Walter patented the apple and started his nursery with daughter Joan.

"He had started a lot of little trees and began running out of land. We looked for property and this is where we ended up,'' Luise Runkel added.

Today, Joan Runkel can be found weekly at local farmers markets where she sells peck bags to local bakers and smaller bags of select No. 1 apples for good eating.

"Nobody's got Runkels, so we've got a niche,'' she says.
Betty and Dean Dodge of Webberville made a trek through the early snow last week to get two pecks of the apples, which they say they buy each year.

While many cook down the apples for applesauce, Betty says they're too good an eating apple for that.
"We just eat them and we give them to the kids,'' she says. "We come every year. We used to come and pick them, but now we just buy them.''

Joan Runkel says she keeps the orchard going in her dad's memory and because it's just a good all-around apple variety.

"I figured if I didn't do something, it would just die with him,'' she added. "He just loved this. He thought it was an apple that would make the growers money. That's why I persist.''

The apple is currently being tested by growers and at universities around the country and in Europe.
Runkel says she hopes the Runkel Apple will someday be enjoyed by others outside of the Fowlerville area.
"People like good, fresh fruit and they like to know where it comes from,'' Joan Runkel says. Visiting the orchard is "a chance for people to get together and talk. We'll have people all around the wagon (where picked apples await purchase) just talking. It only takes a few minutes to buy the apples, but they're sometimes here for an hour.''

Visitors may select their apples from pre-picked bins, buy apples already bagged or may head out into the orchard with a wagon to select and pick their own.

Apples that aren't purchased by season's end are donated to food banks and soup kitchens.
Casey Hans can be reached at chans@livingstoncommunitynews.com or at 810-844-2005.

©2006 Ann Arbor News