North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

["Richard Moyer" <ramoyer@gmail.com>]

Thanks, Del, for your note below about complementing fruit breeders.  At our NAFEX meeting last summer; I had the chance to thank John Clark for breeding and releasing "Westbrook", an extra-early nectarine for home and local fresh markets.  The ripe fruit seldom makes it into our house.  Learned about its new release through an SFF meeting at Clark's Univ Ark research farm a few years ago.  To my surprise, he said I'm the first grower who's given him any feedback.  It's a melting type, so we talked about the challenge of brown rot prevention.

 

Most all of us value it when our labor of love is appreciated by another.  One way to encourage continual release of varieties that only have niche appeal is to thank their developers any chance we get.

 

Richard Moyer

Cold east TN; having Korean Giant asian pears with lunch

 

Message: 4
Date: Sun, 28 Jan 2007 19:56:25 -0800 (PST)
From: Del Stubbs <northernlights2n@yahoo.com>
Subject: [NAFEX]  testing patented stock
To: North American Fruit Explorers <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
Message-ID: < 20070129035625.86852.qmail@web52910.mail.yahoo.com">20070129035625.86852.qmail@web52910.mail.yahoo.com >
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Having read a few of the pixie crunch posts...
 Here is an example of testing being of more value than a few cents of royalties. We had
our first taste of the 'Pristine' apple I grafted 4 years ago on a Bud9 - it is a product
of the 'Pri' series at Purdue Univ. I was so impressed with it for flavor texture and
beauty that I thought to try it on 10 different trees ( w/ different rootstocks and micro
environments).  Grafting one didn't bother me - but it didn't feel right to do 10 without
some attempt to locate the patent holder.
It took me a whopping 10 minutes of googling to find the prof. and his email address. I
wrote him and asked how I pay for royalties, and of course I gave my impressions of the
apple and the cold testing I am doing here. I got back quite a letter . This was last
fall so I dont remember it exactly, but it was a bit like an artist's work finally being
recognized after years of being ignored. He told me the particular reason it had been
dropped from commercial production, whatever it was was insignificant to me as a small
time grower. In the end he asked if I would report back on my rootstock & cold testing of
it in lew of royalties. A fine exchange. Conclusion: try contacting the real person who
patented a variety you're interested in, it might be the first time anyone ever wrote
them!  Del


Del Stubbs   http://www.pinewoodforge.com   zone 3   N. MN