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nafex - Re: [NAFEX] apple flavorings and plum curculio

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  • From: Douglas Woodard <dwoodard@becon.org>
  • To: North American Fruit Explorers <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [NAFEX] apple flavorings and plum curculio
  • Date: Tue, 13 Nov 2007 19:54:43 -0500

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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