North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[Douglas Woodard <dwoodard@becon.org>]

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