Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/34757
New Varieties APPLES for every taste J ack Feil grows more than 200 different apple varieties at his orchard in East Wenatchee, Washington, but thinks that’s not enough. He wants to grow apples for every taste. His collection includes everything from Spitzenberg, a variety that his grandparents planted when they established the orchard more than a century ago, to WA 2, a recent unnamed release from Washington State University’s apple breeding program. He’s also making crosses himself, hoping to breed unique varieties to offer at his fruit stand, where he sells most of his fruit. He began his own informal breeding program about 10 to 12 years ago and wishes he’d started much earlier, given the long-term nature of traditional variety breeding. “I’m going to run out of time,” the 82-year-old Feil laments. Retired WSU horticulturist Dr. Bob Norton showed him how to emas- Long-time orchardist hopes to develop unique apple varieties to sell at his orchard. by Geraldine Warner culate the blossoms and apply pollen to make hybrid apples. He takes seeds from the apples and grows them into seedlings in a test plot in his orchard. Those that show promise are budded onto rootstocks for further evaluation. Each year, he removes some of his 50 acres of trees to make room for more and expects soon to have 275 apple varieties, along with numerous apricot, cherry, and pear varieties. “My objective was to get a real nice specific apple that was different, so I could sell it at my fruit stand, and I was the only one to have it,” he said. Freckles Feil acknowledges it’s a long shot, particularly as he’s not able to use new technology such as genetic markers to speed up the selection as some other breeders do. But he already has some unique apples, one of which is a cross of Spitzenberg and Rome that he calls Freckles. It’s a large, distinctive, 100-percent red apple that has lenticels the size of freckles. “Looks are one of the big things when people are buying apples,” remarked Feil, who has observed consumers’ buying habits while selling apples at the family fruit stand at the orchard for almost 60 years. But Freckles is lacking in some other characteristics. “It’s a unique apple and a nice-looking apple, but the flavor is ordi- nary, and if people pick up an apple that looks different but tastes ordinary, they probably won’t come back and buy it again,” Feil said. He’s now crossing Freckles with other varieties, such as Maigold, in the hope of developing an apple that looks similar but with better eating quality and storability. He describes Maigold as “fantastic apple” that failed as a commercial variety because of alternate bearing and poor production. He’s also making crosses with Spitzen- berg, which has been a mainstay at the orchard since his grandparents Augusta and Henry Feil planted it in 1908 when they moved to Washington from New York. Though they were from the area where the Spitzenberg originated, they found that the variety grew better in Washington. In 1903, Wenatchee grower Mike Horan had displayed some of his Spitzenberg apples at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York, and touted them as being from the Jack Feil shows how he emasculates a flower before applying pollen to make a cross. 18 JUNE 2011 GOOD FRUIT GROWER www.goodfruit.com