Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/67288
New Varieties A redder HONEYCRISP N ew sports of popular apples—especially if they're redder—always attract plenty of attention from growers. So, you can imagine the kind of interest growers show in Royal Red Honeycrisp, the A new sport of this popular variety is in big demand. "Frankly, we are afraid of starting a first sport of this hugely popular variety that has been trademarked and patented and is in the process of being commercialized. There is so much interest, in fact, the folks at feeding frenzy." —Neal Manly Willow Drive Nursery in Ephrata, Washington, which owns exclusive rights to it, are reluctant to talk about it. It was patented a year ago. Growers saw the by Richard Lehnert apples on plates in Willow Drive displays during the Great Lakes Fruit, Vegetable, and Farm Market Expo in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and the Wash- ington State Horticultural Association Show in Wenatchee in December and also during the Mid-Atlantic Fruit & Vegetable Convention in Hershey, Pennsylvania, in February. Neal Manly, the chief marketing officer of Willow Drive, said the nursery has done no promotions and no advertising of Royal Red Honeycrisp and has not included it in its catalog. "Frankly, we are afraid of starting a feeding frenzy," he said. "We don't want to create demand we can't fill for eight years. But growers have found out about it, and orders have been coming in like crazy. I have a folder with enough orders to last through the year 2020. THE RUSH to redness D r. David Bedford, the apple breeder at University of Minnesota where the original Honeycrisp was bred in 1961 and released as a commercial variety in 1991, said Honeycrisp is somewhat of a quirky apple. Sometimes, the trees themselves look different from one year to the next. "A given tree can produce apples that vary in color from year to year," he said. The normal process in evaluating a genetic mutation, he said, is to watch it for about three years to see whether it continues to show genetic stability and its unique char- acter, he said. The Royal Red Honeycrisp, the new sport now being commercialized by Willow Drive Nursery, appears to be consistent so far. Honeycrisp went off patent in 2008, but under U.S. patent law, that's not an issue. Under U.S. law, a sport—a limb or a whole-tree mutation—that occurs in an open- release variety belongs to the owner of the orchard in which it's found. Some varieties are noted for producing sports, and there are now numerous redder sports of Red Delicious, Gala, McIntosh, Fuji, and many others. Bedford isn't sure whether some varieties are just more unstable and mutate more frequently, or whether more mutations are found as more trees are planted. As of now, there are many more Gala trees than Honeycrisp trees. 16 JUNE 2012 GOOD FRUIT GROWER So far, Royal Red Honeycrisp is the only Honeycrisp sport that is being commercialized, but there are reports of others out there, he said. Some sports of some varieties, like the early Fuji strains, are so different in ripening season they raise the question, "Has it mutated to where it is no longer a Fuji?" Bedford said. Bedford noted that in many other countries, sports can- not be patented without the permission of the original variety's owner if the patent on it has not expired. That's not true in the United States. In releasing the variety MN 1914 that later was named SweeTango, the University of Minnesota took precautions. Under the licensing agreement when it assigned MN 1914 to Pepin Heights Orchard in Lake City, Minnesota, the university will own any sports that are found. In an interview with Good Fruit Grower in 2008, Bed- ford said that the constant "inflation" of varieties with the discovery of redder sports is a bad situation for the original variety owner and also for orchardists who have invested in planting orchards of the original variety. Sometimes, it's not good for the industry either. "We end up with these redder strains that don't taste as good. We get redder and redder, but we lose quality, and of course Red Delicious is the perfect poster child. Everybody loses." Bedford calls it "the rush to redness," which rests ultimately on consumers' con- tinuing tendency to shop with their eyes. Growers, who want to get to market early, may let redness trump ripeness, serv- ing consumers green apples that don't taste good. "The United States is the only system I'm aware of that David Bedford allows someone to find a sport and completely make it their own, and it's frustrating," Bedford said in the article in 2008. "Honeycrisp took thirty years from breeding to release, and all it takes is someone to happen to notice a little red- der limb and suddenly they're the new owner of all that technology. Pretty much everywhere else in the world, you have to go through the owner of the variety. Technologi- cally advanced as we are in this country, we're behind the eight ball in intellectual property protection." —Richard Lehnert www.goodfruit.com "I've never seen anything like this. The demand is crazy." According to the patent information, the "extremely high-colored" sport was found by Quincy, Washington, grower Larry D. Jones in 2005, growing in an orchard he had topworked in 2003 to convert Sansa trees to Honey- crisp. "One tree was discovered that colored early and to a greater extent," according to the patent. In 2006, scion wood was removed and grafted onto other Sansa trees, and this second generation has been continually observed since. Willow Drive purchased exclusive rights to produce and market the apple, and began the processes of observing it and collecting budwood to begin the long process of increasing the amount available to make trees for commercial sales— providing it continues to show its merit. Some will be sold to growers in 2013. The new cultivar was described as having "earlier color" that was "overall more intense" and also having "greatly enhanced storage characteristics." It has been kept in common cold storage for six months with no deterioration in quality. Willow Drive trademarked the name, Royal Red Honeycrisp. The patent name of the cultivar is LJ-1000 and the patent number 22,244. In the patent description, the time of ripening was given as the same as Honeycrisp, about September 16 in central Washington, but it states that sugar levels, date for date, were "noticeably elevated." On an equal-sugar measure, that would make Royal Red Honeycrisp about five days earlier. • PHOTO BY RICHARD LEHNERT