Today in the orchard
It was only 15 F this morning. We seem to be sliding back into winter now that it’s officially been spring for the past three days. The daytime temperature reached nearly freezing, but the wind never let up.
Redford
Yesterday winter returned to the farm only five days after officially passing the baton to spring. In the morning there was hardly a splat of snow left in sight with the exception of a few tired piles in the shade by the shop. That all changed at noon when it began to snow. The snow continued until well after dark. We arose this morning to a ‘winter’ wonderland.
At an apple meeting in Massachusetts a few weeks ago I met Bleecker Wheeler of Watson Wheeler Cider. We were sharing ciders, and he poured an excellent rose. Being ever-curious about what gets crushed to make juice, I asked him about his fruit. He told me about a red-fleshed apple he discovered—evidently planted as an ornamental—in the driveway circle of a home in Vermont. He submitted leaves for DNA profiling. The results came back as having no match in the reference dataset, but with the same parentage as the well-known Redfield. He had found a full-sibling of one of my favorite apples! (I should add that he had also made a clever label for the cider, which showed perfectly the two-toned white and pink flesh of the apple. I can’t adequately describe it. You’ll have to buy a bottle for yourself.)
So what is this mystery apple? Redfield was released in 1938 along with a full-sibling, Redford. Both were the creations of Richard Wellington, the brilliant NY breeder who also introduced Macoun and Lodi. Redford is not nearly as well-known as Redfield. In fact, I don’t know anyone growing it other than us. We grow both Redford and Redfield here on our farm. Although I’ve tried hard to find variations between them, they appear to be phenotypically indistinguishable.
It may be that the apple Bleecker found is Redford. That would be fun. It also could be that he found a third full-sibling, one that was never named. That would be fantastic. Redford is not in the myfruittree.org reference dataset, so it has not yet been profiled. We’ll remedy that this summer. Once we get the results, we’ll know if he found a rare Redford or an insanely-rare third sibling.
Now, back to the snow.
