Apples 101: How to Identify an Apple

Date & Time: Thursday, January 18, 3:45 – 5:00 PM

Speaker: John Bunker

For generations apple cultivars have been routinely mixed up and misidentified in backyards, orchards, nurseries and collections. It’s a huge pervasive problem. Even the most reputable nurseries and the most famous collections have been plagued by this mess. In the cider world “Foxwhelp/Fauxwhelp” and “Tremlett’s Bitter” are just two glaring examples. In this first of two sessions, we will look at how to identify apples using a combination of historical references, tree observations, phenotypic descriptions, and now DNA SNP technology. We will learn about the collaborative efforts of the Historic Fruit Working Group of North America to create a standardized publicly accessible database reference panel.