I thought the two pieces - the Honeycrisp story in Planet Money and
Good Fruit Grower - together provided a very good portrait of
Honeycrisp - its promise, its reality (a young apple's production
heartaches as well market returns), and most especially, its dramatic
opening salvo representing a far-reaching consumer taste/quality
desire paradigm that continues to unfurl, fundamentally reformatting
the wholesale-apple-marketing-world.
Apart from Honeycrisp's marketing bravado - being "explosively crisp"
- it really has been apple's "Big Bang" for producers and consumers
and the marvel of it all - enhanced by its propitious rescue - is
that early-on the entire phenomenon was that driven by many, many
early consumers' first taste-of-bite experience; there was no going
back after that, neither for those consumers nor the apple industry!
(Much the same "aha" for some of us working seasonally at the Univ MN
Hort Station who knew where the MN 1711 tree was and how one might
"chance" upon a fortuitous "drop" and so became the changed - as were
some early customers to the Hort Station's apple sales barn in
pre-history days prior to fame's plucking the apple away for enhanced
review.)
Courtier got it right early on, as did some few of the folks I worked
with via Cornell Extension in Northeastern NY: there was something
real novel here: an apple people lined-for, one could make money
growing it, and one just tailor-made for cold growing regions like
the Champlain (and of course MN).
Now where Planet Money may have missed the bin is on two counts that
merit broader telling to their audience.
Despite great advances in genetic parentage, marker recognition, and
and essentially double-cropping of crosses courtesy of dual
hemispheral-seasons per year, apple breeding still requires devoted
attention, resources, many years of time, and a good deal of luck, to
come with something especially appealing for mass-marketing. Pricing
must return both this front-end cost as well as keep the people
growing the fruit in business. Returns must support both research
and continued delivery of top-quality product, meaning not only
"that" apple but its entire chain of production cost.
Secondly, real apple connoisseurs know that there is a second apple
market, one with hundreds of wonderfully- good, fresh eating apples
to be had, enjoyed in their respective seasons and growing locales -
hence Dave Bedford's happy encounter in his earlier years with those
golden apples from Michigan; there are so many more than David's
golden apples.
Where it is possible for consumers to connect with local orchards and
every manner of heirloom and novel newcomer at a particular apple's
seasonal moment, that is an apple eating experience second to none.
Indeed, as with craft breweries and cideries, it is my opinion that
there is a parallel and comparable chink coming to the works of
big-box apple sales.
For the present though, falling back upon the current store-bought
scene, thank heaven for the star-crossed "happen-stance" that gave
rise to Honeycrisp, and to Bedford and Luby for being the right
people at the right time and place to grab onto what nearly slipped
through MN's hands. And hurrah for the heave-ho of "one yellow, one
green, one red"!
Best regards, Kevin Iungerman.
Here's Richard Lehnert's 2012 Good Fruit Grower article on the story
of Honeycrisp -
<http://www.goodfruit.com/last-bite-the-honeycrisp-explosion/>http://www.goodfruit.com/last-bite-the-honeycrisp-explosion/
A different perspective, but not inconsistent with the NPR story as
far as I can tell -
All hail the unknown tomcat parent of Honeycrisp...
D
On May 30, 2015, at 7:50 AM, Jon Clements wrote:
How does it differ Bill? I thought the Planet Money report was well done.
Jon
On Thu, May 28, 2015 at 6:10 PM, Fleming, William
<<mailto:w...@montana.edu>w...@montana.edu> wrote:
Not quite the same story that Goodfruit Grower told a few months ago.
Bill Fleming
Montana State University
Western Ag Research Center
580 Quast Lane
Corvallis, MT 59828
<tel:406-961-3025>406-961-3025
Cell- <tel:406-529-2409>406-529-2409
-----Original Message-----
From:
<mailto:apple-crop-boun...@virtualorchard.net>apple-crop-boun...@virtualorchard.net
[mailto:<mailto:apple-crop-boun...@virtualorchard.net>apple-crop-boun...@virtualorchard.net]
On Behalf Of David Doud
Sent: Thursday, May 28, 2015 10:04 AM
To: Apple-Crop
Subject: [apple-crop] NPR 'The Miracle Apple'
On 'Planet Money' today - Jacob Goldstein and Dan Charles spend 15
minutes on the state of the apple industry and the Honeycrisp story
-
listen here:
<http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2015/05/27/410085320/episode-627-the-miracle-apple>http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2015/05/27/410085320/episode-627-the-miracle-apple
David Doud
grower - Indiana
this crop looks really nice right now -
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--
Jon Clements
aka 'Mr Honeycrisp'
UMass Cold Spring Orchard
393 Sabin St.
Belchertown, MA 01007
413-478-7219
<http://umassfruit.com/>umassfruit.com
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Kevin Iungerman
One Citizen
Glens Falls NY, Minneapolis, MN
email: k...@cornell.edu
(Cornell Retired)
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