I would be very interested in hearing when apple breeding has ever had as
robust a direction towards the reduction in chemical dependancy as we have
seen in the past several decades.
Maurice is right. The effort to develop disease resistant apples has been
greater in recent years than ever before. And it came with recognition that
our tools for managing disease were expensive and probably short-lived. But
it's important to recognize it's very difficult to breed apples, maybe
more-so than any other important commercial crop. The heterozygosity of
apples and the time it takes to discover what attributes an offspring
carries means it can take decades for a breeding program in apples to reach
success. And then the difficulty really begins. Because apples, unlike most
produce, is marketed by variety, consumer acceptance can take a long time.
So it's not surprising that the breeders who initiated the breeding programs
for disease-resistant apples at Rutgers, Purdue asnd Illinois did not live
to see many of the varieties that have been introduced from that program,
which is still ongoing. And most of those apple varieties have failed to
succeed in the market, where consumers judge them. It's a tough business
breeding apples.
A side note; I was an undergrad at the University of Illinois when I met
Professor Dan Dayton, one of the breeders who initiated the breeding
program. It was the year he retired. The earliest varieties from that
program were just being introduced. He died several years later. The newest
variety from that program was released last year, 'Juliet'. I met him almost
30 years ago. He knew it would happen that way but still spent his career
contributing to that program.
Bill Shoemaker, Sr Research Specialist, Food Crops
University of Illinois - St Charles Horticulture Research Center
www.nres.uiuc.edu/faculty/directory/shoemaker_wh.html
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