November 16, 2008
Found this today thanks to the wonder of Google News:
Banana Shortage? Nothing to Worry About (Medicine Hat News)
This of course misunderstands (or maybe just ignores) the biggest threat posed banana diseases. Pesticides and cultural practices can probably preserve banana production for those of us in developed countries, where a few cents difference in price doesn’t even register. But bananas are also a staple crop for millions of people, many of whom are already in a very precarious position. A slight decrease in yield could mean going hungry, it could also mean the elimination of the what little surplus they had to barter or sell to buy other supplies, pay for schooling or medicine, etc.
(Sorry I haven’t been around–just been distracted.)
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October 13, 2008
I just discovered that just about every article ever in the Journal of Genetics is available online! (I say “just about”, because they appear to have missed a couple). The Journal of Genetics was the site of some of the great early articles in fruit genetics, and by virtue of being so darn old, people rarely seem to have copies of them floating around, so the fact that they are now just a click away is pretty darn cool.
I was also interested to note that the Journal of Genetics followed editor J.B.S. Haldane (yes, that Haldane) to India when he moved there in 1957–so the journal is currently published by the Indian Academy of Sciences.
Anyway, as an example of the goodies lurking in depths of the Journal of Genetics, I present one of my favorite series of papers, by C.W. Richardson. They’re favorites for two reasons. First, they were some of the first attempts at serious genetics in strawberries, a crop that is near and dear to my heart. But second, and frankly more importantly, they have some of the least informative titles ever. I always hate when I have to cite them, because I always have to actually pull out the papers and look through them, because its impossible to remember which facts go with which…
A Preliminary Note on the Genetics of Fragaria (1914)
A Further Note on the Genetics of Fragaria (1918)
Some Notes on Fragaria (1920)
Notes on Fragaria (1923)*
* This last one, unfortunately, is one of the ones they seem to have missed scanning–there’s a link, but no PDF.
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October 10, 2008
I just had my first ‘Winter Banana’ apple (and am about halfway through my second), from a local ranch just up the road from where I work. It’s really good! I worried a little bit about an apple with “winter” in the name–I thought maybe it suggested an apple selected for its storage potential, not flavor. But the concern was unwarranted. The flesh was fine-grained and crisp but gave easily. The flavor was sweet and mild, and the mild aroma, while not to me particularly reminiscent of banana, was unusual and distinct, though not intrusive.
Plus, it’s a beautiful apple. Medium-size, glossy, green with a striking red blush covering maybe a third of the surface. Apparently it was once a fruit-basket favorite because of its good looks. I bought three of them, so I’ve saved one and maybe I’ll take a picture of it for you.
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October 10, 2008
I’ve seen a handful of stunted twisted apples near beaches over the years, but never anything with fruit that could rival the Aldeburgh beach apple:
An Apple at the Sea Side (Joan Morgan’s Fruit Forum)
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October 8, 2008
There’s not too much there yet, but I’d link to just for the name alone:
Vaviblog
Basically a blog in the voice of Nikolai Vavilov (in case it wasn’t obvious from the name.)
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October 6, 2008
Maybe it’s because it’s kind of stupid: The new University of Minnesota apple release is named ‘SweeTango’.
An Apple Is Born (Epicurious)
Plus: We’ve entered a new age! YouTube trailers for fruit cultivars!
SweeTango - A Sneak Preview (YouTube)
(Much thanks to the anonymous commenter who noted this on the post below…I thought it deserved more exposure).
All I can say is I hope the apple is better than the name. It’s got an encouraging pedigree at least—Honeycrisp x Zestar.
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October 3, 2008
Not a ton of substance here, unfortunately, but I’m a sucker for any story with lots of old apple names:
Irish Peach has a crisp flavor (BBC)
I’m kind of bummed that ‘Irish Peach’ gets no mention outside of the title and a caption. C’mon…don’t toy with us like that.
I think about England a lot when it comes to apples…somehow Ireland kind of gets forgotten.
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October 3, 2008
…is there a limitless supply of these scraper sites? I crush one out and another pops up. This one appears to be mirroring it automatically.
So this one’s for them:
You are reading The Fruit Blog:
thefruitblog.blogspot.com
or
www.thefruitblog.com
If you are reading this anywhere else (except on an RSS reader or through FoodCandy), then the site you are reading this on stole this content. Please do not patronize their advertisers, and please feel free to tell them how you feel about about stealing content (assuming you feel badly about it–if you’re really into it and think its awesome, you don’t need to say anything. Also, please go away.)
Okay, now I feel a little better.
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October 3, 2008
Just came across a nice piece on the University of Minnesota apple breeding program:
With Honeycrisp’s patent expiring, U of M looks for new apple (CityPages.com)
I thought the article was a decent “layman’s” sort of overview of the UMN apple breeding program, and there’s certainly plenty of interest in the program these days thanks to ‘Honeycrisp’, which has seen a surge of popularity unlike anything I’ve seen for an apple variety in my lifetime. ‘Honeycrisp’ at one point commanded an enormous premium, though massive plantings have begun to drive prices down (and there are those who consider it to have been grossly overplanted–many of the trees still due to come into production in the next few years. We’ll see how that pans out…)
I like ‘Honeycrisp’ quite a bit, but I have a hard time believing it really ranks with Google as one of “25 Innovations That Changed The World” (Warning—PDF). It’s certainly seen quite the burst of popularity, and yes, it’s got an unusual texture, but its basically just a relative outlier on an existing scale of textures. I’m told there are other varieties with a similar breaking texture out there, such as ‘Red Baron’ (though admittedly I haven’t had them). It’s definitely good, and it’s definitely interesting, but it’s an incremental development, not a revolutionary one.
I think the argument is that it was revolutionary in the sense that it revitalized a lot of orchards in the Northeast and upper Midwest, particularly small family farms, and it did in fact do that to an extent. However, I think that’s partly due to good marketing, and partly an element of “right place, right time”. Full of varieties 50+ years old and little recent momentous development, the market was ripe for something new in the way of apples, and ‘Honeycrisp’ was distinct enough to fill that niche.
I’m still wondering what the newest UMN apple release is going to be named–last time I spoke to some one who’d heard the name, they treated it as though it was secret on par with a nuclear launch code (even while admitting it was being used freely in some circles). So it better be good.
Update: I noticed that the USDA site on ‘Honeycrisp’ that I linked to has old, incorrect pedigree–Macoun x Honeygold. This was disproven via molecular fingerprinting some years ago (this was actually the subject of the second Fruit Blog post ever). One parent is ‘Keepsake’, the other unknown.
I’ve been entertaining myself playing with grape marker data from the USDA, checking out possible parents for old American cultivars. That’s how you know you’re a big fruit geek–when you spend hours comparing pedigree data for fun…
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September 28, 2008
…please, don’t spam the comments. If you post an irrelevant link, I don’t care how witty or insightful the comment you attach to it is, I’m going to delete the comment. People reading about citrus are not shopping for hard drives or electronic scales or whatever else it is you’re selling on your bizarro pseudo-blog.
Sorry, just needed to gripe a little. We’ve been getting slammed pretty hard, and I don’t know a real good way to avoid it. It’s obviously real people doing it and not mass-spamming robots, because they sometimes write semi-relevant comments, so I can’t imagine its really economical.
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Xango Mangosteen.
