Apples

Apple trees are cultivated worldwide and are the most widely grown species in the Genus Malus a tree that originated in Central Asia and can still be found there today. In fact in 2020, China provided 40.5 of the 86.4 million tonnes of apples produced. Core blimey! Apples have been grown in Asia and Europe for thousands of years and were taken to North America by European colonists.

Apples are significant in many cultures such as the forbidden fruit of Eden in Christianity, the golden apples of the tree of life in Greek mythology and even non-fictional references of poison apples in fairy tales, amongst many others. Making the apple a symbol of seduction.

They don’t say an apple a day keeps the doctor away for no reason! Apples are a rich source of an array of phytochemicals which are antioxidants and study’s show they may help reduce the risk of a wide range of chronic diseases such as cancer, obesity, heart disease, and type 2 diabetes, and assists in maintenance of good health as part of a balanced diet.

A 100g apple (with the skin) is around 51 calories and made up of 86% water and 12% carbohydrates, with a small fat content.

The darker the berry the sweeter the juice can also be applied to apples. Redder or pinker apples tend to be sweeter whereas, green apples tend to be more acidic. There are three ways to evaluate the colour of an apple, overall appearance, ground colour and over colour. The over colour or the blush area of the apple is coloured by sunlight meaning apples from shaded areas of the tree won’t always have an over colour. The ground colour is the base colour of the apple, if there is no blush at all it might be the colour of the whole apple and is usually a green /yellow. The overall appearance is subjective but is the ground colour to over colour ratio, so the size of the blush and depth of the colour.

Breeding apples is a lengthy process that can take anywhere between 15-30 years for the results of the new variety to be well distinguished. However, there are techniques such as growing seedlings in greenhouses to fast track the process. The most common way of creating a new variety is sexual crossing.

When breeding occurs naturally, apple trees are pollinated by a large number of other apple seedlings, which can lead to a lot of diversity when it comes to varieties. Breeder’s pollination manually as a way of having better control over their new creations.

They do this by taking pollen from the flowers of the male parent and removing the male parts of the flowers on the female parent to stop self-pollination. Then brushing pollen from the male onto the female’s flowers to fertilise the egg cells.