10 apple types thought extinct found in Western US

[left-of-center2012]

An organization dedicated to rediscovering ancient varieties of apples announced this week that it has rediscovered 10 species of apples thought to have gone extinct. Volunteers with the Lost Apple Project told The Associated Press that specimens retrieved last fall and sent for verification to the Temperate Orchard Conservancy revealed 10 variations of apples thought to have been lost to time.

The species were reportedly found by volunteers combing ancient orchards in Washington state and Idaho, allowing apples to be harvested for study in the fall and wood cuttings harvested during winter allow existing trees to be grafted with ancient varieties to produce the rare apple species.

“It was just one heck of a season. It was almost unbelievable. If we had found one apple or two apples a year in the past, we thought we were doing good. But we were getting one after another after another,” volunteer EJ Brandt told the AP. “I don’t know how we’re going to keep up with that.”

Despite the strong season of discoveries last year, the Lost Apple Project reportedly faces financial stress due to the ongoing coronavirus outbreak, which has forced public gatherings such as the group's yearly festival to be canceled. The organization typically funds most of its $10,000 per year budget through sales made during the festival.

https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/492934-10-apple-types-thought-extinct-found-in-western-us

[niyad]

1. Wow. Encouraging news. Hope somebody can help with funding this important work.

[Worried2020]

2. Good Job!

W

[eppur_se_muova]

3. Um ... strains, varieties, or cultivars, not new species.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_apple_cultivars

[left-of-center2012]

4. "not new species"

I don't think the article referred to them as a "new species"
but as "... 10 species of apples thought to have gone extinct".

[eppur_se_muova]

11. Well, not species, old or new. Only one species. nt

[WhiskeyGrinder]

5. Here's the original article this Hill sludge is based on.

https://apnews.com/4b08b6e30cbe37697120466d56f294a5

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — A team of retirees that scours the remote ravines and windswept plains of the Pacific Northwest for long-forgotten pioneer orchards has rediscovered 10 apple varieties that were believed to be extinct — the largest number ever unearthed in a single season by the nonprofit Lost Apple Project.

The Vietnam veteran and former FBI agent who make up the nonprofit recently learned of their tally from last fall’s apple sleuthing from expert botanists at the Temperate Orchard Conservancy in Oregon, where all the apples are sent for study and identification. The apples positively identified as previously “lost” were among hundreds of fruits collected in October and November from 140-year-old orchards tucked into small canyons or hidden in forests that have since grown up around them in rural Idaho and Washington state.

“It was just one heck of a season. It was almost unbelievable. If we had found one apple or two apples a year in the past, we thought were were doing good. But we were getting one after another after another,” said EJ Brandt, who hunts for the apples along with fellow amateur botanist David Benscoter. “I don’t know how we’re going to keep up with that.”

Each fall, Brandt and Benscoter spend countless hours and log hundreds of miles searching for ancient — and often dying — apple trees across the Pacific Northwest by truck, all-terrain vehicle and on foot. They collect hundreds of apples from long-abandoned orchards that they find using old maps, county fair records, newspaper clippings and nursery sales ledgers that can tell them which homesteader bought what apple tree and when the purchase happened.

[ismnotwasm]

7. That's really cool.

I wonder if I could get a start? I only have a plum, didn’t want a fruit tree, but I was thinking of an apple..think I will contact the organization

[RobinA]

8. Am I Missing It?

Do they mention what types of apples these are?

[left-of-center2012]

9. More info in the linked AP article

https://apnews.com/4b08b6e30cbe37697120466d56f294a5

"The latest finds include the Sary Sinap, an ancient apple from Turkey; the Streaked Pippin, which may have originated as early as 1744 in New York; and the Butter Sweet of Pennsylvania, a variety that was first noted in a trial orchard in Illinois in 1901."

[Dem2]

10. Interesting!

I recently brought some apples to a couple of local orchards to identify the type.

I had spent hours online combing through images and was unable to identify the variety.

The expert at the orchard looked and looked at my apples and couldn't think of a specific variety they looked like, so he called them an 'heirloom' variety that likely was popular when the settlers first moved into my area.

[roamer65]

12. I found a sprouting seed in a WA Apple about 5 years ago.

Nursed it along and planted it here in MI.

Now about 6 ft tall.

Bet it will produce some good apples.