English Apples - Apple Breeding
2015 and 2016 pollinations
Grower: 'Suttonelms' (England). New information is posted at the TOP of the page.
FIRST OWN-BRED FRUIT
The two parent apples are shown on the left and right; the seedling apple in the centre. Notice it has inherited the shape of the redfleshed fruit on the right, and some of the russeting of the apple on the left. The flavour was average to good and there was a distinct flavour of lemon, though no red flesh. Nevertheless the fruit size and flavour show that we are retaining the right seedlings.
The pollination which produced this fruit took place in 2010. The fruit itself came from a tree grafted four years ago.
10 Sep 2016
BREEDING PROJECT - UPDATE
Note that the breeding project is continuing, and we are raising several hundred seedlings per year. If interested you are welcome to email. However much of the information we are now learning is rather specialised and not appropriate for a general readership.
10 Sep 2016
POLLINATIONS - UPDATE
Pollinating now done; a lot of the earlier attempts appeared to be ok but were subsequently frosted or chilled overnight and were unsuccessful,. Nevertheless we should have plenty of fruit in the autumn from which to extract our pips. The picture (click the thumbnail for the detail) shows some hand-pollinated fruitlets on our Devonshire Quarrenden tree.
We also appear to have results on MM106, Seagrave Nonesuch (an excellent wild seedling found in North Leicestershire), Laxton's Fortune, George's Red, West Virginia Beauty and a few others.
20 May 2015
POLLINATIONS & POLLEN COLLECTION
This has started. The blossom was roughly a fortnight later than last year and compressed into a shorter time period. Here is a selection of pollens, drying:
The colours vary a little; white fleshed apples have pale yellow pollen. Hansen-type redfleshed have pollen sacs with a pink tinge; Etter type pollen sacs are yellow. Two apples are difficult to classify as 'Hansen' or 'Etter' types; Webster Pinkmeat has the characteristic red wood and crimson blossom of Hansen apples but the pollen sacs are pale. Breunsdorfer is similar and has the additional feature of producing pale skinned apples.
22 Apr 2015
ND / Diversity website
