4 ms·

Since apples are propagated by grafting (cloning), has anyone kept original ("heirloom"?) Red Delicious stock from before it was optimized for looks? I'd be ve

• acdha 5y ago
  If you go around local orchards, you'll see them from time to time — I've seen them in CT, MD, NY, PA, and VA. If they don't look like supermarket apples, they're worth eating.
• derbOac 5y ago
  I lived in Iowa for a time not too far from where they were originally from, and the red delicious apples there in local orchards on old trees are probably pretty close to what they were originally like. They're smaller than the prototypical ones you find in the grocery, with a thinner skin, more mottled or striped and round in appearance, and have flavor sort of like mcintosh. If you know what they are, you'll probably be able to identify the red delicious flavor, mostly in the skin I think. However, my guess is if you gave one to a bunch of people they probably wouldn't recognize them as red delicious apples. They might identify them as mcintosh or something like that.
• dotcommand 5y ago
  I recently watched a youtube video about why avocados cannot be grown by seed and learned about grafting. Interesting stuff. Didn't know apples also were grown through grafting.
  • 3minus1 5y ago
    There's an interesting discussion in Gun, Germs, and Steel where Jared Diamond claims that wild apples were inedible (IIRC due to cyanide in the seeds) and could only be domesticated after the invention of grafting technology.
  • tsjq 5y ago
    also give a read about those green apples. (Granny Smith?). IIRC, all of these are grafts from one single tree. cmiw pls .