The Cosmic Crisp apple is coming Monday

[JohnnyRingo]

It's been a long time since a new apple hybrid has been introduced to the public, and the new Cosmic Crisp is being hyped as a big deal for the Washington apple industry. I love apple pie.

The Long-Awaited Cosmic Crisp Could Reshape Washington’s Apple Industry
Why this one apple’s debut on December 1 is a big deal.

In a dark concrete storage unit near Wenatchee, an apple sits in a box, among 40 pounds of its brethren, waiting. The air is temperature controlled but, more crucially, has lowered oxygen levels that prevent ripening. This is more than just another piece of fruit; it’s a baseball-size revolutionary creation embargoed until a specific release date, like a Marvel movie or a new iPhone. This is the Cosmic Crisp.

Both quintessentially and legally a Washington product, the Cosmic Crisp has been in the works since horticulturist Bruce Barritt bred two varieties at Washington State University’s Tree Fruit Research and Extension Center 22 years ago. On December 1 it finally hits supermarkets. How big a deal is a brand-new apple, really? You might be surprised.

During development, it was known as variety WA 38. A cross between the Honeycrisp and Enterprise cultivars, the fruit’s high in both acid and sugar. That means the Cosmic is sweet and tart, good for pies and for munching raw. Satisfying taste buds is just one concern for Washington’s apple industry, which produces more than 5.12 billion pounds of fruit annually. For apples to be available year-round, beyond the fall harvest, they must store well, and the Cosmic Crisp does so like a champ; that high acid staves off browning.

“It’s enormously crunchy, it bakes well, it has a beautiful shape and color,” says Kathryn Grandy. As director of marketing for Proprietary Variety Management, Grandy’s job is to promote the Cosmic Crisp. The apple is what’s known as a managed or proprietary variety—patents control who can grow and sell it (Granny Smith or Red Delicious, for example, are open to anyone). The lenticels, or pores, on WA 38 shimmered like stars in a night sky, which led PVM to name it the Cosmic Crisp.

Professor Kate Evans took over Barritt’s position after he retired in 2008; when WA 38 trees matured enough for her to ID its fruit as a winner, the university decided to make it available to all Washington growers. In 2014, state orchard owners—some massive, some tiny—could enter a drawing for 600,000 available trees. By the next year, there were enough for all takers. When the apple hits the market in
December, “we’re going to instant volume,” says Grandy. The 10 million boxes on sale by 2023 will be more than, say, the Pink Lady sells now.

Evans has never heard of a tree fruit getting this kind of blockbuster release and hopes consumers realize that it’s no GMO. “That’s usually the first thing people say with a new apple,” she says. “But it’s from traditional breeding technology that we have been using as humans for several hundred years.”

Continued here:
https://www.seattlemet.com/articles/2019/11/26/the-long-awaited-cosmic-crisp-could-reshape-washington-s-apple-industry

[MineralMan]

1. Apples are weird. I planted a Honeycrisp tree in my backyard

six years ago. It has so far had one flower on it. Maybe the seventh year will be the charm. Meanwhile, out in my front yard, by the curb, is a flowering crabapple tree the city planted there. Bred not to produce fruit, it does that very well, but is a huge snowball of white flowers for two weeks each spring.

A few years ago, I decided to let three of the rootstalk suckers that sprouted up from the base of the tree grow. I've carefully pruned them so they blend in with the rest of the tree. I was just curious about what the rootstock was for the flowering crab that had been grafted onto it.

This year, for the very first time, those rootstock suckers flowered and set fruit. that came as a surprise to me one afternoon when we walked our dogs. There they were: half a dozen small yellow apples with a slight pink blush. I waited as long as I could and picked them before the birds and worms got to them. Surprisingly, they were quite sweet and crisp. Small, but good-tasting little apples. We'll see how my experiment does next year. Maybe we'll get a bumper crop of rootstock eating apples. I'll be looking to see if I can determine a variety for them, but that probably won't work. They're just good little apples. Who knows what the rootstock was?

I did something similar at my parent's citrus farm. One of their orange trees sent up some very robust suckers, so I decided to just let them grow and pruned them to see if I could get them to fruit. They did, and produced a large, rough yellow fruit that I call a bitter lemon. It had a very thick skin, and not a massive amount of juice, but the fruit makes spectacular lemonade that surprises everyone who has tasted it.

[Hermit-The-Prog]

3. you might enjoy heritage or heirloom apples ...

https://www.applesearch.org/

[MineralMan]

8. Thanks. I'll check that.

[LeftInTX]

6. So the crabapple was grafted?

[MineralMan]

7. Yes. Pretty much all apples are.

[LeftInTX]

9. Didn't know crabapples were.

Just assumed they weren't since they grow wild

Also funny about the citrus rootstock. Glad you found some use for it!! That's the first I've heard of anyone having use for it!

It's not uncommon in San Antonio because we are marginally hardy for citrus and it's not unusual for an old tree to consist of nothing but sour orange!

[mopinko]

11. a flowering crab would be.

[mopinko]

12. you got lucky.

roots stock are pretty much, by definition, not worthwhile for fruit.
tho if you wanted to do your own grafting, you could root those suckers, and grow any fruit if you had access to twigs. seems a waste of space and time to hope for fruit that the experts dont look for.

but i do very much get the curiosity you show. mine has taken me down many blind alleys as well. lol.

[stopwastingmymoney]

18. I have a Mulberry in the back that I let grow as a sucker from a neighbor's tree

Funny thing, the parent tree does not fruit, but mine does

Do you know why that might be?

[jcgoldie]

20. My guess is yours is a girl!

someone needs to have the birds and bees talk with you... just kidding but Mulberry trees do have gender.

[MineralMan]

23. I don't know, but we have two volunteer mulberry trees

in our backyard. I think they came from seeds deposited by birds. Anyhow, they produce huge amounts of fruit. I eat about a cup of mulberries each year, and leave the rest for the birds.

We won't have a crop this year, though. The electric utility tree crew came through and whacked everything down to the main branches. It was growing up into the wires. It will be back, though, next year.

[stopwastingmymoney]

44. It is a fast growing tree

And the birds do love it

[MineralMan]

47. Birds eat them up, and then

leave purple spots on my nice white car. I don't mind, though.

[cilla4progress]

27. Very cool.

Is that because of grafting?

[MineralMan]

31. Well, the flowering crabapple is a graft on whatever rootstock

it is. The apples grew on suckers coming up from that original rootstock, I have no idea what that was, but most rootstocks are chosen for things like hardiness, disease resistance, etc., and not for their fruit. That those apples were edible at all is sort of amazing. That they tasted good was a bonus. I'll see how they do next year.

There's a tree up the street from us that has three different types of apples on it every year. None are much good, but it's fun to see the three different apples on the same tree. At my parent's farm, there used to be a tree that was grafted to produce apricots, a peach variety, and plums. My dad did that to amuse his children and grandkids. There are little surprises like that all through his orchard. An orange tree that also has a limb that produces lemons. A lemon tree with a tangerine limb on it. All for the children to find and wonder about. My father is a jokester and a good tree grafter, too, apparently.

[cilla4progress]

32. Great

recollections -.thanks, MM!

[TuxedoKat]

45. Apple Trees

Some apple trees take a long time to produce. I have two trees, a Chieftain and a Stayman Winesap that finally produced a few apples this fall after seven years I think. Deer got them before I did though! Still waiting for my Wolf River to produce apples as it was planted the same year. An Ida Red I planted at the same time started producing after 3-4 years and this year had a decent-sized crop. I really baby my trees, fertilizer, organic Neem Oil, pruning, etc. They are great tasting apples too, sweet/tart and make pretty pink apple sauce. I once read too, that it takes 40 (!) leaves to produce one apple, so keep your leaves healthy.

Hmmm, looks like Honeycrisp is difficult to grow:

https://www.growingproduce.com/fruits/apples-pears/the-dark-side-of-honeycrisp/

I'm glad you are getting good apples from the rootstock though! Does your Crab Apple flower at the same time? If not, Honeycrisp may need a cross-pollinator. Fruit trees are so interesting. I started planting them in 2011, and add more each year. I have about eight Apple Trees that I've planted (mostly heirloom varieties), two Apricots, one Peach, three Mulberry (mostly for the birds), one Plum, one Pear, two sour Cherry trees, two Crab Apples, one Persimmon, and two PawPaw trees will be planted next year.

Here you can find pollination partners for your Honeycrisp. When I do grafting, I graft varieties to the trees that are pollination partners to my apple trees.

https://www.orangepippintrees.com/pollinationchecker.aspx

[MineralMan]

46. There are tons of apple trees in my neighborhood.

The flowering crab, though, does flower at the same time as the Honeycrisp, so I think I'm OK there.

[Backseat Driver]

2. What grocery gets it first and/or when will

it reach Ohio - Dec 1 + transportation?

[JohnnyRingo]

16. I was wondering too.

They amassed something like 12 million cases in prep for the introduction, so that sounds like a lot nationwide. Certainly the chains will have first dibs.

I read an article last week about how they routinely store apples in controlled climate warehouses to keep them fresh up to a year.

[cilla4progress]

28. Yep.

They are all over here (I'm a wenatcheeite!).

[ismnotwasm]

4. I had the pleasure of trying it out

A co workers son is involved with the industry. It is delicious

[Blue_true]

14. How does it compare to Gala in snap and flavor? Gala is my fave. nt

[cilla4progress]

30. Since they quit selling Cameos I have struggled

to find a favorite.

Cameos kind of self cross-breeded /created themselves! They were tart sweet. Been eating Pink Ladies this year, but I still miss my humble Cameo!

[rusty fender]

36. Have you tried Envy?

It’s been my favorite after Smitty disappeared from the stores

[blaze]

37. Envy is my favorite right now too!!! nt

[cilla4progress]

40. Nope - will try it!

Smitty?

[ismnotwasm]

22. Hmm.

It’s every so slightly slightly tart at first, then bursts into a really nice sweetness, that’s not too sweet. I like Gala too, not sure how to compare them. It has a a yummy refreshing flavor

[Blue_true]

43. Thanks. I will try the new variety out once it reaches my part of the country. nt

[Goodheart]

5. So, this is undoubtedly a "GMO" product

Somebody tell me again why we should be opposed to GMO's?

[TeamPooka]

10. crossbreeding is not GMO.

[Goodheart]

24. The very purpose of crossbreeding is to modify genes.

Anybody who thinks otherwise doesn't understand what genes are or do.

[TeamPooka]

33. A GMO, or genetically modified organism, is a plant, animal, microorganism or other organism whose

genetic makeup has been modified in a laboratory using genetic engineering or transgenic technology.

[customerserviceguy]

41. The difference is

one process is hundreds of years old, and is not suspect, while the other is labeled "Frankenstein fruit".

Yes, you're right, there is no difference.

[Blue_true]

15. Cross-breeding and selective breeding has been done for many centuries.

That is how we got food fruit and vegetables to begin with. It is not GMO.

[Stinky The Clown]

17. From the OP:

Evans has never heard of a tree fruit getting this kind of blockbuster release and hopes consumers realize that it’s no GMO. “That’s usually the first thing people say with a new apple,” she says. “But it’s from traditional breeding technology that we have been using as humans for several hundred years.”

You were saying . . . . . ?

[Silent3]

19. I am SO very tired of the stupid "non-GMO" BS.

And "all natural!" and "organic!" and "clean!"

"Gluten free" is totally unimportant for the fast majority of the population as well.

[Goodheart]

25. This new apple producer feels compelled to call it "non-GMO" because of marketing reasons, obviously

He's no fool.

I will take GMO all day long, as we all have for many, many years.

[Mariana]

42. While all that may be true

the fact remains that this particular fruit is not a GMO. The poster is incorrect about that.

[cilla4progress]

29. Article specifically says no

GMO.

[TheBlackAdder]

13. There are so many apple varieties, a person could eat a different apple each day for two years!

[jcgoldie]

21. that cosmic crisp supposed to be resistant to cedar rust

I'll have to try a couple the cedars play havoc on my apple orchard every year with those terrible big gooey balls of yuck

[cilla4progress]

26. Hey - Wenatchee is my home!

"Apple Capital of the World and Buckle in the Power Belt of the Great Northwest." (Might Columbia runs through it.)

Great marketing scheme.

[Aristus]

34. I'm a crossbreed myself; Texas/Washington.

The Evergreen State is my home, and I'm proud of that.

I have an apple with my lunch every single day. I'm going to go out and see if I can pick up a couple of Cosmic Crisps today. I'll give them a try. Envy is my favorite varietal. Honeycrisp is just a shade too tart for my liking.

[Grasswire2]

35. I'm a little miffed about this apple.

MILLIONS of dollars have been spent to impose it on the market.

I buy my apples from a grower in Hood River Oregon who brings thirty or more varieties to farmers market a hundred miles from the orchards. Many of the varieties are very old heirlooms.

I previously, until two years ago, bought my apples from another Oregon grower whose heirloom orchards had trees 150 years old. One variety so old they couldn't remember the name of it and just called it "Grandpa's favorite." The grower (in his eighties now) sold out his land to a cannabis grower and we lost all those heritage trees and varieties. He had also sold his apples at farmers markets locally. I can't even say how very, very cool it was to have so many different kinds of delicious apples from old trees.

And so when I see this highly marketed engineered apple desiring to dominate the market, I'm really turned off. Because I know it will probably displace even more heirlooms. Soon, Americans will think that only an apple with "crisp" in the name is an apple.

That said, I do like an apple called "Crimson Crisp" from my current grower. But I also know two dozen other varieties well.

[blaze]

38. And the WA Delicious apple was partly responsible

for the loss of many varieties across the country. It marked the change from apple farming to apple industry.

I just learned that SW Colorado used to be full of apple orchards and there are now efforts to revive some of the nearly lost varieties.

https://coloradosun.com/2019/11/28/colorado-heritage-apples-orchard-restoration-hard-cider/

(I just recently posted this here: https://www.democraticunderground.com/10414123 )

[Grasswire2]

39. the Washington Delicious is the most tasteless of apples.

Blech.