Today in the orchard
Don’t we love the rain when it only shows up once or twice a month? The last rain was three weeks ago. This time it rained for nearly 20 hours, and we got slightly over 2”. Fantastic. It was a good day to do apple ID’s.
I pulled out a bag of apples sent to us by Amy Gramour, a friend and fruit explorer from Houlton in Maine’s northernmost County. Amy has been on the search for the Houlton apple, “Bloom,” for some time and was hoping this one might be it. These apples come from a huge old tree in Houlton. Bloom originated in Houlton or in nearby Woodstock, New Brunswick. Back then the borders were porous, and people and plants flowed back and forth with complete freedom. (The good old days.) Bussey lists three cultivars named Bloom and two of them—numbers 1 and 3—would be the apple in question. Had he been aware that Houlton and Woodstock were only 15 miles apart, he might have concluded that the two were one and the same. The historical record matches well enough. Amy’s apple could be it.
Next, the phenotype. I read the description in Bussey and examined Amy’s apples as I did so. Unfortunately the phenotypic description—incomplete as it is—did not match the apple. Although historic descriptions are often incomplete and writers differ on how they define and describe characteristics, in this case, the apple can not be Bloom.
So what could it be? The prominently red-striped fruit has “Russian” written all over it. Think Duchess, Charlamoff and even Gravenstein. Amy’s apple could be Haas, an apple with Russian roots that matches the description and was trialed in Houlton during the late 19th century when many hardy apples with Russian pedigree made their way to the cold of northern Maine.
Next steps? How about a DNA profile? Tomorrow: my umpteenth attempt at Francis Fenton’s ribbed yellow apple.