Today in the orchard
It feels like winter more and more everyday. The snow continues to accumulate an inch or so every day, and the temperature doesn’t seem to want to break 32F. The temptation to sit near the fire and stare at unidentified apples is as great as it’s been for a very long time. What a perfect way to occupy a cold December day.
So I sit and look. More has transpired in the search to identify “Geneva Tremlett’s” (PI_175550). We’ve connected with our friends/colleagues in the UK, and they are now joining us in the attempt to determine what PI_175550 isn’t and what it might be. “By process of elimination,” as they say.
Apple identification is a bit like the kids’ party-game Musical Chairs. The music starts, and we all walk in a circle around a row of chairs. Meanwhile some parent removes one chair from the row. The music stops, and everyone scrambles to find a chair to sit in, but there’s one less chair. Someone has no place to sit, and they are out. Finally it's down to one chair and two kids. Or in the case of apples, two identities left if you’re lucky. In apple identification that last chair is it. We’re now in the process of pulling aside chairs one by one. As long as we knock them off—even only one at a time—we should eventually find the true identity of PI_175550.
To review we know that Geneva Tremletts (PI_175550) is not the true UK Tremlett’s Bitter though we’re virtually certain it is a known cider apple, not a seedling or a rootstock. Geneva Tremletts is a red, fall-ripening bittersharp. The true Tremlett’s is a bittersweet. We also know that it was exported from Long Ashton Research Station (LARS) to the US in 1949.
I sent off a detailed phenotypic description of PI_175550 to the folks in the UK. I hope it might ring a bell and that we’ll be rewarded with another clue or two as we yank more chairs off the birthday party floor. We’ve still got a lot of chairs to eliminate, but, looking over the horizon, the last chair might possibly be a relatively obscure fall bittersharp called Tom Tanner. It’s possible! Tom Tanner was apparently growing at LARS at the right time. It resembles Geneva Tremlett’s enough to be a plausible mix-up. Tom and Tremlett’s are in alphabetical order. Could it be that a stick of Tom was inadvertently snipped and sent as Tremlett’s 76 years ago?
