How Apples Are Made In A Lab

[Music] this is how most new kinds of apples are born these days far from an orchard in a lab scientists at washington state university have been on a quest to breed the perfect apple for more than 20 years and they think they finally got it the cosmic crisp hit the market on december 1st 2019. it was the largest launch of an apple in american history coming after a half a billion dollars in investment 10 million dollars in marketing in two decades of breeding and testing we take a look at what it took to engineer what's been called the perfect apple and why some hope it'll save the washington state apple industry in the late 90s washington state's apple industry was on the brink of collapse that's because more than a hundred thousand acres of trees grown were foreign apple that was losing its popularity the red delicious once a star of the supermarket the apple is now criticized for its bland taste and mealy texture by the end of the decade farmers lost about 760 million dollars in three years that's when bruce barrett stepped in i did that for every day and began breeding what would become the cosmic crisp the goal was to have a fruit that was just as beautiful as the red delicious but also had a sweet taste and a nice crunch we had all our eggs are in one basket red delicious that's not good economics it's just not good if we grow more and more of something that people like less and less that's not a good business model either since then growers have increased production of other varieties but the red delicious still counts for almost a third of apple tree acreage in the state today to successfully take its place the cosmic crisps need it to last at least 12 months about six months longer than the red delicious that's because the apple industry super bowl is the fall season when farmers harvest nearly all the apples consumed through the rest of the year so the goal is to find an apple that tastes as good in march as it does in october which is why barrett chose the honey crisp and the enterprise as the cosmic crisps parents for their crispness and storage qualities respectively but even then it took thousands of trials and errors take a bite soft terrible ten thousand seeds and those seeds grew into trees and we looked through 10 000 of them and a couple showed promise and the one that showed the most promise was causing a crisp in the first few years of breeding the cosmic crisp seeds grew into seedlings by year four the seedlings turned into trees and produced their first apple fruits and by 2008 though the cosmic crisps didn't even have a name it had promising characteristics the selection that is now named cosmic crisp was one of i think 10 selections so that meant that they were just moving into a point where we would get bulk volumes of fruit that would enable us to do some of that really in-depth evaluation of the fruit in the next 11 years that in-depth evaluation consisted of tons of tests evaluating the cosmic crisp size shape color crunchiness juiciness and tartness the wsu team tests the ripeness of the apple using iodine to determine the best time to harvest what it does is that iodine then it binds to the starch that's in the fruit as the fruit ripens that starch turns to sugar and so when you've stained it with iodine and it's fully purple or black that's that's showing that it's it's really immature it's very starchy the lighter the flesh the sweeter the apple [Music] see that juice a juice inside makes it makes it a pleasant thing to eat i can eat this all day there you go that's how you know but with hundreds of consumer favorites already on the market how can a new apple stand a chance it takes a big budget takes a big industry and it takes a big product all those things have to come together the cosmic crisp has it all named for its galactic-looking skin experts expect the apple to take over the industry by the end of 2019 washington farmers had grown 12 000 acres of cosmic crisp trees which falls in the middle of apple production for the state and to catch up with its competitors 10.5 million dollars went into just marketing the apple it even has its own commercial the variety will only be available to state-based growers for the first 10 years the growers they deserve that advantage they contributed to the research project and so they have a 10-year head start the cosmic crisp sells for about three to five dollars a pound as a premium apple variety which is more than twice the price of standard varieties like the gala still the apples creators are confident the cosmic crisp is up for the challenge we want people to really enjoy apples and we felt to have that happen we had to give them better apples we had to rise above golden delicious red delicious macintosh we had to have an apple that was a much better eating experience and more than two decades later it worked in september of 2020 the cosmic crisp won the good housekeeping institute's healthy snack of the year [Music] award 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Channel: Insider News

Views: 3,205,117

Keywords: Insider, News, apples, food science, health science

Id: 3TitHNx0l3w

Length: 6min 3sec (363 seconds)

Published: Sat Oct 31 2020