Hi, this is Alex and this is my favorite apple
- the McIntosh. I think it has a remarkable flavor, but what’s
even more remarkable is that it grew on a tree that’s over two hundred years old. I mean, the original McIntosh tree got burnt
and then died in 1910, but before it died, its branches were cut and fused onto the roots
from other apple trees, in a process called grafting that was repeated time and time again
to generate lots of clones, one of which produced my apple. These clones - which all together we call
the McIntosh variety - are essentially the same tree sliced into pieces and re-grown
elsewhere, so they all have the same genes and characteristics, meaning they’re all
equally delicious. But they're also all equally susceptible to
the same diseases and pests, and to changing climatic conditions and consumer preferences. So, I suppose it would be good to have new
varieties of apples to choose from - even if they’re not as amazing as the McIntosh
- but it turns out that's way harder than it sounds. With other plants - like grains - we can create
new varieties really quickly, because they produce seeds within a single year that grow
into offspring with predictable characteristics. So we can quickly breed thousands of combinations
of parents, pick the best offspring, and repeat - successfully breeding new varieties in as
little as three years, and bringing them to market just as fast. But fruit trees are unpredictable. Because of their complicated genetics, even
if we crossbreed parents that have good characteristics, nearly all of their offspring will grow poorly
or have mediocre fruit. That’s why back in the early 1800s, the
McIntosh family had to cut branches off of their original, and (amazing), tree to graft
onto the roots from other trees. And fruit trees are also slow. Growing them from seeds takes decades. And if you manage to grow one with promising
characteristics, you still need to graft it onto lots of different roots in different
places to test whether its clones grow well in different conditions, which takes another
decade. Then, if the clones have grown well - meaning
the variety is good - farmers might be convinced to graft branches to roots in their own orchards
and wait another decade for the branches to grow into trees and produce apples. Finally, after decades of development, the
variety is ready for stores! But... because consumers are fickle, there’s
no guarantee that they’ll even like it. Ahhh people. And that is why successful apple varieties
don’t come around very often; the most popular ones are on average 120 years old. This is actually the same across all fruit
trees. The Navel orange, for example, is 200 years
old, and you might have eaten the same variety of pear as Abraham Lincoln or snacked on the
same kind of fig as Cleopatra. But despite the long odds, every few decades
tree breeders strike gold. The Honeycrisp apple, for example, debuted
in 1991 after decades of breeding, growing, and testing, and - thanks to its, well, honey-like
flavor and crisp texture, as well as its long shelf-life - it has been a best-seller ever
since. And who knows what other new varieties are
coming along that might also upset the apple cart. Mmh! This video was brought to you by the creators
of the Honeycrisp variety: the University of Minnesota, where Senior Research Fellow
David Bedford and Professor Jim Luby in the Department of Horticultural Science have been
breeding apples for decades. In that same department, Professor Emily Hoover
is working to improve the rootstocks used to grow apples commercially. And in the Department of Agronomy and Plant
Genetics, Professors James Anderson and Don Wyse breed corn and annual and perennial wheat. These researchers, along with students, faculty
and staff across all fields of study, are working to solve the Grand Challenges facing
society, including feeding the world sustainably. Thanks, University of Minnesota!
