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Have you ever walked into a grocery store
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and wondered where all those variety
of apples came from?
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You might find SnapDragon,
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Pixie Crunch,
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Cosmic Crisp,
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Jazz,
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or Ambrosia
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next to the more familiar
Red Delicious and Granny Smith.
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These delightfully descriptive names
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belong to just a handful of the over
7,500 apple varieties in the world.
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This huge diversity exists largely because
of humanities efforts to bear new fruit.
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Fruit breeding is a way to fulfill
the expectations of farmers and consumers
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who seek specific qualities in an apple.
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On the one hand, farmers may want them
to be disease resistant and to store well.
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On the other, consumers are swayed
by appearance, taste, and novelty.
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So, breeders have to consider everything
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from how well apples grow
in certain climates
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to their color, taste, and size.
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And, sometimes finding the perfect
fit means breeding something new.
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To create apples
with desirable characteristics,
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breeders first need to find parent
apples that carry those characteristics.
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Once the parents have been selected,
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they have to wait until the trees
bloom in the spring.
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The breeder takes the pollen
from one bloom, called the father,
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and transfers it by hand to the other
parent bloom, called the mother,
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through a process
called cross-pollination.
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Once the mother bloom
turns into an apple,
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the seeds are collected and then planted.
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It takes about five years for these seeds
to grow into trees that produce apples,
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but because of the way
traits are inherited,
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all of the seedlings produced will have
different sets of genes
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and characteristics.
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This means that to achieve
a desired quality,
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it takes a lot of offspring,
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not to mention patience
on the breeder's part.
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When a seedling does bear fruit
with the desired qualities,
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it's selected for further evaluation.
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Of the original crossed seedlings,
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about one in every 5,000 makes it
to this prestigious stage.
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They're then sent to new farms
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where breeders can assess how various
climates and soil types
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affect the plant's growth.
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The fruit of the seedling
and its many clones
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must then be collected and sampled
to ensure consistency.
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Breeders study about 45 traits
in an apple,
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like the texture
and firmness of the flesh,
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when it ripens,
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how sugary its juice is,
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and how long it stays fresh.
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Over several years, they weed out
all the bad apples,
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selecting only those
whose fruits are the best.
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These exclusive plants
officially form the cultivar,
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or new apple variety.
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To ensure an exact copy of this cultivar,
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all apple trees must be grafted
from the original seedling.
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Branches, called scion wood,
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are cut from the original tree
and grown to generate more scion wood.
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Segments of these trees are then grafted
onto root stalk -
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that's the lower section of another tree
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that's been chosen
from a different cultivar
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for its superior roots
and growing ability.
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Finally, this fusion creates
a new apple tree
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with the desired qualities.
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Each new plant takes up to four years
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before it starts producing
the fruit we eat.
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Apple breeding may be a difficult art,
but it's accessible to all -
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universities,
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companies,
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and even individuals can create
new cultivars.
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But to fully own an apple, the breeder
faces a final challenge -
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naming the fruit.
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After a cultivar is patented,
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a breeder chooses a name
for its trademark.
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That final step grants them long-lasting
rights over the apple and its clones.
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That name must be completely original,
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and the catchier, the better, of course.
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With over 7,500 varieties and counting,
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that's why we have apples called
Pink Lady,
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Sweet Tango,
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Kiku,
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and EverCrisp.
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The more we work with nature's bounty
to breed new cultivars,
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the more creative and delectable
these names will become.
Peter van de Ven
@ 2.32
Over several years, they weed out
all the bad apples,
selecting only those
whose fruits are the best.
These exclusive plants
officially form the cultivar,
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Based on what follows, it seems to me that it should read:
Over several years, they weed out
all the bad PLANTS,