Sure enough, my sister uncovered a story on the Honeycrisp. It's an inside look at the development of apples, which is a lot more extensive than I figured.
Honeycrisp was just the beginning: inside the quest to create the perfect apple
Oct 6, 2016
The idea that a red apple is a delicious apple is one of the greatest frauds ever perpetrated against Americans. The apples we’re supposed to eat to keep doctors away, the apples we’re supposed to give to teachers to show our appreciation, the apples we compare to oranges — all of them are a deep, predictable red, and none of them are delicious.
The apple variety known as Red Delicious has, according to the US Department of Agriculture, dominated the apple industry since at least 1980. It’s been the most widely produced variety in the United States for the past 36 years.
The name is a total fabrication, a lie that’s woven its way into the tapestry of American culture. At best, biting into a Red Delicious is like biting into a firm cantaloupe that has only a serviceable sweetness. At worst, it’s like biting into an old baseball mitt, with shudder-inducing softness compounded by a flavor that tastes like it was muzzled between two cotton balls. Because they are common and cheap, Red Delicious apples are often served in hospitals and cafeterias across this great nation. Fuck the Red Delicious.
Thankfully, there’s hope. In the past several years, a new apple has emerged, one that all other apples should be judged against. This apple exemplifies American exceptionalism; it is a feat of science as well as of grit and determination.
The Honeycrisp apple is as good as the Red Delicious is bad. Its story is also a harbinger of apple greatness still to come. The Honeycrisp is a millennial apple born in the 1990s, after years of careful planning. It’s also considered the first “brand name” apple — the University of Minnesota had a patent on it, earning royalties from trees sold to growers.
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It took 30 years for UMN scientists to develop the Honeycrisp, through a painstaking breeding process and lots of trial and error. Consumers first got their hands on it in 1992, but the buzz and media attention didn’t really take off until 2007. (Food trends like artisanal, organic, and local foods certainly helped.)
According to the US Apple Association, the Honeycrisp is the fifth most popular apple on the market today, ranking behind the Gala, the aforementioned Red Abhorrence, Fujis, and Granny Smiths.
The texture of a Honeycrisp is no accident: Its cells have been bred to be bigger than cells in other apples, making the fruit feel juicier and crunchier than its competitors. These cells explode as your teeth tear into them. Then there’s its distinct flavor — a clean, clarified sweetness that’s almost frosty.
When you talk to apple people — the people who create, market, and produce apples like the Honeycrisp — the phrase they tend to repeat is “eating experience.” It’s the snap of biting into an apple, followed by the wave of sweetness as the flesh breaks apart in your mouth. Ultimately, an apple is judged on its combination of texture and flavor.
For consumers and breeders, Honeycrisp has become the standard-bearer on both of these fronts. It’s the most successful of theapple varieties developed at UMN’s Agricultural Experiment Station (MAES), a horticultural research center that breeds new apples.
Prior to 2008, the university had a patent on the apple, which earned the school, itsinvestors, and a research fund at the university $1.30 on every tree sold. The patent brought in more than $6 million. It also was a way to control the supply and quality of the apple, as growers needed authorization from the university to plant the tree.
Even with the patent and authorization, Honeycrisp trees are a challenge to grow. They’re susceptible to heat, powdery mildew, and black rot. According to Growing Produce,a website geared toward American fruit growers, the tree is “finicky,” with brittle wood, and needs to be thinned carefully.
UMN’s patent expired in 2008, capping its Honeycrisp revenue stream and allowing anyone to plant the apple. That’s why you may hear anecdotes about subpar rogue Honeycrisps. Earlier this year, Wired suggested the apple’s eventual decline is inevitable.
The Honeycrisp’s consistent crunch is its strong point, but Luby says breeders are working on apples that have the potential to outshine it. In the United States, the Big Three of apple breeding are UMN, Cornell University, and Washington State University. They are where new apples come from, and their breeders are constantly experimenting by crossing different kinds of apples. It’s not exactly a speedy process.
From the concept phase to getting an apple into a consumer’s hand, creating a new apple variety takes 15 to 17 years. The in-between stages involve everything from pollinating apple trees by hand to researching the regions where the new variety of apple might thrive to conducting an extensive naming process once you have a winning combination of texture and flavor.
If apple breeders were content with sitting on their laurels, we wouldn’t have much more than Red Delicious. Thankfully, they want to keep creating wondrous things. They want to bring joy into people’s lives. That’s dedication. That’s love. That’s determination. And look me in the eye and tell me that’s not goddamn American.
Over the past 10 years, the Red Delicious apple’s stranglehold on American consumers has loosened. Growers are focusing more on varieties that taste better, like the Pink Lady and Honeycrisp, and cutting back on Red Awfulness.
The Honeycrisp’s success is what spawned the club apple model. Had UMN trademarked the apple instead of just patenting it, it would still have some control over it and benefited from its popularity.
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