Apple breeders beat the bees

Spring is not apple season, but researchers at Cornell are busy creating new varieties over the next two weeks.  How do they do it?    

First, remember grade school science?  Pollen reaches a flower's pistil and ovary, which then produces a fruit with seeds inside.  

In nature, bees carry the pollen around the apple orchard.  But to create new varieties, plant breeders interrupt that process so that they can choose which trees get to be the mom and dad of a new apple variety.   

Over the next two weeks, Susan Brown, Cornell horticulture professor, is creating new varieties out in the orchards.  She describes the process:    

“We choose one parent to be the seed parent (maternal parent).  To do this we must prepare blossoms to be crossed. Before blossoms open we remove the petals and stamens.  The stamens contain the anthers (which produce pollen).  The process is called emasculation since the male parts are removed.  We remove the petals and stamens very quickly, but if the flower is damaged during the process it will not set fruit.   

At the same time we designated another parent as the pollen parent.  For this we collect blossoms before they open and comb out the anthers.  We let them dry and then harvest the

pollen.

I say we are trying to beat the bees because in nature bees make all the crosses.  When we remove the petals we reduce bee visitation to blossoms and contamination in our crosses.  We want to control the parentage and know that the seeds produced are all from the same two parents. ”   

 
Developing new apples is an ongoing endeavor.  This year, 30 NYS growers are trying Cornell-developed varieties.