Two new apple hybrids by Maryland researchers may turn around the falling production of the fruit by the year 2026. This is even as Washington state awaits a six-year record-breaking 2023 apple harvest.
These crosses will help recoup the glut of American apples, whose 2022 harvest was the smallest in 10 years.
The two inventions include a yellow apple crossed from Goldrush and a red partner, a hybrid of a Fuji variety.
The new cultivars are actually second generation scions of a 1991 union between Dwarf McIntosh and Gala apples. 32 years later, the researchers reenacted their act by crossing the 1991 apple hybrid with the Goldrush and Fuji cultivars.
The good news is that both fruits, whose provisional names are MD-TAP1 and 2, have similar tastes as popular apples. The yellow MD-TAP1 has a Golden Delicious feel on the palate while the red MD TAP-2 exudes with sweetness.
As to the growing seasons, the yellow cultivar is ready to harvest by end-September while the red one ripens around October.
This at a time when world production of apples has fallen by 5% in 2023 from weather and fire blight effects.
The earliest customers can sample the two new apple hybrids, however, will be in 2026. The first farm to produce them will be in Maryland, where customers will receive invites to ‘pick-your-own.’ Later, the cultivars will turn commercial.
Some of the advantages of MD-Tap1 and 2 include heat-tolerance. This makes them the first attempt to bring apples to warmer areas across the United States. The bulk of American apple production currently occurs in cool climatic regions in the Pacific Northwest and rainfall-prone Northeast U.S.
Gala apples account for 18% production, red delicious 14% while Fuji, the parent of MD-TAP2 accounts for 10%.
Secondly, the new apple cultivars from Maryland offer resistance to the bacterial wilt disease known as fire blight. The disease thrives mostly at temperatures above 50oF, when cool climate plants are most vulnerable to heat. In Washington, the disease decimated at least 5% of orchards between the years 1991 and 2018.
Washington State to Post 29% Apple Production Increment
Speaking of Washington, good weather this fall is promising a bumper apple harvest that may clock around 134 million 40-pound packets.
This will be well above the low output of a snowy 2022 when production lowered to 104.3 million packets. Beside notching 29% above the 2022 output, the 2023 production will also surpass yearly production averages since 2017 by 5%.
Thus, as Maryland unleashes its new warmer weather apple cultivars, things are looking up for the Pacific Northwest.