On Fri, 17 Nov 2006 01:04:03 -0600, sherwindu wrote:
Naturally, only the successful chance seedlings were passed down through the
years.
The thousands, or perhaps millions of them that were just awful are not
around anymore.

So are the thousands of older cultivars that didn't withstand shipping or
long storage, or weren't "pretty enough" in someone's eyes, or just didn't
get recognized by a commercial nursery. And they were good apples, some
much better than the half dozen or so cultivars you get in most US grocery
stores today.

Exactly how did you grow this Kay pear? Was it a sport of some well
known pear, a seedling of some known pear, or a complete chance seedling?

A cross between an ornamental pear of unknown parentage and the Bosc in my
grandparents' backyard. Grandpa helped me make it (I was all of 4 or 5
at the time), and then we grew out the seeds. And it wasn't a bad
pear at all. Finally succumbed to fireblight many years later.

And I've gotten some
very good no-name apples out of local roadsides, probably planted by birds.

Or, they came from a known variety tree that lost it's identity somewhere
along
it's lifetime.

Doubt that... old roads, old fencelines, and most of them don't look
anything like currently favored cultivars.



Speaking of modern genetically produced apples, have you
tasted
some of the newer ones like Cameo, Honeycrisp, Rubinette, etc., etc.

Sure. Have you tasted some of the "wild" apples being currently imported
for germplasm use? Some really good stuff there.

If you
look
in the Fruit, Nut, and Berry Inventory book of available varieties, you will
find
the chance seedlings there, but only a small percentage of the total
offerings.

Yes, because people who actually bother to name cultivars are likely to be
working with a subset of plants that have something they're trying to
improve upon. But chance seedlings play a part, too.... go back
in the parentage and you'll find a lot of "unnamed seedling x cox's orange
pippin" sorts of entries.

I
say, leave it up to the experts to do the experimenting, when there are so
many
good apples of known parentage out there. Encouraging a kid to put his
energies
into a losing venture is not a good introduction to gardening.

And I'd argue, as an old educator, that learning that everything doesn't work
the way you think it might is a much more important lesson (in gardening,
in life, in science) than success at growing a "kit tree".

Doesn't take that much effort to grow a seedling tree to bearing size, if
they can make it through the winter in a planter (a relatively hostile
environment.) Back to the OP's question... insulate that planter, cuddle it
up against the house, and make sure it doesn't dry out or have standing water
in it this winter. Then enjoy what you get with your kids.

Me? I'm a retired botanist. My grandfather, who originally got me interested
in gardening, used to take me on day trips for such things as hunting for
the stump of the first 'Delicious' apple tree, or over to look at the
crab apple test orchard a friend ran. Learning to look and examine and
ask questions and perservere are good life lessons you can learn from a
little amateur plant breeding, imo.

Kay