Rainbow Apples

Wild apples, originating between the Caspian and the Black Sea, grew in prehistoric times. Botanists believe their ancient roots come from a species called Malus sieversii. 

They’ve been enjoyed by man for at least 750,000 years. 

Historians and botanists speculate the nomads and traders, on the Silk Route, took wild apples with them on their journeys west. 

Fast forwarding to the 1600’s, apples were brough to North American by early European settlers and used for a sole purpose: hard cider. These apples were small and tart; unlike the edible ones we think of today. 

The legendary John Chapman, known as Johnny Appleseed, traveled on food across the US, planting these apple trees; basically, bringing alcohol to the frontier. 

As the fruit adapted to its new US conditions, its genetic diversity and popularity exploded, apples spread throughout the country, to every region and community. 

By the mid-1800’s, there were thousands of unique apple varieties in the US, running the entire color spectrum of the rainbow in all shapes and guises! In addition to making cider, the new varieties were used for all sorts of other purposes: baking, drying, eating out of hand—even as livestock feed.

This astounding apple-licious diversity was crushed by industrial agriculture; the introduction of mechanical refrigeration + inexpensive railway shipping.

By the early 20^th century, the golden age of American apple pomology came to an abrupt end. 

As the iconic fruit increased in popularity throughout the country, a new emphasis was placed on the commercial value. 

Home orcharding declined and commercial orchardists began focusing on growing fewer varieties more efficiently. 

Of the thousands of available varieties, the apple industry settled on just a handful to promote worldwide. The rest were forgotten, and many older cultivars fell into disuse.

In the early 1920’s, deliberately engineered apples like the Red Delicious, Golden Delicious and the Granny Smith began to dominate the market. These new cultivators and quintessential mass-market apples exploded in popularity and many highly flavored heirlooms were effectively cut out of the commercial trade. 

Basically, since the commercialization of apples, we’ve watched their diversity slashed into just a few choices. 

The biodiversity of the apples plummeted, and many popular heirloom apples have all but disappeared.  

They’ve became commercially extinct… though not quite biologically extinct… yet!

In 1892, there were about 735 different varieties; now fewer than 50 are mass-grown.

We may have lost eighty percent of our traditional apple varieties. 

Variation in apple colors is due to the different natural pigments they contain. 

There’s 3 main reasons/pigments are: chlorophyll, carotenoid and anthocyanin.

Chlorophyll – a green pigment found in plants. Green apples are green because they contain green chlorophyll

Carotenoid -Yellow apples start out green but the apple stops making chlorophyll as it matures.

The chlorophyll it contains eventually degrades to reveal yellow carotenoid pigments that were there all along but being masked by the chlorophyll. 

Anthocyanin - Red apples follow the same pattern as yellow apples but start making a red pigment called anthocyanin that develop as the apple grows. 

Even apples of the same variety can be different colors depending on how ripe they were when picked.