Wilf Woods: Figuring out what happened to Red Delicious

4 free views left!

Wilf Woods: Figuring out what happened to Red Delicious

By Wilfred Woods
Chairman of the Board

Wednesday, February 6, 2013

The research folks are trying to bring us better apples, and the latest WSU Magazine tells of the work going on to find the next star in the apple galaxy.

Wilfred Woods

What happened to our Red Delicious?

The article notes: “Over the years, growers became so enamored of the Red’s color that they selected sports, mutant branches bearing redder apples.... A funny things happens as an apple gets redder. Its flavor decreases.”

Post-harvest horticulturist John Fellman figured out the reason: “We proved...that as they selected for color, there’s only so much metabolite to go around. Since the pigment is in a subset structure call the vacuole in the skin, metabolite gets grabbed and stuck as color. As that happens, it means less of the common metabolite for aroma chemicals.”

Our Tree Fruit Research station is the place where the work is going on.

» Recommend this story.

» 2 comments on this story

Want to comment on this story? All Wenatchee World members are invited to comment on stories, by using the form below. Please know that we at wenatcheeworld.com hope our site is useful, entertaining and civil. So we'll delete comments that are obscene, abusive or way off topic. We appreciate it when readers use the "suggest removal" button to flag inappropriate comments. For more about interacting with the site, see our Use Policy.

decollins 4 months, 1 week ago

I think Wilfred has it wrong. It was not the growers enamored with the color it was the chainstores and consumers. We were forced into taking out the old varities of reds which had great taste and replanting to the more colorful apples because of more eye appeal on the store shelves. The chainstores did not care about the taste only the color. As growers we knew the new varities of reds had less taste; however, no one listened to the grower. It was the color that drove the consumption not the taste until most of the taste had been removed through research. Even today it is the color that returns the most money to the grower.

Darrell Collins Monitor