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Inventing a Better Apple · What's Your Problem?

0:15
Speaker 1: Pushkin. I'm Jacob Goldstein, and this is What's Your Problem.
0:33
Speaker 1: My guest today is Kate Evans. Kate is a professor
0:37
Speaker 1: in the Department of Horticulture at Washington State University, and
0:41
Speaker 1: her problem is this, how do you invent a new
0:44
Speaker 1: kind of apple? How do you invent an apple that
0:47
Speaker 1: grows reliably, that stores well, that can handle warming temperatures,
0:52
Speaker 1: and that, by the way, also taste delicious and looks pretty.
0:55
Speaker 1: Sitting there on the shelf at the grocery store with
0:59
Speaker 1: her team, Kate has in fact invented a new kind
1:01
Speaker 1: of apple. It's called the Sunflair and it is coming
1:05
Speaker 1: relatively soon to a store near you. This is the
1:08
Speaker 1: second apple she helped to invent in Washington. The first
1:12
Speaker 1: was the ambitiously named Cosmic Crisp Apple, which went on
1:16
Speaker 1: sale in twenty nineteen. And you Know What's Your Problem
1:20
Speaker 1: is basically a show about innovation, about technological innovation. And
1:25
Speaker 1: I talk to people figuring out new ways to generate
1:28
Speaker 1: energy and treat disease and use AI and do all
1:32
Speaker 1: these classic things that we think of when we think
1:34
Speaker 1: of innovation and technology. But innovation is not just in
1:39
Speaker 1: these kinds of obvious tech driven things. It is in
1:42
Speaker 1: more or less everything, and it's delightful and illuminating to
1:46
Speaker 1: learn about how innovation works with something as ubiquitous and
1:51
Speaker 1: old fashioned as an apple, a piece of fruit. As
1:55
Speaker 1: it happens. Over the past several decades, there has, in
1:58
Speaker 1: fact been an incredible amount of innovation in apples, and
2:02
Speaker 1: if you're an apple leader of a certain age, like
2:04
Speaker 1: I am, you have observed this innovation. And so to start,
2:09
Speaker 1: asked Kate, why the apples you get at the grocery
2:11
Speaker 1: store are so much better now than they were when
2:14
Speaker 1: I was a child. So I want to actually start
2:18
Speaker 1: before the stuff you've worked on, just for a minute,
2:21
Speaker 1: just to get the context, because I'm old enough to
2:25
Speaker 1: remember when there were three kinds of apples, at least
2:30
Speaker 1: in the grocery store in the suburbs of San Diego
2:32
Speaker 1: where I grew up. There were Red Delicious, Golden Delicious,
2:36
Speaker 1: and Granny Smith. And I didn't like any of them.
2:40
Speaker 1: Granny Smith were crispy but too sour, at least for
2:43
Speaker 1: a kid to tart. And then Red Delicious and Golden
2:45
Speaker 1: Delicious were not delicious. They were bad. They're really sorry
2:50
Speaker 1: Red Delicious, but it's true today there's a million kinds
2:53
Speaker 1: of apples and a lot of them are delicious. What changed.
2:58
Speaker 2: Well, I mean, first of all, I have to ask
3:02
Speaker 2: it depends how old you are.
3:04
Speaker 1: Sorry, I'm fifty. I mean in my early fifties, in
3:07
Speaker 1: my early fifties, fair question.
3:12
Speaker 2: So a couple of things, you know, as far as
3:16
Speaker 2: the food supply chain management is concerned, that's one thing.
3:21
Speaker 2: So refrigeration technology and being able to better store fruit
3:26
Speaker 2: so that the consumer gets a better eating quality. I'd
3:30
Speaker 2: argue that you probably would get a better quality piece
3:33
Speaker 2: of red Delicious, gold and Delicious and Granny Smith these
3:36
Speaker 2: days as well. Yes, But from a plant breeder perspective,
3:40
Speaker 2: which is obviously my whole deal close to my heart,
3:43
Speaker 2: we plant breeders have done our thing, and yeah, we've
3:48
Speaker 2: bred and released a whole load of new, improved varieties.
3:53
Speaker 1: I mean that's the fact. But like, why did it happen?
3:56
Speaker 1: Like was there a breakout moment? Was there one apple
3:59
Speaker 1: where everybody's like, oh wow, we could make lots of
4:01
Speaker 1: different apples, or like, what happened? Why did it happen
4:04
Speaker 1: when it did?
4:06
Speaker 2: I think in the US it happened with a shift
4:10
Speaker 2: in technologies of production And what really changed a lot
4:17
Speaker 2: of US production was bringing in dwarfing rootstocks for apple,
4:22
Speaker 2: which means that you could grow a lower vigo tree.
4:26
Speaker 2: That meant that there were a lot of orchidice, particularly
4:29
Speaker 2: over here in Washington, where the bulk of the production
4:31
Speaker 2: in the US comes from a lot of orchardice, who
4:35
Speaker 2: were interested in trying a few different varieties.
4:37
Speaker 1: The dwarf thing. Does it lower the risk for the grower?
4:40
Speaker 1: Is that why it's meaningful? It's like, well, you can
4:42
Speaker 1: just try a little one and it's not so risky.
4:43
Speaker 1: You're like, why is that meaningful?
4:45
Speaker 2: Good question. A new variety means you've got to establish
4:49
Speaker 2: a new orchard block. For a grower to invest and
4:52
Speaker 2: plant a new block, that's a pretty big investment. And
4:58
Speaker 2: so with the onset of dwarfing rootstocks, there was a change.
5:02
Speaker 2: Growers were moving forward and establishing new blocks and there's
5:05
Speaker 2: that time point, well why not try a new variety
5:08
Speaker 2: as well?
5:09
Speaker 1: Huh. The one for me that was the big shift
5:12
Speaker 1: was the Fuji. That was the first time where I
5:14
Speaker 1: was like, oh, there's a kind of apple that I
5:17
Speaker 1: love and it's reliable, right, Like part of the thing
5:21
Speaker 1: with Red Delicious, it's the same problem I have with
5:25
Speaker 1: nectarines and peaches. You just don't know if it's going
5:27
Speaker 1: to be good. And like a fuji, as long as
5:30
Speaker 1: it's not like bruised, it's pretty much always good and
5:33
Speaker 1: it always tastes the same and it's always crispy.
5:37
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, and that I think that's one of
5:40
Speaker 2: the I'm glad you brought that up, really, because that's
5:42
Speaker 2: one of the focuses that I have in my program
5:45
Speaker 2: is to have a consistent eating quality of new varieties
5:50
Speaker 2: that come through. And that means we do a massive
5:53
Speaker 2: amount of evaluation at different storage points through the season,
5:56
Speaker 2: so that piece of fruit for you as a consumer,
5:59
Speaker 2: tastes great whenever you buy it.
6:02
Speaker 1: Right, So the qualities you need in an apple are
6:04
Speaker 1: not just it's delicious when you pick it. Are the
6:11
Speaker 1: apples that are just like incredible when you pick them,
6:14
Speaker 1: but they don't ship, they don't store, and so I'm
6:17
Speaker 1: never going to taste one unless they happen to randomly
6:19
Speaker 1: walk by some tree.
6:21
Speaker 2: Yes, those are the ones that break our hearts as
6:25
Speaker 2: because we you know, they're the selections that they're out
6:29
Speaker 2: there as seeding apples and they're phenomenal and you think,
6:33
Speaker 2: oh my goodness, this just tastes wonderful, But two weeks later.
6:37
Speaker 1: Yeah, So let's talk about the Sunflair TM apple. First
6:42
Speaker 1: of all, I want to mention that when you wrote
6:44
Speaker 1: to us about it, we had some questions and you
6:46
Speaker 1: wrote back to Gabriella, producer of the show, you put
6:49
Speaker 1: the little TM above the word Sunflair every time. So
6:53
Speaker 1: I'm sure the lawyers there will be will be happy
6:56
Speaker 1: to hear that. Why do you put the little TM
7:02
Speaker 1: every time you write the word sunflair?
7:04
Speaker 2: Well, because the name is a brand name. Yeah, and
7:09
Speaker 2: most modern apples have a brand name associated with them.
7:13
Speaker 2: So like any piece of like any invention, I mean,
7:17
Speaker 2: a new apple variety is an invention. We patent it
7:21
Speaker 2: in this country, but a patent only has a certain
7:25
Speaker 2: amount of life, and to establish a new apple variety
7:30
Speaker 2: and get it out into production and for it to
7:34
Speaker 2: re making an impact in production takes most of that
7:38
Speaker 2: patent life. And so if you want to kind of
7:41
Speaker 2: reap any benefits from the intellectual property and have any
7:44
Speaker 2: way of controlling where that apple has grown, how it's grown,
7:48
Speaker 2: how it's marketed, etc. Establishing a trademark brand name is
7:54
Speaker 2: really important because that's the thing that you can keep indefinitely.
7:59
Speaker 1: Yes, A patent is what twenty years at this point, yes,
8:04
Speaker 1: ish yeah, but a trademark is forever.
8:08
Speaker 2: As long as we use it.
8:09
Speaker 1: Yeah, as long as that's why you're putting the little
8:11
Speaker 1: TM on it, right right. Tell me about the Sunflair Apple.
8:15
Speaker 1: What's it like?
8:17
Speaker 2: So it is a unique yellow with a pink blush
8:23
Speaker 2: appearance apple. So I think as a consumer you'd be
8:26
Speaker 2: able to see it and recognize it on the on
8:28
Speaker 2: the shelf in the supermarket, which is important.
8:31
Speaker 1: Interesting, it's like it's like a package. It's the packaging.
8:35
Speaker 2: Well it is, yeah, because you know you want to
8:38
Speaker 2: know that's the one I like, and that's the one
8:40
Speaker 2: I'm going back to buy it again, right. And then
8:44
Speaker 2: it has a sweet teart balance with a fairly firm
8:50
Speaker 2: crisp texture, so a firmer texture than cosmic crisp, but
8:57
Speaker 2: still crisp.
8:58
Speaker 1: Okay is firm, not crisp is firm, different than crisp.
9:03
Speaker 1: I don't think I have the language to distinguish.
9:05
Speaker 2: Oh no, I'm not a sensory scientist. Yeah. I think
9:12
Speaker 2: there is something to do with the bite and the
9:15
Speaker 2: way that the flesh sounds awful. The way the flesh
9:18
Speaker 2: ruptures when you sink your teeth into it is a
9:22
Speaker 2: crisp thing, and then what is ferm, and then firm
9:25
Speaker 2: is how you chew it through your molars, And that's.
9:28
Speaker 1: Sort of interesting.
9:29
Speaker 2: The work that you're putting into something.
9:31
Speaker 1: The firmer it is, like, the more you gotta chew
9:33
Speaker 1: curt Yes, okay, interesting, Okay, tell me more of what
9:37
Speaker 1: it's like. I mean, I guess it's a cross between
9:39
Speaker 1: a crisp pink and a honey crisp. So like I've
9:42
Speaker 1: eaten both of those apples.
9:44
Speaker 2: Well, I would say that honey crisp tends to you
9:48
Speaker 2: taste it as being sweeter and less tart. Crips pink
9:52
Speaker 2: you probably have more tart, you know when you're tasting that.
9:56
Speaker 2: Some flare is somewhere between the two. And also in
10:00
Speaker 2: terms of texture, so honey crisp is an ultra crisp,
10:04
Speaker 2: but not as ferm. It's a slightly softer apple in
10:07
Speaker 2: terms of firmness, whereas crips pink is less crisp but firmer,
10:12
Speaker 2: and so sunfloir actually sits somewhere in the middle. I
10:16
Speaker 2: would say it probably is a little more like crips
10:20
Speaker 2: pink than like honey crisp.
10:22
Speaker 1: Okay, so the Sunflair is just coming out now, right, correct?
10:28
Speaker 2: Yes? Yeah?
10:29
Speaker 1: When am I going to be able to eat one?
10:31
Speaker 2: Probably not until twenty twenty nine.
10:35
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, So that means the trees are out there
10:37
Speaker 1: growing in the orchards.
10:39
Speaker 2: The first trees were planted I think last week commanded.
10:42
Speaker 1: Okay, congratulations, have us to be a very exciting moment free,
10:45
Speaker 1: Yeah it is.
10:46
Speaker 2: Yeah.
10:48
Speaker 1: So what was the problem you were setting out to
10:51
Speaker 1: solve when you set out to create the Sunflair.
10:55
Speaker 2: The main thing that we focus on is not so
11:00
Speaker 2: much a particular problem, but it is producing a variety
11:04
Speaker 2: that eats fabulously for a consumer, So something that consumers
11:09
Speaker 2: are going to want to eat, but also something that
11:11
Speaker 2: works in our production system out here in Washington and
11:16
Speaker 2: works for that supply Chaine. So it's particularly in terms
11:21
Speaker 2: of how the fruit stores in refrigeration, so it maintains
11:25
Speaker 2: its quality through storage, gives you a great eating experience
11:29
Speaker 2: all year round.
11:30
Speaker 1: Is there a particular apple that you feel like Sunflair
11:33
Speaker 1: is gonna eat its lunch if I might?
11:36
Speaker 2: No, you know, no, I can't. No, really it's never
11:45
Speaker 2: a case of targeting a specific apple, but what often
11:49
Speaker 2: happens is that there will be the quality attributes of
11:53
Speaker 2: that apple. So consumers of a particular apple might find
11:57
Speaker 2: that they like the sunflair better than other things. Sure,
12:01
Speaker 2: but also it has to fit in with how the
12:05
Speaker 2: grower produces fruit, and usually that is when the fruit harvests.
12:10
Speaker 2: So the grower has a portfolio varieties that harvest at
12:14
Speaker 2: different time points through the season so they can maintain
12:17
Speaker 2: a picking crew. So it might be that it sort
12:21
Speaker 2: of knocks something off that portfolio varieties at the grower.
12:26
Speaker 1: Already the back end, it's a back end thing as
12:28
Speaker 1: opposed to a sort of front end thing. Yeah, what
12:32
Speaker 1: you're talking about like all these different dimensions that you're
12:36
Speaker 1: you know, trying to optimize more or less, and obviously
12:39
Speaker 1: there's a million trade offs. But in just list off
12:42
Speaker 1: some of the dimensions, like whatever they are, crispiness, when
12:46
Speaker 1: they bloom, how they store whatever, It is just a list.
12:50
Speaker 2: Right, So from a quality perspective, firmness, cristness, juiciness, sweetness, tartness.
12:57
Speaker 2: On top of that, you have aroma that's just eating.
13:00
Speaker 2: So then appearance, you've got size, shape, color, color combinations,
13:06
Speaker 2: skin finish. Then, yeah, as far as the tree is concerned,
13:13
Speaker 2: when it blooms, how much fruit does it set each cluster?
13:17
Speaker 2: Does it drop fruit? How easy is the fruit to
13:21
Speaker 2: pick some apples and more bizarrely more difficult to harvest
13:26
Speaker 2: than others. And then how well does it store? So
13:31
Speaker 2: does the fruit rot? Does the fruit have disorders that
13:35
Speaker 2: appear in cold storage or along the supply chain. There
13:38
Speaker 2: can be so many different things that impact it.
13:42
Speaker 1: So tell me the story of the sunflair.
13:44
Speaker 2: Yeah, so it started back in nineteen ninety eight with
13:48
Speaker 2: a cross combination between the honey crisp and the crips pink.
13:53
Speaker 2: They were its two parents. So that means pollen from
13:57
Speaker 2: crips pink dusting onto flowers of honey crisp. Okay, then
14:01
Speaker 2: that's spring nineteen ninety eight, right, and then waiting for
14:06
Speaker 2: that honey crisp tree to produce its fruit, harvesting that,
14:10
Speaker 2: collecting all the seeds.
14:11
Speaker 1: And let me ask a question. Is every honey crisp
14:17
Speaker 1: different than every other honey crisp or they genetically uniform?
14:21
Speaker 2: Yeah, they're genetically uniform, Okay.
14:23
Speaker 1: But presumably every cross of them is going to be
14:27
Speaker 1: different right, just the way if you had two human
14:29
Speaker 1: beings and they had a thousand children, every child would
14:33
Speaker 1: be different. Is that correct?
14:34
Speaker 2: Absolutely? Yes, yeah, yeah.
14:37
Speaker 1: So when you're crossing them, are you just doing it
14:40
Speaker 1: like a bee or is it are you picking particular
14:44
Speaker 1: genes from each parent that you want or you're just
14:46
Speaker 1: saying make a baby trees.
14:51
Speaker 2: It would be fantastic if we were, if our science
14:54
Speaker 2: was precise enough to say this is my one apple
14:58
Speaker 2: target and I want it to be exactly this. We
15:03
Speaker 2: are not at that point in terms of the science
15:06
Speaker 2: behind apple breeding.
15:08
Speaker 1: I mean, can you sort of map certain genes to
15:11
Speaker 1: certain traits?
15:12
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, and we have. I mean, we have certainly
15:15
Speaker 2: got more of an idea of the apple genome than
15:18
Speaker 2: you know, twenty thirty years ago. Things have progressed and
15:22
Speaker 2: there are ways that we can select for certain combinations
15:27
Speaker 2: of those genes, but we just do not know enough
15:31
Speaker 2: about which of those genes we really want to have
15:37
Speaker 2: in each combination.
15:38
Speaker 1: Well, and you could imagine. I mean, one of the
15:40
Speaker 1: interesting things in you know, following the arc of the
15:46
Speaker 1: understanding of the human genome is how much is polygenic
15:49
Speaker 1: and how complex it is. And it's not like one
15:51
Speaker 1: gene goes to one trait, right, you could imagine one
15:54
Speaker 1: gene having many different effects and those effects being different
15:58
Speaker 1: with respect to other changing genes. I mean, is that
16:00
Speaker 1: what you are finding for apples as well?
16:03
Speaker 2: Yeah? Absolutely, And in fact, there's so much similarity between
16:07
Speaker 2: the sort of the diversity of human genetics and apple
16:11
Speaker 2: it's it's a little bizarre we often use humans.
16:15
Speaker 1: What percent are we apple?
16:17
Speaker 2: Like?
16:17
Speaker 1: What percent of the apple?
16:21
Speaker 2: Oh that I really don't know.
16:24
Speaker 1: I bet it's a lot, right, I bet it's a lot.
16:26
Speaker 2: Probably probably, you know. I think you're right. There's an
16:29
Speaker 2: awful lot of the traits that we were interested in
16:32
Speaker 2: that are apologenic, and so the single genes we've we've
16:38
Speaker 2: sort of locked in quite a lot. Now we understand
16:40
Speaker 2: more about some of those, but of course the things
16:44
Speaker 2: that we're very interested in tend to be pologenic and
16:47
Speaker 2: therefore much more difficult to kind of play around with
16:51
Speaker 2: and really make a fast progress.
16:55
Speaker 1: So you're still like Gregor Mendel, just take this one trio,
16:58
Speaker 1: this other tree and see what happens. We'll be back
17:04
Speaker 1: in just a minute. So, okay, so it's nineteen ninety eight.
17:17
Speaker 1: I know you weren't there yet so your predecessor is
17:20
Speaker 1: breeding crispink and honey crisp, which at that level, it's like, sure,
17:23
Speaker 1: those are two good apples, and are they doing just
17:27
Speaker 1: to order of magnitude thousands of those trees and each
17:30
Speaker 1: one is different or hundreds or tens of thousands, Like
17:33
Speaker 1: how many actual trees are they growing that are that cross?
17:37
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean that that depends. You know, usually it's
17:40
Speaker 2: somewhere somewhere in the around one thousand, five hundred to
17:45
Speaker 2: one thousand, sometimes two thousand, usually not more than that.
17:49
Speaker 1: Okay, so you get a thousand ish trees and then
17:52
Speaker 1: you gotta wait for them to grow up and make apples,
17:56
Speaker 1: very old fashioned, very physical analog. Yeah, yeah, how long
18:02
Speaker 1: does that take?
18:04
Speaker 2: Somewhere around about six years five six years before we
18:08
Speaker 2: start to see free.
18:09
Speaker 1: So then in whatever, the early two thousands, you get
18:12
Speaker 1: the first apples coming off of this thousand or so
18:18
Speaker 1: crips pink plus honeycrisp trees and then.
18:21
Speaker 2: What so then that that's where the breeder, you know,
18:26
Speaker 2: our job is to evaluate and select. So that is
18:29
Speaker 2: a case of just walking up and down those seedling rows,
18:33
Speaker 2: seeing what catches your eye from an appearance perspective, and
18:37
Speaker 2: then if it looks like it's ready to eat, pick
18:40
Speaker 2: an apple and take a bite.
18:41
Speaker 1: So it's really that, No, you're actually walking through the
18:45
Speaker 1: trees picking an apple and taking a BikeE.
18:47
Speaker 2: Yeah, and then spitting yeah.
18:51
Speaker 1: Yeah. And you like have some standardized criteria, you have.
19:00
Speaker 2: A palette that's been trained for many years.
19:02
Speaker 1: It's just I like it or I don't like it.
19:04
Speaker 2: Is it really that it's having that understanding of what
19:08
Speaker 2: is partently acceptable and what is not.
19:12
Speaker 1: Then what happens how many yeses you get out of
19:14
Speaker 1: that thousand little trees totally depends.
19:18
Speaker 2: It depends on what the parents are, you know, and
19:20
Speaker 2: I don't know the numbers specifically for that cross combination.
19:24
Speaker 2: But once we've if something is a yes, then it's
19:28
Speaker 2: a case of just harvesting a sample of that fruit,
19:30
Speaker 2: bringing it back in, putting it in the cold store
19:33
Speaker 2: for a couple of months, and then evaluating it. Because
19:36
Speaker 2: if it doesn't hold up for two months in a
19:40
Speaker 2: refrigerated cooler, then it's not going to make it as
19:43
Speaker 2: far as this industry is concerned.
19:45
Speaker 1: So you do yourr does its store test, and then what.
19:51
Speaker 2: Well, and then you know, we want to look at
19:54
Speaker 2: it again the following year to see if it's because
19:57
Speaker 2: you know, season to season things vary. So one we
20:02
Speaker 2: decide that it is, you know, it's maybe had a
20:04
Speaker 2: couple of years of good fruit quality on that individual
20:08
Speaker 2: seedling tree, then we propagate more trees, make a whole
20:11
Speaker 2: new tree that is a clonal copy, and we can
20:13
Speaker 2: do that for as many buds as there are in
20:16
Speaker 2: the tree, and often you know what we do. Why
20:18
Speaker 2: it takes a long time is because we are looking
20:21
Speaker 2: for something that is robust. Ye, and without having multiple
20:27
Speaker 2: years worth of evaluation of fruit off that tree, you
20:31
Speaker 2: can't really make a sort of a call on it
20:34
Speaker 2: to say, yeah, I'm confident that this one is robust
20:38
Speaker 2: enough to be able to move forward.
20:40
Speaker 1: So it has to be robust, not just in the
20:42
Speaker 1: sense of you can put the apples in the fridge
20:45
Speaker 1: for a couple months, whatever, in storage for a couple months.
20:47
Speaker 1: It has to be robust in the sense that the
20:48
Speaker 1: tree can deal with some variance in terms of weather
20:53
Speaker 1: and pests and whatever.
20:56
Speaker 2: Right, yeah, And we have to have enough copies of
21:00
Speaker 2: the tree to produce bins worth of fruit, not just
21:04
Speaker 2: our single tree, you know, small sample of fruit, because
21:07
Speaker 2: we want to do a lot more refrigeration storage tests.
21:11
Speaker 2: We want to be able to see does that fruit
21:14
Speaker 2: store for six months? Will it store for nine months?
21:17
Speaker 2: And of course every time you evaluate the fruit it's destructive.
21:21
Speaker 2: You know, you can't you can't test the same apple
21:25
Speaker 2: numerous times because you've cut it up.
21:29
Speaker 1: How long does an apple got a store to be
21:31
Speaker 1: commercially viable?
21:33
Speaker 2: What I look for is something that would be storable.
21:37
Speaker 2: It will store well for the full year, so that
21:41
Speaker 2: it will have a space on the supermarket shelf for
21:44
Speaker 2: twelve months and consumers can just continue to buy it
21:48
Speaker 2: all year round.
21:50
Speaker 1: Like a gallon of milk. You just walk in and
21:52
Speaker 1: it's there, and it's always the same. Yeah, well, you know, I.
21:55
Speaker 2: Mean, this is what always amazes me is that our
22:00
Speaker 2: consumers really have this sort of detachment from from the
22:05
Speaker 2: production of their food. They're not necessarily understanding that our
22:08
Speaker 2: apples are only harvested once a year that they want
22:11
Speaker 2: to eat them for twelve months.
22:14
Speaker 1: So we're testing them out and amazingly you get to
22:19
Speaker 1: the point where you say, can we store it for
22:21
Speaker 1: a year, And the answer is yes.
22:23
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
22:27
Speaker 1: So there was a story in the New York Times
22:29
Speaker 1: about this apple that talked about it as sort of
22:32
Speaker 1: optimized for climate change or you know, adapted to work
22:36
Speaker 1: better in a warmer climate in Washington. Is that part
22:40
Speaker 1: of the calculus for this apple?
22:43
Speaker 2: It certainly is bread and selected for the Washington climate.
22:48
Speaker 2: It is bread and selected for the Washington climate now,
22:51
Speaker 2: which in itself is quite a different production climate to
22:56
Speaker 2: everywhere else that grows apples in the world.
22:58
Speaker 1: How has the climate changed the way the apple business
23:00
Speaker 1: in Washington works over the past several decades.
23:05
Speaker 2: I think that we're seeing we're seeing more impact of
23:12
Speaker 2: extreme heat in the summer. So we're definitely apples get sunburn.
23:17
Speaker 1: Does the sunflair handle heat better than older varieties?
23:23
Speaker 2: It's well. One thing that we would one thing that
23:27
Speaker 2: we measure very specifically is just how much of the
23:30
Speaker 2: fruit from the orchard would get through the supply chain
23:33
Speaker 2: to the hands of the consumer. And it will. It's
23:37
Speaker 2: called its pack out or its grade out, and that yeah,
23:41
Speaker 2: it certainly has got a very it's leaving very little
23:46
Speaker 2: fruit in the orchard. That fails for varying different things,
23:50
Speaker 2: sunburn being one of those.
23:52
Speaker 1: Okay, what's the next apple you're going to make?
23:56
Speaker 2: Oh after Sunflair? I am not one hundred percent sure.
24:01
Speaker 2: I know what I would like it to be, but
24:03
Speaker 2: I'm not sure whether or not it would have what
24:06
Speaker 2: we call a fatal floor. That's that sort of of
24:09
Speaker 2: that one problem that's going to stop it from being
24:12
Speaker 2: able to go out big time.
24:15
Speaker 1: That's what makes it a tragic apple.
24:17
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it might be a big tragedy, and
24:21
Speaker 2: we're looking at evaluating it just a bit further to
24:25
Speaker 2: make sure that it's good.
24:28
Speaker 1: How has technology changed your work? I mean, you've been
24:32
Speaker 1: doing it for twenty years ish, We've got AI We
24:36
Speaker 1: know a lot more about genetics than we knew twenty
24:38
Speaker 1: years ago. Like, how has your work changed or the
24:41
Speaker 1: way you do your job even changed from when you started.
24:47
Speaker 2: I think in terms of just developing that the molecular
24:52
Speaker 2: side of the technology to get us to a point
24:55
Speaker 2: where we do understand more about the genetic or genomic
25:00
Speaker 2: control of particular characteristics. And so for example, you know,
25:05
Speaker 2: right now we're doing a whole load of work looking
25:07
Speaker 2: at trying to understand why some apple varieties are more
25:12
Speaker 2: susceptible to sunburn than others, and really trying to see
25:19
Speaker 2: which genes are expressed. Is there is there something that
25:23
Speaker 2: we can pick up that would enable us to develop
25:26
Speaker 2: a tool for earlier selection for those characteristics.
25:31
Speaker 1: Could you imagine in your you know, in your career,
25:37
Speaker 1: getting to a point where you can look at a
25:39
Speaker 1: genome and know what kind of apple it's going to make,
25:45
Speaker 1: and how it stores and how it tastes.
25:49
Speaker 2: When I started about thirty something years ago, that's what
25:53
Speaker 2: I envisaged, But I'm not seeing I mean, you know,
25:59
Speaker 2: I'm pushing sixty. Will I have this in my career?
26:02
Speaker 2: I don't know. I think that I'm more aware of
26:06
Speaker 2: the fact that the majority of things that we're interested
26:10
Speaker 2: in in apples are apologenic. The control is incredibly complex
26:18
Speaker 2: for a lot of these traits, and so to be
26:21
Speaker 2: able to say, just looking at the genome what it's
26:25
Speaker 2: going to do as an apple, I don't know that
26:27
Speaker 2: we'll get to that point within my working career.
26:31
Speaker 1: It's harder than you thought when you started.
26:34
Speaker 2: It, seriously, is Yes.
26:36
Speaker 1: I feel like that's been a big lesson of genetics
26:38
Speaker 1: for everybody, right, Like the Human Genome Project was like
26:42
Speaker 1: around the time when you were getting started, right, but
26:45
Speaker 1: it's like, great, now we know the genome, We're going
26:47
Speaker 1: to figure everything out it's like, oh no, actually it's
26:49
Speaker 1: super complicated.
26:51
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, and all the easy stuff we did
26:54
Speaker 2: right at the beginning, and so it felt like we
26:57
Speaker 2: were making these great steps forward, and we certainly were.
27:01
Speaker 2: But you know, when you start thinking of the nuances
27:06
Speaker 2: of certainly the eating eggs of an apple, they are
27:10
Speaker 2: really complex.
27:15
Speaker 1: We'll be back in a minute with the lightning round.
27:20
Speaker 1: M hm, let's do a lightning round. Okay, what fruit
27:34
Speaker 1: do you eat for fun?
27:38
Speaker 2: Usually the bizarre grapes that I grow in my garden.
27:41
Speaker 1: Oh, tell me about your grapes.
27:45
Speaker 2: It's just a native plant has grapes that taste like blueberries.
27:49
Speaker 1: But yeah, that's a grape that tastes like a blueberry.
27:52
Speaker 1: Does not seem like a thing to be dismissive about.
27:55
Speaker 1: It's like, it's like sort of an heirloom grape. Can
27:58
Speaker 1: I get one? They don't store well or something.
28:01
Speaker 2: I don't know enough about them?
28:03
Speaker 1: Such kind of you got there? Yeah? Yeah, What do
28:09
Speaker 1: you think is the most underrated fruit?
28:12
Speaker 2: Oh? I think pears? Sure, you know pears. Pears can
28:19
Speaker 2: be a phenomenal fruit. And I think that most consumers
28:24
Speaker 2: have never experienced a really great eating experience with a pear.
28:31
Speaker 1: I feel like pears for me, as a fruit lover,
28:36
Speaker 1: have a problem that is similar to the problem I
28:38
Speaker 1: have with stone fruit, which is it's hard to know
28:41
Speaker 1: what's going to be a good one. I could use
28:44
Speaker 1: some branded pears, actually, right, I could use the Fuji
28:47
Speaker 1: apple of pears. Why doesn't that exist?
28:51
Speaker 2: Well, partly, I mean, there certainly are many, many new
28:55
Speaker 2: varieties of pear.
28:57
Speaker 1: There's some pear breeder who's yelling at me right now,
29:00
Speaker 1: say they do exist. Well, what pear should I try?
29:04
Speaker 2: Well, there's a new pair that is being produced here
29:07
Speaker 2: in the state called Happy Happy Pair. Look for that.
29:12
Speaker 2: It will make you happy.
29:13
Speaker 1: Are you just saying that because you have to as
29:15
Speaker 1: a Washington state.
29:16
Speaker 2: No, it's nothing to do with Washington State, with WSU anyway.
29:21
Speaker 2: It certainly it's produced here. Yeah, that's certainly worth trying.
29:26
Speaker 2: I think a lot of the the challenge of getting
29:29
Speaker 2: a new pair variety out is that our pair production
29:32
Speaker 2: systems haven't modernized in the same way that our apple
29:37
Speaker 2: production systems have. And that gets down to the fact
29:40
Speaker 2: that there are not any really good dwarfing rootstocks for pair.
29:45
Speaker 1: Oh, so that key breakthrough that started the apple revolution
29:49
Speaker 1: hasn't come to pairs yet.
29:51
Speaker 2: Yes, absolutely, and so it's it's a real challenge for
29:55
Speaker 2: pair growers to switch varieties.
29:57
Speaker 1: Because they got to grow a bunch of big, expensive trees,
30:00
Speaker 1: and that's a risk. What's the most overrated fruit?
30:07
Speaker 2: Oh? I kind of hate to say, but I would.
30:10
Speaker 2: I will anyway. I think a lot of our blueberries.
30:14
Speaker 2: I think our blueberries are improving, but I think that
30:20
Speaker 2: there is certainly quite a few on the market that
30:24
Speaker 2: are a little watery in my opinion, and don't have
30:27
Speaker 2: any flavor.
30:28
Speaker 1: I feel like blueberries are one where I still notice
30:31
Speaker 1: the seasonality. I live in New York, and certainly in
30:34
Speaker 1: the price you notice it, Like in there's some moment
30:37
Speaker 1: when they harvest the blueberries in New Jersey and you
30:39
Speaker 1: can basically get blueberries for free in New York, Like
30:42
Speaker 1: every corner store has them spilling out the door, and
30:45
Speaker 1: they're good. Are they way better? I don't know, They're
30:47
Speaker 1: way cheaper. That's what I noticed. Was there some particular
30:53
Speaker 1: apple that was incredible to eat that just had a
30:57
Speaker 1: tragic flaw wouldn't work you know commercially that you still remember, Oh,
31:04
Speaker 1: there's always a few. Tell me about one. Tell me
31:06
Speaker 1: about one incredible apple that had a tragic flow.
31:10
Speaker 2: Just you know, a beautiful, really striking, red blushed apple,
31:18
Speaker 2: ultra crisp, really tasty off the tree, super juicy, all
31:22
Speaker 2: the things that you really want in an apple, but
31:28
Speaker 2: you know, two weeks later it seriously isn't.
31:34
Speaker 1: Yeah, if you could cross any two fruits and don't
31:38
Speaker 1: worry about scientific plausibility, just dream big. What would they be?
31:46
Speaker 2: Oh? Good question. I would like I love cherry flavor.
31:52
Speaker 2: I like a really dark, dark red cherry. I think
31:56
Speaker 2: that's a phenomenal flavor. I would like to see that
32:01
Speaker 2: combined with ultra crisp apple texture.
32:06
Speaker 1: Wow, so it would be like kind of an apple
32:08
Speaker 1: that tastes like a red cherry. Right? Interesting?
32:14
Speaker 2: Sound good?
32:14
Speaker 1: It does sound good. I'm gonna tell you mine. It's sillier,
32:18
Speaker 1: but I still want it. It's it's the shape of
32:22
Speaker 1: a of a clementine, you know, a little citrus that's
32:25
Speaker 1: easy to peal. But when you peel it, what's inside
32:28
Speaker 1: is watermelon. Oh yeah, I love watermelon, but it's hard
32:34
Speaker 1: to prepare. Like it's a it's big. It's awkward. Hit
32:38
Speaker 1: the big knife and the big cutting board. Avocados and
32:42
Speaker 1: tomatoes Are they fruits? Yes, damn it.
32:50
Speaker 2: Yeah.
32:54
Speaker 1: It was lovely to talk with you. Congratulations on inventing
32:57
Speaker 1: an apple.
32:59
Speaker 2: Thank you.
33:10
Speaker 1: Kate Evans is a professor in the Department of Horticulture
33:13
Speaker 1: at Washington State University and she's a breeder of apples
33:16
Speaker 1: and pears. Today's show was produced by Gabriel Hunter Chang
33:20
Speaker 1: and edited by Lydia Jane Kott. Our engineer this week
33:24
Speaker 1: was Hansdale. She we're always looking for ideas for who
33:28
Speaker 1: to talk to and what to cover on the show.
33:31
Speaker 1: You can email us at problem at Pushkin dot fm.
33:35
Speaker 1: You can find me on x at Jacob Goldstein. You
33:37
Speaker 1: can find me on LinkedIn. I'm Jacob Goldstein. Thank you
33:40
Speaker 1: very much for listening to the show, and we'll be
33:42
Speaker 1: back next week with another episode.