Where are all the amateur apple breeders?

[orangepippin]

If I were breeding on a serious basis, I would attempt to acquire some of the tetraploid variants - such as the Spartan 4N mutant or the Jonathan 4N mutants - both North American varieties with a somewhat different gene pool to the British apples.

I believe Hugh Ermen often used a variety called Doud, which I think is a tetraploid Golden Delicious.

[StephenH]

With regards to creating new varieties, would I be right in thinking that you could just sow any random apple pips and that would give you a new variety, as by default it most likely would have been cross pollinated.

Yes, but a self-fertilised pip from a self-fertile apple variety would also give a new variety, because domestic apples are hybrids, and don't come true from seed.

[boundtothesoil]

I believe Hugh Ermen often used a variety called Doud, which I think is a tetraploid Golden Delicious.

Interesting. I don't have any tetraploid varieties. However, I have tried using triploid varieties (Bramley's and Ashmead's Kernel) as female parents, but so far they've only produced one 'runtish' seedling each.
What I'm doing is on a very small scale, in that for each cross I do, I only pollinate a single cluster of three flowers, so would only ever expect to harvest a maximium of thirty pips per cross. In reality, many of the crosses fail at some point along the production line. So, for example, I have just finished making this year's crosses today. Out of the 82 I've made, probably half will be lost from a combination of failure to set any fruit, June drop, bird and pest damage etc. On average, two apples remain from each cross that makes it to harvest. In terms of normally developed pips per apple, the average for me is around 6, with some failing to develop properly, particularly in triploid parental fruit. Mould during cold storage and subsequent failure to germinate account for up to half the remaining pips. So, at the end of the day, so to speak, one isn't talking about that many seedlings. That's why I can't bring myself to follow FB's sensible advice regarding the subsequent growth of these valiant survivors i.e. treat them so meanly that the rest of them die!

[FB.]

I have tried using triploid varieties (Bramley's and Ashmead's Kernel) as female parents, but so far they've only produced one 'runtish' seedling each.

The problem with triploids is that they have an odd number of chromosomes (3x17=51 compared to 2x17=34 in a diploid).
A diploid usually divides its chromosomes into two lots of 17 for reproduction (the other half being contributed by the other diploid parent). Unfortunately, a triploid can't divide its chromosomes into two in the normal way; resulting in most pollen and seed from triploids having abnormal chromosome numbers and therefore not very viable pollen or seeds.
So for the same reason that triploids are usually poor pollinators, they are usually poor producers of good quality seeds.

You can try to select for triploid seedlings as follows:

Put the pips from each of your trees into piles on a table. Do not mix the piles of seeds from different parents because the size of seeds from two different trees may vary due to growing conditions or other factors.
Pick out the few largest pips from each pile - only selecting the largest tenth of each type.

Grow the seeds as normal and pay particular attention to seedlings which have at least two of the following features:

Large leaves.
Thick, tough leaves.
Dark coloured leaves.
Leaves which are rather rounded in shape.
Quite "stocky"; thick stems but not necessarily long stems.
Unusual growth habit - such as not much branching or large distances between branch junctions (known as large internode length).

[FB.]

The all-too-common fate of seedlings from common varieties: death by powdery mildew only several weeks after germination:

[FB.]

Then the woolly aphids attack, causing the survivors to suffer loss of vigour and severe splitting and lumpy growths of their stems (note the black split exactly in the middle of the first picture, just near where the leaf joins the stem) (note the lumpiness of the stem in the second picture) (note the white fluff in the third and fourth pictures):

[FB.]

Oh, yes - how could I forget the common green or rosy aphids which suck the sap, distort the leaves, distort the stems and generally de-vigorate or even cripple small trees:

[boundtothesoil]

You can try to select for triploid seedlings as follows:.

Thanks for this advice. I'll give it a go this Autumn, depending on whether I get 10 seeds from any of my crosses! On the tripoid variety front, Bramley's (female) x Annie Elizabeth is one of the crosses that interests me. Bramley's suffer from scab and codling moth where I live, whilst Annie Elizabeth is disease/pest free.

[FB.]

Bramley is triploid - the chance of good pips (or pollen) from a Bramley is quite small. You'll probably need a couple of dozen Bramley apples to find one good pip.

Although listed as diploid, Annie Elizabeth is reputed to have been bred from the triploid "Blenheim Orange". This alone raises concerns over Annie's chromosome count.
Additionally, Annie's thick, dark, glossy leaves and large attractive blossoms, the generally good disease resistance and the long life of the original mother tree lend weight to Annie being triploid or aneploid too.
However, from personal experience, Annie does produce pips in reasonable quantities in most of her fruits, but in my experience they are peculiarly pale brown, small and quite rounded - very unusual and possibly another sign of a genetic abnormality.

Although listed as "part-self-fertile", my analysis of century-old books and nursery catalogues seems to list all the old triploids in that class - including Bramley!
Modern studies have shown that triploids tend to have greater self-fertility and often do set a modest crop without a pollinator.

So I think you will need to be very patient with Bramley x Annie. I'm not saying give up, but I am saying don't get too excited!

[FB.]

Some links to National Fruit Collection pictures which show the pips (or lack of, or small/distorted/unusual pips) in a number of varieties - all known triploids apart from Annie who is unknown/untested:

Annie Elizabeth:
Search NFC

Blenheim Orange:
Search NFC

Bramley:
Search NFC

Hambledon Deux Ans:
Search NFC

Norfolk Beefing:
Search NFC

Coeur de Boeuf:
Search NFC

Gascoyne's Scarlet:
Search NFC

Jupiter:
Search NFC

Suntan:
Search NFC

[StephenH]

Question: am I correct in thinking that, when describing the parentage of a plant variety,
e.g. Ribston Pippin x Tom Putt (I've no idea whether any apple actually exists with that parentage), the convention is to put the seed-parent first, in this case Ribston Pippin?

[FB.]

Question: am I correct in thinking that, when describing the parentage of a plant variety,
e.g. Ribston Pippin x Tom Putt (I've no idea whether any apple actually exists with that parentage), the convention is to put the seed-parent first, in this case Ribston Pippin?

Mother (seed producer) x Father (pollen provider) is conventional.

[orangepippin]

I would not rely on this convention as I don't think it is followed outside of botanical circles.

[FB.]

Mother (seed producer) x Father (pollen provider) is conventional.

But there are many reasons why officially listed parentage might be wrong.

There are thousands of apple varieties out there, and some are fairly similar (or look different to their classic appearance when in different climates).

Mis-identification, mis-labelling, muddling or two varieties with the same or similar name and many other reasons explain why some apples in recent times have been genetically proven to be completely unrelated to the variety which was supposed to be their parent.

In fact, several national fruit collections throughout the world have found that some of their trees are/were not true-to type yet it somehow slipped past the experts!

I treat everything as "uncertain until proven" and I'll go with my gut instinct rather than some "expert" who has parrot-fashion copied what some other expert once said.
A few years ago - before the DEFRA study - I chatted via email with orangepippin regarding my concerns that certain varieties considered "diploid" might not be all that we'd been led to believe.
Sure enough, when someone actually did the scientific analysis, many "unexpected" triploids were found, especially among the old varieties. I already had my concerns about several of them based on the list of features often found in triploids which I mentioned earlier, - such as leaves, growth habit, pips (or lack of) - so I was already assuming they were triploid.

So just because some "expert" says something or has written something, doesn't mean it's 100% certain.
A real expert realises how difficult it is to be certain about anything, and how things which were supposed to be black-and-white actually have a lot of shades of grey in between!

[Bane]

Can scientific analysis confirm the parents of an apple?