Apple hunter Tom Brown finds and saves rare apple varieties | Hacker News Reader

Apple hunter Tom Brown finds and saves rare apple varieties

washingtonpost.com

66 pointsbookofjoe18 comments

Tom Brown Is on a Mission to Restore Appalachia's Rare and Lost Apples (2021) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31457804 - May 2022 (18 comments)

How many random but great varieties have been lost? The McIntosh:

> While clearing his property, McIntosh discovered a number of seedling apple trees growing wild. He transplanted them to his garden, and by the following year only one had survived. Several years later, the tree was producing the crisp, delicious fruit that is now well known. The discoverer eventually dubbed it the 'McIntosh Red', which is still the apple's official name.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_McIntosh_(farmer)

Does anyone do this in Australia?

There's a "lost" apple variety around the corner from me.

You should contact Tom Brown on his website. He states he's always interested in hearing about a lost apple variety.

What's the variety that is near you?

There's Petty's Orchard in Melbourne (Templestowe): https://www.manningham.vic.gov.au/venues/pettys-orchard who maintain about 200 varieties of apple.

I have no idea what it's like now, but I went to an open day there years ago and it was incredible. What I learned is there are some extremely ugly Apple varieties that would never get picked up by supermarkets, but tasted unlike anything else I've sampled - literally like candy. Looks like Heritage Fruits still do antique apple tastings periodically: https://www.heritagefruitssociety.org/Antique-Apple-Tastings...

I would love to have a scion or five shipped to Canada, but I doubt the import laws would allow it.

The Ripponlea Estate in Melbourne has previously hosted heritage apple sales. We grow a Devonshire Quarrenden now and my parents (with more land) took away a bunch of different varieties.

https://archive.ph/HmCIW

The ultimate front page HN hack is "Apple" in the title

Like a reverse Johnny Appleseed, pretty cool!

On the topic of apples, where the heck can I find Autumn Glory apples? They are distinctly the most delicious apples I've ever had, and when I gave some to people that HATE apples, like my wife, she instantly loved them. They are lightly sweet, but crunchy with no acidity, I LOVE them.

Where can I find them in Bay Area????

It's also known as Hua Guan or Huaguan. I guess I'd check at a Chinese grocery?

Not in California, but I just saw it at my local Safeway

I don't know about Autumn Glory specifically, but Bi-Rite often has cool, tasty, and slightly unusual apple varietals for sale.

Second Apple should be lowercase

Yeah, this title confused me

Done. Thank you.

I'm somewhat disappointed that I clicked on this link thinking Tom Brown was a vintage Apple computer collector. But it was an interesting read nonetheless.

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