NEW APPLE VARIETY MAKES THE NEWS

pansyface

I can’t really see what all the fuss is about.  You drive along any motorway in Britain and you can see random apple trees, the result of thrown away apple cores, growing, flowering and fruiting.

https://www.theguardian.com/food/2020/nov/28/new-variety-of-apple-discovered-by-wiltshire-runner

There used to be a nice tall one growing by the Monsal Trail here is Derbyshire, but Peak Park chopped it down for no particular reason other than it wasn’t a native species. ☹️

strelitzia32

Yes it does seem like he's found a new cultivar and discovered that it means he's allowed to name it, resulting in no surprise shown at all by nursery owners up and down the country.

In similar news, did you see the rare plant find reported by the BBC? Interesting, not least because I was surprised to read how many of these abandoned ponds exist. It does make you wonder how many billions of dormant seeds are just waiting for the right conditions to germinate.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-55104153

steephill

I think the "excitement" comes from the age of the tree and the location. The article does say that there are plenty of other wild apples out there which are all unique. Pity the Peak Park lot took such a stupid action, the tree was one of a kind so was indeed a native variety as it wouldn't be found anywhere else.

pansyface

No, I hadn’t seen that article, Strelizia. Very cheering upping. So many things going extinct these days, it’s nice to see something being rediscovered.

Peak Park have some very peculiar ideas, steephill. Not only about plants. I sometimes think that they’ll make the residents all wear smocks and straw hats one day, just to be “authentic”. I’ll leave it at that. 🙄

pansyface

A neighbour applied to turn a fairly useless low, attached, windowless, stone built, single garage into another room.

Peak Park said they could.

BUT they couldn’t possibly insert a window into a wall that is invisible to anyone except the owners.

Told them the only windows they could have were “arrow slits”.

I kid you not.

Posy

I'm really interested in this 'native' obsession. Where do you start? I read a book looking at the landmass which is now England from before the ice age and what did and didn't grow here and what was brought in by waves of settlers and invaders. I ended up feeling that the term native is subjective and unscientific. Am I being unfair to conservationists?

pansyface

So far as Peak Park goes, it seems to have some sort of Arthurian vision.

I can understand them yanking out something invasive, such as the dreaded rhododendron ponticum, but they seem to have it in for all sorts of escaped and self sown things that originated in gardens. I can’t see what’s wrong with an upstart apple tree.

That said, they leave the pheasant berry/snow berry thing, which is along roadsides everywhere, I think because it was introduced by the landed gentry to keep game birds alive until the toffs could shoot them. There’s a lot of ingrained cap doffing and forelock tugging still.

Posy

We have a lovely area of woodland near me. Chatting to one of the officials, we remarked that we had seen a very handsome red oak. "Oh, yes," he said, "that will have to come out..." Why? Not native. But so beautiful. 

Skandi

Personally I think that most things that are not native and not invasive can be left, but things like sycamore, rhododendrons, Himalayan balsam, Japanese knotweed etc should be removed when found as they are good as suppressing native plants and animals. Here they are only just coming round to knotweed being a problem, but they wage war on Rosa Rugosa as it kills the dunes, well it grows really well there and kills everything else.

Apple trees are native to the UK so I really can't see that one, sure it may not be the right sort of apple but it's hardly invasive or smothering.

Obelixx

Apples, or their ancestors at least, originated in central Asia and then travelled along the Silk trade  route, being cultivated and crossed with other forms along the way for at least 4000 years and spreading from there into Europe, the Americas and Australasia.   If you want a particular apple you have to get a graft growing on a rootstock because they are diploid or triploid and their seeds are thus always a new variety.

Bramleys, Granny Smiths, Coxes, Russets and so on are all from chance crosses in gardens and orchards or deliberate crosses made by gardeners selecting for specific traits and you never know what you 'll get till a new plant is old enough to produce edible sized fruits.  The stupid Peak Parks mob may have binned a treasure that could have brought them funding from breeder's rights for a native Peaks Park apple.

pansyface

It was a favourite of one of the local “characters” who was well into his eighties. Not sure if he’s still alive. I haven’t been into Bakewell town since March. He was quite upset when he found it gone. Stopped me in the road to tell me about it. 😕