Bigger Is Not Always Better When It Comes to Apples
Size has little bearing on interesting flavor — so why are they the global standard?
Scan the stacks of apples at a grocery store, or in bushel baskets at the local farmer’s market, and you might notice a trend toward large varieties like Honeycrisp and Gala. Bite into the juicy, crisp, sweet flesh, and the appeal is undeniable.
They rank in the top five for production, according to USApple. But packing one in a lunch box is a challenge. The largest can weigh in at just shy of a pound, defying the 6 ounces the U.S. Department of Agriculture considers a portion. For cooking and baking, size is also an issue. What’s the standard when a recipe calls for four large? Are growers hoping large varieties will increase the average weight of a consumer’s purchase? Or is the giant apple a measure of the American appetite?
When it comes to breeding, some of the priorities are crispness, flavor, and color, optimizing growth for yield and disease resistance, and developing fruit to withstand the jostling of harvesting and shipping. “We look at all kinds of genetic markers, but size is not as much of a consideration in modern breeding programs,” says Dr. Nicholas Howard, a geneticist and apple breeder at the University of Minnesota and the Carl von Ossietzky…
