Empire is a
clonally propagated cultivar
A cultivar is a kind of Horticulture, cultivated plant that people have selected for desired phenotypic trait, traits and which retains those traits when Plant propagation, propagated. Methods used to propagate cultivars include division, root a ...
of
apple
An apple is a round, edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus'' spp.). Fruit trees of the orchard or domestic apple (''Malus domestica''), the most widely grown in the genus, are agriculture, cultivated worldwide. The tree originated ...
derived from a seed grown in 1945 by Lester C. Anderson, a
Cornell University
Cornell University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university based in Ithaca, New York, United States. The university was co-founded by American philanthropist Ezra Cornell and historian and educator Andrew Dickson W ...
fruit nutritionist who conducted open pollination research on his various orchards.
[
] In 1945, under the direction of A. J. Heinicke, scientists from the
New York State Agricultural Experiment Station The New York State Agricultural Experiment Station (NYSAES) at Geneva, Ontario County, New York State, is an agricultural experiment station operated by the New York State College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at Cornell University. In August 2 ...
of Cornell University in
Geneva
Geneva ( , ; ) ; ; . is the List of cities in Switzerland, second-most populous city in Switzerland and the most populous in French-speaking Romandy. Situated in the southwest of the country, where the Rhône exits Lake Geneva, it is the ca ...
,
New York, harvested the Empire seed together with thousands of its siblings.
The Geneva teams grew and tested ever dwindling sub-populations of the sibling group until 1966, when the final selection, the Empire, was released to the public at the New York Fruit Testing Association meetings in Geneva.
According to the
U.S. Apple Association, it is one of the nine most popular apple cultivars in that country. As of 1996, about half of American-harvested Empire apples came from New York State.
Description
Empire apples are harvested after the McIntosh and before the Red Delicious.
The original seed was a cross between the
McIntosh and
Red Delicious varieties. The Empire has bright white fresh.
Crisp, sweet, tart, and juicy,
Empire apples are excellent for snacking and salads, and good for sauce, baking, pies, and freezing.
Being resistant to bruising, they are also suitable for lunch boxes.
Sports patented in the US
By the year 2001, three mutant
cultivar
A cultivar is a kind of Horticulture, cultivated plant that people have selected for desired phenotypic trait, traits and which retains those traits when Plant propagation, propagated. Methods used to propagate cultivars include division, root a ...
s (sports) of Empire had received US plant patents. None of them were mutants of mutants:
Disease susceptibility
*
Scab: high
[Dr. Stephen Miller of the USDA Fruit Research Lab in Kearneysville, West Virginia.]
*Powdery mildew: high
*Cedar apple rust: low
*Fire blight: medium
See also
*
Cortland (apple)
Cortland is a cultivar of apple developed at the New York State Agricultural Experiment Station in Geneva, New York, United States in 1898. It is a cross of the McIntosh and Ben Davis apples. It was named after Cortland County, New York, Cortland ...
*
Spartan (apple)
References
External links
NY Apple country National Fruit Collection page
Apple cultivars with patented mutants
Cornell University
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