| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| Tharg drinker of cider |
Posted - 26/01/2005 : 12:52:38
http://www.westpress.co.uk/displayNode.jsp?nodeId=145809&command=displayContent&sourceNode=145792&contentPK=11593893&moduleName=InternalSearch&keyword=cider&formname=sidebarsearch |
| 11 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First) |
| Ivanhoe Martin |
Posted - 03/02/2005 : 09:45:48
Here's something I picked up from the Cider Digest this morning. Could be interesting if you want to take up apple identifying in a big way.
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Subject: Hogg and Bull Herefordshire Pomona
From: Andrew Lea <andrew_lea@compuserve.com>
Date: Sun, 30 Jan 2005 16:45:46 +0000
The colour plates and (cider) apple descriptions from this classic book
are shortly to be made available on CD-ROM. The Marcher Apple Network (MAN)
in the UK is organising this.
The cost of the CD will be 15 pounds sterling (cash or cheque drawn on a UK
bank) or $30 US (cash only) for pre-publication orders. (Please note that
the MAN have no facilities to handle credit cards nor cheques drawn on
overseas banks. But many of us have managed to send bare cash across the
Atlantic without any problems!)
Richard Wheeler from the Marcher Apple Network writes as follows:
"There is a copy of the "flyer" describing the project at
http://www.marcherapple.net/pomona.htm
where order forms can be downloaded. I expect
to load an example of part of a plate and the corresponding description in a
couple of weeks' time. This will allow anybody interested in a copy of the
CD to get a preview of what will be available. It will also allow anybody
with less usual operating systems and/ or browsers to check that they will
have no problems accessing the data on the CD. (The plates and descriptions
will be set up as a website on the CD so there will be no need to install
any software on purchaser's computers)"
Andrew Lea
- --
Wittenham Hill Cider Page
http://www.cider.org.uk |
| Tharg drinker of cider |
Posted - 27/01/2005 : 15:08:01
Absolutely, I can only assume that this is why grafting caught on, it's one way to guarantee the type of fruit you end up with. Just imagine, you're a cider maker, you plant some Kingston Black seeds, only to end up with a tree full of Granny Smiths, Coxes and bananas!
And you will know us by the trail of empties.... |
| Gents |
Posted - 27/01/2005 : 14:46:09
"Most identifications are done by looking at pictures or reading descriptions out of the old textbooks, which is extremely time consuming."says the last one. It looks from all 3 articles that this is how apple varieties are identified - from comparing them with descriptions and pictures from books. I suppose if Apple experts are convinced this system works then you can't argue with that... I don't see how the system can be fool-proof though.
Interesting to read the bit in the first article about the fruit of a "daughter" apple tree grown from a pip possibily having a completely diffrent colour, sweeteness, hardness, shape and taste to it's "mother" tree's apples. If a new variety is created everytime a tree grows from a pip, im surprised there are only 2000 varieties in England!
ZIDER! |
| Tharg drinker of cider |
Posted - 27/01/2005 : 12:48:42
I found these links on an American site, they're very interesting:
http://www.smithsonianmagazine.com/smithsonian/issues02/nov02/pdf/smithsonian_november_2002_apples_of_your_eye.pdf
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0KWZ/is_3_4/ai_93306322
http://www.penpages.psu.edu/penpages_reference/29401/2940148.html
They give a few clues as to how you might go about trying to identify apple varieties.
And you will know us by the trail of empties.... |
| Gents |
Posted - 27/01/2005 : 09:41:18
OK, i know I was being a bit silly with the 2000 varieties, and there are going to be lot less core (no pun intended) varieties around in each area, and 99% of these are going to be easily identifiable to people that grow/use them everyday... but, its the rare apples that no-one has ever seen/tasted before that gets me confused. Say some kind of bird flew from deepest Somerset to highest Glouscestershire and deposited an apple pip from a fairly rare tree that grew into a tree never seen in Gloucestershire before (maybe this could happen, what with changing climates, etc)... the different soil, air, etc may make this tree appear fairly different to the Somerset tree, but its apples may resemble that of some old long lost Gloucestershire tree! people may resonably think they have discovered a tree of an old variety, but how will they know if they are right or wrong for sure when they can't compare tastes, textures, etc? There must be a way, and the more im thinking about it, the more i need to know!
Im gonna try and find some books on it and find out, I quite like these detective missions! The Thatchers shop have a few apple books, and there must be some in Bristol library. If I can't find out myself I will give in and ask one of the experts!
PS. Im not sure why these posts are getting so wwwwwiiiiiiiiddddddeeeee - whats going on?
ZIDER! |
| Tharg drinker of cider |
Posted - 26/01/2005 : 18:45:42
Gents, I think we should e-mail one of these experts and ask them how they do it, Charles Martell is the chap credited with rescuing the Haglow Crab, perhaps he can help?
The 2,000 varieties is a bit of a red herring though (in my very humble opinion - I'm certainly no expert - but I'll make a guess) take a small village in the Southern end of the Forest of Dean, for example. Traditionally, only local varieties were grown, so even if they were Gloucestershire natives, there were still unlikely to be more than a couple of hundred varieties to choose from. We already know from the geography and the history of the Forest, it's always been a place apart, so I'd further guess that apples grown in Parkend, for instance, wouldn't come from Berkeley, Thornbury or Cheltenham, but were more likely to come from the surrounding villages of Bream, Whitecroft, or Yorkley - Nick Bull's Severnsider Cider is a case in point, it's produced with Box Kernels from Box Farm in Awre, it's the only apple that grows in the village.
But as I say, that's just a guess.
I think you're business venture would be better if you asked for 3 sacks of apples for identification, you'd certainly get more cider that way!
And you will know us by the trail of empties.... |
| Gents |
Posted - 26/01/2005 : 16:17:59
Ive had a search and found lots of places offering to identify apples, but not really saying how they do it, other than using "expertise".
This seems to be a good starting point though: http://www.nat-orchard-forum.org.uk/ApplekeyPreamble.html - someone has actually written an Apple identifying computer programme, APPLEKEY v1.0!!! its free to download, but sadly i cant do that at work, and cant unzip zip files at home . If anyone has a look please let me know what its like though.
That website also says "There are upwards of 2000 varieties surviving in Britain and probably more than 10000 in Europe as a whole... Apples variety are extremely variable and hence not the easiest of subjects to identify. Currently, most of the expertise in apple identification, certainly in the UK and we suspect elsewhere too, centres on a handful of elderly experts who have built up through a life time's interest, an empirically derived store of knowledge about a large number of varieties." - This is what Ive been thinking, most apple identification seems to be based on personal knowledge and experience, but however elderly these experts are, they aren't going to have experienced apples from trees that have been scarce since the 17th Century, so if they did find a Haglow Crab how are they gonna know it is one for sure? Surely at least a few of the other 9,999 varieties in Europe are going be very similar however distinctive it is!
quote:
Originally posted by Tharg drinker of cider
To get the same fruit from a tree, you shouldn't grow from seeds, you should do grafts.
- thats half the problem too - an apple grown from a pip will effectively be a different fruit to an apple grown on the originating tree, but i would guess they would look more or less the same...?
Reading about the identification services that you can use made me think of a great scam to earn lots of money and get lots of free cider-apples... You advertise that you'll identify any apple if people send you £16.95 plus 3 apples, then bank the cash, tell them their apple is a Miner's Spanner or something, and press the 3 apples into cider! By the time anyone realises you are talking rubbish you will be rich and have enough cider to last a life time!
ZIDER! |
| Tharg drinker of cider |
Posted - 26/01/2005 : 15:43:54
To get the same fruit from a tree, you shouldn't grow from seeds, you should do grafts. There are several organisations that will help you with identifying fruit. Look here for example:
http://www.orchard-group.uklinux.net/glos/identification.html
The other thing is, a lot of these apples are incredibly distinctive. I recently came across some amazing looking apples, which I was quickly able to identify as Foxwhelps, not only because of their colour and markings, they were quite unlike anything else I'd seen, but also their very high acid content, which is also well documented. I could provide you with a drawing and description of a Foxwhelp, and you wouldn't mistake it for anything else.
And you will know us by the trail of empties.... |
| Gents |
Posted - 26/01/2005 : 15:19:19
I'll look into it. I know a lot of varieties nowadays can be identified quite easily by experts, but if no-one has seen a certain type of tree for hundreds of years then Im not sure how they know for definite. Even if it looks similar to one in an old picture, there are hundreds of varieties, lots must look similar! I was reading a few weeks ago that pips planted from certain apple trees can grow into trees with completely different tasting apples to those on the original tree, even when only planted a few metres away. The fourth-generation of an apple tree that grew from a pip from another tree a few miles away is going to taste completely different, but probably look similar. Even if things like sugar content have been measured and recorded years before, how can they before its the same variety for definate without at least tasting it??
im not saying they must be wrong, Im just wondering how they can be sure they are right... it would be interesting to know. There must be something on the Internet about it...............
ZIDER! |
| Tharg drinker of cider |
Posted - 26/01/2005 : 14:53:05
I would guess that once you've discounted an already known apple or pear, you start searching among the many drawings/paintings/descriptions available of those extinct varieties. There are a lot of people out there interested in this kind of thing, who are only too willing to help.
And you will know us by the trail of empties.... |
| Gents |
Posted - 26/01/2005 : 14:29:56
his Perry turns pink! Amazing, ive never heard of that before!
So if they discover and old cider apple tree that no-one else has seen for hundreds of years, how do they know that its the same variety
ZIDER! |
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