Antique Apples, Believed Extinct, Found In Washington
The Northwest is home to many of the world’s most popular apples. But it also has apples many believed no longer exist. On eastern Washington’s Steptoe Butte, researchers found two apple varieties they thought extinct, the Spokesman Review reports.
The cultivars known as Arkansas Beauty and Dickinson aren’t the first lost apples found in Washington. Another, the Nero, was also found on Steptoe Butte.
Apples have long been part of American history. Hard apple cider was one of the most popular drinks in the country, and the fruit quickly spread west alongside pioneers and homesteaders.
That the varieties have survived since the 19th century is evidence, scientists say, of their hardiness and disease resistance. Those are traits that could be cross-bred into new and more commercially-viable cultivars.
These aren’t the first antique apples valued for their genetic bounty. Washington State University researchers are studying some of the world’s oldest domestic apple varieties as a potential source of disease resistance.
Related Stories:
How Washington is preventing and detecting voter fraud
Ballot drop boxes at Washington State University (Credit: Phineas Pope / NWPB) Listen (Runtime 3:16) Read “Voter fraud” might be the first thing you think when someone mentions election security.
A look at one of the Northwest’s only Day of the Dead parades
Dancers in Walla Walla’s second annual Day of the Dead parade. (Credit: Susan Shain / NWPB) Listen (Runtime 1:06) Read While many cities in the Northwest celebrate Day of the
Possible strike looms as nurses at St. Joseph in Tacoma seek better staffing, safety
After their contract ended on Halloween, nurses at Tacoma’s St. Joseph Medical Center spent a rainy Friday morning picketing outside the hospital.
The nurses’ union, Washington State Nurses Association or WSNA, has been negotiating with hospital management since August. But Pamela Chandran, director of legal affairs for the union, said there are sticking points.