Name: Lost apple found: 'Elusive' Colorado Orange apple, thought to be extinct, resurrected
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Lost apple found: 'Elusive' Colorado Orange apple, thought to be extinct, resurrected

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This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Reviews and recommendations are unbiased and products are independently selected. Postmedia may earn an affiliate commission from purchases made through links on this page. With its tangerine-blushed peel, the Colorado Orange apple had one seemingly insurmountable strike against it. Long-lasting and hardy with a sweet-tart taste, its only obstacle was skin-deep: At a time when people were looking to buy red apples, it just so happened to be orange. Story continues below This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. “It lost out, like so many of the thousands and thousands of apple varieties that have gone extinct,” Jude Schuenemeyer, who founded the (MORP) in southwestern Colorado with his wife Addie, told in December. “It lost out because it wasn’t the shiny, red apple.” We apologize, but this video has failed to load. Try refreshing your browser, or. The Colorado Orange was in its heyday in the late 1800s. A winter apple, its flavour blossomed over time, Jude explained. As people made their way through stores of summer and autumn apples, it sat in root cellars improving with each passing day. Once Christmas had arrived, the Colorado Orange — with its “tremendous complexity” — was ready to eat and would only get better leading up to July. No need to go at the internet alone. We test products, interview pros and do what’s required to get you unbiased, unadulterated, unsponsored recommendations. We’re a weekly newsletter, a cool one. Talk Thursdays. By clicking on the sign up button you consent to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc. You may unsubscribe any time by clicking on the unsubscribe link at the bottom of our emails. Postmedia Network Inc. | 365 Bloor Street East, Toronto, Ontario, M4W 3L4 | 416-383-2300 A welcome email is on its way. If you don't see it, please check your junk folder. The next issue of NP Shopping Essentials will soon be in your inbox. We encountered an issue signing you up. Please try again It lost out because it wasn’t the shiny, red appleJude Schuenemeyer Despite its admirable culinary attributes, by the mid-20th century it had started fading into obscurity — pushed out by a move towards monoculture. “When the Red Delicious came out around 1900, it was just another apple,” Jude recently told . “By 1920, it became the dominant apple. It was a shiny, red apple that grew pretty well everywhere.” Story continues below This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Now, after nearly two decades of searching, the Schuenemeyers have rediscovered the Colorado Orange, and hope it will soon be available at farmers’ markets, restaurants and grocery stores. They first read about its unique qualities at a county fair. In 2014, they thought they had found the “lost” apple, but it turned out to be a false alarm. Despite the accounts of “many old-timers,” genetic fingerprinting revealed it to be a York Imperial. Continuing their search over the years, there were more disappointments. But in December 2017, they had reason to be hopeful. The owner of a tree in Canyon City claimed it was a Colorado Orange and “the apples looked the part: oblate, ribbed, yellow and orange in colour, obviously a late-winter apple,” Addie told CNN. Story continues below This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. They sent samples to horticulture scientists at the University of Minnesota for DNA testing and the results — “unique, unknown” — encouraged them. The next step was comparing some of the specimens they had gathered to four watercolours, each painted by a different United States Department of Agriculture artist in the early 1900s. “After comparing the possible Colorado Orange apples to the watercolours, including cutting them open and comparing the insides, we had an added degree of confidence of having found what we were looking for,” the couple wrote . “If only we could match it to a known horticultural specimen. But how to do that if all were lost?” Story continues below This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. They needed more proof, which ultimately came in the form of a wax apple collection from the early 1900s “sitting in boxes at a retiring professor’s office” at Colorado State University. Among the 83 replicas of ribbon-winning apples from horticultural fairs past — each logged and indexed — was the Colorado Orange. The shape and colour were a match. “We cannot taste or smell or cut it open for comparison, of course, but this may be as close as we get,” the couple wrote. “Now we are 98 per cent sure give or take three per cent we have found the elusive Colorado Orange apple.” In order to reestablish the once-lost apple, the Schuenemeyers have since started growing their own trees, which they’ve given to several farmers in the state. “We are the beneficiaries of the gift given to us from 150 years ago,” Jude told CNN. “But, it does us no good to be the only persons growing (it). Our steps now are to get it out to the people.” They’ve received such an extraordinary number of requests for the Colorado Orange, they recently announced they’re placing . The first auction will end on Oct. 3 and the minimum bid is $100, including shipping within the U.S.; proceeds will fund MORP’s preservation work. Story continues below This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. 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This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Reviews and recommendations are unbiased and products are independently selected. Postmedia may earn an affiliate commission from purchases made through links on this page. With its tangerine-blushed peel, the Colorado Orange apple had one seemingly insurmountable strike against it. Long-lasting and hardy with a sweet-tart taste, its only obstacle was skin-deep: At a time when people were looking to buy red apples, it just so happened to be orange. Story continues below This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your...

Lost apple found: 'Elusive' Colorado Orange apple, thought to be extinct, resurrected

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