acid The component in an apple that makes it tart is malic acid. There is a difference, though, between tart and sour. Usually, sour is puckery, and there are apples that can make you pucker. But it's not the citric acid pucker you get with lemons. There are some very low-acid apples (Redwell is one of the best), but Topper believes that, even in sweet apples, some acid is desirable. It propels the sugars and accentuates flavors. The most exciting apples have high levels of both acid and sugar. They're a mouthful, and they get your attention!

blush  Descriptive term for coloring pattern of an apple when stripes are not present.
budding  The process of inserting a dormant bud within the bark along the side of an actively growing shoot or rootstock when the shoot or rootstock is small, perhaps 1/4" to 1/2"in diameter. Later, after some knitting together (healing) of the bud and shoot or rootstock, the part of the shoot or rootstock that is beyond the inserted bud is clipped off. This forces the bud to grow rapidly, becoming a shoot and eventually a tree.
budwood  Current-season's new growth when used to cut the bud out for purposes of propagation by budding. In the northern hemisphere here, budwood is cut in mid-August. If you were in New Zealand, you'd cut in mid-February. A water vortex goes in reverse down there, too. (Instead of water vortex, I was going to say that toilets flush backwards, but I suppose they'd stop using them if they did.)

calyx  At the opposite (bottom) end of an apple from the stem (top). The stem of an apple at harvest time is the same item as the stem of the flower that is pollinated in the springtime and grows into an apple. The apple actually expands around the seeds, and the calyx is made of the sepals, the part of the flower where the petals were attached at bloom time in the spring. The petals fall off after blossoming, but the sepals persist. By harvest time, the sepals are like little dry leaves in the calyx basin of the apple.
cleft graft  Usually accomplished by cutting a branch or trunk off, splitting it a bit, and inserting a scion. It's a lot of fun!
clone  To use plant material to make identical reproductions of a chosen source plant is to clone (verb). The resulting reproduced plant is a clone (noun).
cross  The combination of two parents, resulting in offspring of unique characteristics. In apples, crossing is accomplished when bees carry pollen from blossoms (flowers) of one variety to flowers of another variety. The apples will still be the same variety as the tree they are growing on, but every seed in every apple will grow a tree and apples that are not the same as the tree or apples of either of its parents.
cultivar  A culti(vated) var(iety) produced through breeding or deliberate selection, abbreviated by cv. Properly, the name of a cultivar is capitalized and in single quotes, like 'Bessie Junn,' but we're ignoring propriety routinely here. We usually just say "variety" instead of "cultivar," anyway.
exaggerate  Something Topper seems to do regularly, but it’s only because he’s so enthusiastic about apples!
flesh  The white stuff inside an apple. Usually described in terms of coarse, fine, dry, juicy, soft, crisp, and many different flavors.
generation  Every time you clone from the original source tree, you get a first generation tree. If you use a first generation tree as a source tree, you get a second generation tree. In any generation, you could have one or thousands of trees, depending on how many you propagate. Regardless of whether you take your propagation material from the original tree or a tenth generation tree, your resulting maiden trees should be genetically identical to the original. They really aren’t identical, in Topper’s opinion, but the differences are usually so insignificant that they can’t be seen. See mutation and sport.
graft  You "graft" (verb) when you cut a shoot from a living tree and attach it to another living tree (most often the one you graft onto is a rootstock). The two heal, and the attached piece grows as if it were part of the tree it is grafted onto. The piece that has been attached is called a "graft" (noun).

lenticels  Pores in the skin of an apple. The lenticels of some apple varieties are more open and susceptible to weathering than those on other varieties. McIntosh, for example, almost never has noticeable lenticels while Honeygold probably isn't ready to pick unless it has prominent tan, brown, or darker lenticels that contrast with its banana-yellow skin.
maiden tree  A new tree that has been propagated, usually by budding or grafting, and then grown for a season in a nursery, is called a maiden tree. Trees planted in orchards by growers are typically maiden trees received from nurseries in a "bare-root" condition, meaning the nursery dug the trees out of the ground and provided them to the grower with no soil attached to the roots. It is not unusual for every tree in a stand to grow successfully when handled this way.
mutation  New apple varieties are generally the result of the cross of two parents, but it is also possible for the fruit of trees that have been cloned to display altered genetics. When characteristics are significantly different from the source variety, the "new" variety is considered a mutation. It can also be called a "sport." Most often, these naturally-occurring sports have been selected when the appearance of the apple is considered to have been improved. Such improvements include a more attractive skin color or more desirable shape. But there are many mutations that can occur, including flavor, sugar content, time of ripening, and even how frequently fruit-bearing buds occur along a typical branch. To illustrate the frequency of useful mutations, consider the Delicious apple. Of the tens of millions of Delicious trees planted, there have been only hundreds of mutations selected and introduced.
oblong  An apple that is taller than it is wide (when the stem is up) is said to be oblong.
oblate  An apple that is wider than it is tall (when the stem is up) is said to be oblate.
orchard  You know what one is, but there's a long to-do about it asterisked at the bottom of the Sugar Shack apple variety description.
parent (f) x parent (m)  As with other fruits, vegetables, grains, flowers, trees, etc., this designation indicates a parent on each side of the "x." The female parent is always shown first. That just means that the apple grew on the (f) variety and the pollen that fertilized it came from the (m) variety. The cross that resulted in Haralson, for example, was Malinda x Wealthy. But you can only get Haralson the one time it already happened. You could cross Malinda and Wealthy a thousand more times, but you'd never get Haralson again. Imagine if human parents had six children, and every time it was the same kid again! It never happens. Each offspring from the crossing of two parents is a unique individual, even though that individual is sure to share a variety of inherited traits with brothers or sisters (with apples, it would be "siblings," because there aren't any boy or girl apples). To get any number of Haralson trees, you have to take propagation material from the one and only Haralson and grow that material into trees, from which trees you could take material and grow other generations of Haralson trees. Each identically reproduced tree you get that way is a clone.

pollen  Pollen is produced by flowers on all apple trees. For successful fertilization, which is necessary for trees to bear fruit, pollen must be transferred by bees from the flowers of one variety to the flowers of another variety. All of these flowers have male and female parts, so there are no male or female apple trees. All of them are just apple trees. Pollen is the male component and is produced by the anther. The bees transfer pollen from one variety’s flowers to the female parts, called stigmas, of the flowers on a different variety. Topper has no idea what happens after that, or at least he’s not saying anything about it. And, about the bees, Topper doesn’t think they care whether they go from one variety to another. You can watch them, and they go from flower to flower to flower on the same tree before they fly away. He has chased a few, but, in all honesty, they kind of get away and you can’t tell where they went. Maybe some go to the hive, and maybe some go to other varieties or just down the same row of the same variety. But they dance around in the hives a lot, so whether a bee actually visits several varieties or just accidentally picks up pollen his buddies drop in the hive really isn’t all that important to know right now. They get the job done. And, after all, isn’t that what you pay ’em for?
pollination  The successful act of transferring pollen from one flower to another. Topper would have spelled it "pollenation," but "pollination" does look kind of cute. So cute that maybe they should they should change "pollen" to "pollin."
propagate  To clone one or many trees from a source tree or from clones of a source tree.
propagation material  Technically speaking, seeds are propagation material, meaning something you would use to produce new apple trees. But in general usage, propagation material refers to something you take from a source tree, such as scions (shoots) or buds, to multiply into new trees. It is also possible to put shoots, roots, leaves, or buds in a blender and then "micro-propagate" in a growth medium. The small particles used in this way actually produce roots and shoots. It’s fun to plant trees using a pair of tweezers instead of a shovel!
ripeness bumps  A very scientific term Topper made up to describe the skin appearing and feeling rugged instead of shiny-smooth, a condition occurring when certain varieties of apples are allowed to "super-mature" on the trees. The skin may have stopped expanding, but the flesh of the apple seems to be pressuring the skin ever-outward. This doesn’t work with all varieties. Many will simply become over-ripe.
root cellar  An underground room where crops like potatoes, carrots, and beets may be kept all winter. It is perfect for those crops and bare-root nursery stock, even in modern times. Such a place is dark, humid, and has a consistent temperature in the neighborhood of 55 degrees Fahrenheit provided by the surrounding earth, but may get warmer or colder if the exterior access is poorly insulated. In times past, root cellars were also used for apples, but apples cannot share the same air space with potatoes because each gives off gases that are destructive to the other.
rootstock  The part of an apple tree that is used for the underground portion. Most apple trees are two-part trees made up of a selected rootstock with a selected fruiting variety (called a "cultivar") grafted on top of it. Criteria for selecting a rootstock are many, including many that directly influence the performance of the cultivar it supports. A rootstock alters tree size, time of onset of fruit-bearing, volume of production, size of fruit, branching characteristics, collection of various crucial nutrients, and much more. There are popular rootstocks that can't keep the tree from falling over, so they must be staked! You'd expect proper anchorage to be a primary factor in choosing a rootstock, but staking is not a major concern if the grower gets a lot of fruit a year or two sooner and doesn't have to climb a ladder to pick it. Selected rootstocks are cloned, so that the grower gets trees with identical influences from the roots. By contrast, seedling rootstocks are unpredictable, and few are likely to possess the most desirable benefits of selected rootstocks, most notably size control of the tree and voluminous production of fruit at an early age. There's very little benefit in choosing a seedling rootstock over a selected "clonal" rootstock. Seedling-rooted trees don't cost any less, mainly because most of the cost of the tree is in the grafting or budding of the cultivar on top of the rootstock and then in the growing of that combination, which are processes that both clonal rootstocks and seedling rootstocks must undergo.

russet Rough skin. Apples usually have shiny skins, but some are prone to potato-like skins (Roxbury Russet, Golden Russet, Stayman Winesap, Bosc pear) while others are shiny-skin types that can have more or less roughness over part or all of the skin (Haralson, Golden Delicious), depending on weather. Russet is said to be caused by cool, wet weather following bloom, which is typical weather for many growing areas. Commercially, russet is considered undesirable. Consumers familiar with russet-susceptible varieties routinely accept moderate russeting. Under severe conditions, russeted areas of the skin become non-elastic as the apple grows, and the skin may crack. That's when russet is a real problem.
russet cap Rough, potato-like skin occurring at the stem end (the top) of an apple.

In a good year, Prairie Spy has a prominent, well-defined russet cap that can even extend over the shoulder of the apple, can actually stand out in profile like a hat, and may be anywhere from tan to dark gray. It's like Prairie Spy's trademark. This photo shows Prairie Spy with just a moderate russet cap. Few commercial varieties have this feature, but I hope researchers aren't frowning on everything that has a russet cap. Some great varieties have them! Our Nectarapple and FF 98 have caps, but Prairie Spy's is the best there is.
scion The most recent growing season’s terminal growth, or shoot, which is cut for the purpose of grafting onto a rootstock. Nurseries often keep "scion trees" of each cultivar from which they cut their scions annually for the production of maiden trees.
seedling Any time you plant an apple seed, the resulting tree that grows is called a seedling. You can keep calling it a seedling even if it’s a hundred years old, because you

’re referring to how it originated, which never changes. Clones are reproductions made without planting any seeds. Clones are the same as each other, while each seedling is a unique individual. It matters in many ways. Nurseries propagate rootstocks by cloning them, so that when they graft or bud a single apple variety on thousands of rootstocks, the resulting combination gives uniform, predictable behavior. If, at any time, the variety that's grafted on top of the rootstock dies or breaks off, the sprouts that come from the rootstock will produce a known tree, because it's the same as all of its siblings. Rootstocks are selected for good rootstock characteristics with no concern for apple quality, and most of the commonly-used rootstocks produce apples you wouldn't want to eat. Therefore, there's no sense waiting to see what the apples will be like. Somebody already knows. But if a seedling rootstock was used, and the top of the tree is lost, and the sprouts are allowed to grow and to fruit, the apples it grows will be ones that have never been seen by anyone. They're unique. They may be wonderful or awful.
self-fertile Able to reproduce fruit and seeds without cross-pollination. Some varieties, notably Golden Delicious, don’t require pollen from another variety to fertilize their flowers. Very few varieties are self-fertile.

stripe  Apples color in two basic patterns, either a blush or a stripe. These are generalizations, because it is often possible to discern a faint striping in an otherwise blush pattern. Some blushed varieties stripe first and then, as harvest approaches, fill out to the blush. So the stripe is hidden in there someplace, but becomes invisible. The best place to look for indications of coloring tendencies is in areas where the fruit is not fully colored.
source tree  The tree from which you collect your propagation material. This is often not the "original" tree, the one that came from seed and was the first of its kind. Why not? Well, the first generation must come from the original tree, and you could continue to make first generation trees for years and years by taking your material from the original tree each of those years. But what if the original tree dies? Then you’d take your material from those first generation trees, which are clones of the original, but they’re not original. The resulting second generation trees grow, and what if you decide to make more trees? You might take cuttings from fifty of those trees to make hundreds of third generation trees. All of the fifty are source trees, and that’s why a source tree differs from the original tree. The original tree is a source tree. The trees generated from the original tree can be source trees, but they obviously can’t be the original tree. And, just as obviously, since many original trees have been dead for many years, the majority of all trees grown are from source trees that are not the original tree.
sport  See mutation.
stratify  To put seeds through simulated or real over-wintering conditions so they will germinate (sprout, start growth) uniformly in the spring. This is usually done by keeping the seeds cold and moist in a medium such as sand or peat moss. Seeds that haven't been stratified, either naturally or purposely, may germinate non-uniformly after planting or be delayed until another year, or they may not germinate at all.

topwork To graft a tree trunk and its branches entirely to a different variety. This assumes you intend to produce fruit of the grafted variety only. If you leave branches of the trunk tree to grow and fruit, you've only grafted the new variety onto it, which isn't really the same as the idea behind topworking. Topworking is most often done with multiple cleft grafts. When topworking is done on a large scale (hundreds or thousands of trees), it is usually because the grower is disappointed with the variety he planted but wants to harness the root power instead of pushing them out and starting over. It is usually done on fairly young trees, but is not a common practice. It is generally felt that starting over with maiden trees is the best way to go. When we topwork at Minnesota Harvest, it is usually to maintain some living source material of an experimental variety.

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