Empire is the name of a
clonally propagated cultivar
A cultivar is a type of cultivated plant that people have selected for desired traits and when propagated retain those traits. Methods used to propagate cultivars include: division, root and stem cuttings, offsets, grafting, tissue culture ...
of
apple
An apple is an edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus domestica''). Apple trees are cultivated worldwide and are the most widely grown species in the genus ''Malus''. The tree originated in Central Asia, where its wild ancestor, ' ...
derived from a seed grown in 1945 by Lester C. Anderson, a
Cornell University
Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to tea ...
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 of Cornell University in
Geneva
, neighboring_municipalities= Carouge, Chêne-Bougeries, Cologny, Lancy, Grand-Saconnex, Pregny-Chambésy, Vernier, Veyrier
, website = https://www.geneve.ch/
Geneva ( ; french: Genève ) frp, Genèva ; german: link=no, Genf ; it, Ginevr ...
,
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
US Apple Association
USApple Association is a Virginia-based nonprofit membership association for growers, marketers, equipment producers and allied organizations dealing with apples, within forty states of the United States of America. It advocates on behalf of 7,50 ...
website it is one of the fifteen most popular apple cultivars in the United States.
Description
Apples are picked between September and October and can be stored until January. However, some apple growers including Verger Denis Charbonneau Mont-St-Grégoire, Quebec, Canada easily keep them until June under controlled refrigeration in a gas atmosphere. They still remain juicy, firm, crunchy and sweet.
The original seed was a cross between the varieties ''
McIntosh
McIntosh, Macintosh, or Mackintosh (Gaelic: ') may refer to:
Products and brands
* Mackintosh, a form of waterproof raincoat
* Mackintosh's or John Mackintosh and Co., later Rowntree Mackintosh, former UK confectionery company now part of Nestlà ...
'' and ''
Red Delicious''. Empire apples are excellent for eating and salads, and good for sauce, baking, pies and freezing. It is an ideal lunch-box apple, not least because it does not bruise easily.
Sports patented in the US
By the year 2001, three mutant
cultivar
A cultivar is a type of cultivated plant that people have selected for desired traits and when propagated retain those traits. Methods used to propagate cultivars include: division, root and stem cuttings, offsets, grafting, tissue culture ...
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
References
External links
NY Apple country National Fruit Collection page
Apple cultivars with patented mutants
Cornell University
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