Higher classification Apple | ||
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Scientific name Malus domestica 'Red Delicious' Similar | ||
The Red Delicious is a clone of apple cultigen, now comprising more than 50 cultivars, recognized in Madison County, Iowa, in 1880. According to the US Apple Association website it is one of the fifteen most popular apple cultivars in the United States.
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History
The 'Red Delicious' originated at an orchard in 1880 as "a round, blushed yellow fruit of surpassing sweetness". Stark Nurseries held a competition in 1892 to find an apple to replace the 'Ben Davis' apple. The winner was a red and yellow striped apple sent by Jesse Hiatt, a farmer in Peru, Iowa, who called it "Hawkeye". Stark Nurseries bought the rights from Hiatt, renamed the variety "Stark Delicious", and began propagating it. Another apple tree, later named the 'Golden Delicious', was also marketed by Stark Nurseries after it was purchased from a farmer in Clay County, West Virginia, in 1914; the 'Delicious' became the 'Red Delicious' as a retronym.
Production decline
In the 1980s, 'Red Delicious' represented three-quarters of the harvest in Washington State. A decade later, reliance on 'Red Delicious' had helped to push Washington state's apple industry "to the edge" of collapse. In 2000, Congress approved and President Bill Clinton signed a bill to bail out the apple industry, after apple growers had lost $760 million since 1997. By 2000, this cultivar made up less than one half of the Washington state output, and in 2003, the crop had shrunk to 37 percent of the state's harvest, which totaled 103 million boxes. Although Red Delicious still remained the single largest variety produced in the state in 2005, others were growing in popularity, notably the 'Fuji' and 'Gala' varieties.
Sports (mutations)
Over the years, many propagable mutations, or sports, have been identified in 'Red Delicious' apple trees. In addition to those propagated without any legal protection (or cut out because they were seen as inferior), 42 sports have been patented in the United States:
Unpatented sports
Well-known but unpatented sports include:
In 1977, the application for #4159 noted the "starchy and bland taste of some of the newer varieties".
The plant patent for #4926 promoted the sport as a dwarfing interstock, a dwarfing rootstock for pears, or to produce "crab apple"-sized 'Delicious' apples.