Heritage Orchard Owner Handbook
Heritage Orchard Handbook_Oct 2023 by Addie & Jude Schuenemeyer
Tag: apple diversity
Apple revival: how science is bringing historic varieties back to life
Exploring the genomes of half-forgotten and heirloom apple varieties could help to ensure the future of the incomparable fruits.
When Jude Schuenemeyer picked the apple up off the ground in December 2017, he wondered whether his two-decade search was over. It was a firm winter apple, orange in colour with a distinctive ribbed shape and wider than it was tall. “We knew right away that we had never seen it before,” Schuenemeyer says.
He and his wife, Addie, started the Montezuma Orchard Restoration Project in 2008 to find and revive endangered heirloom apple varieties. The horticulturalists, based in Cortez, Colorado, had made a few discoveries, but there was one coveted variety that had eluded them: the Colorado Orange. Once a popular apple in the western United States, it had essentially disappeared by 1900. And although the Schuenemeyers had chased a few false leads in the past, this apple — from an almost-dead tree on a private piece of land near Cañon City — looked promising. Continue reading at Nature Magazine…
By Christopher Kemp, October 17, 2023
What’s in a name? The importance of identity in heirloom apple tree preservation
Historic North American apple (Malus domestica) orchards that thrived in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with cultivar compositions unlike today’s orchards, are vanishing. There are several reasons for this loss: tree aging, cost of tree maintenance, and urbanization. Many groups have collected local knowledge regarding the history and horticulture of apples using both phenotypic and genotypic identification methods. Some of these groups have joined with scientists to form the collaborative “Historic Fruit Tree Working Group of North America” to facilitate the conservation of heirloom apple cultivars in North America through documentation, identification, collaboration, and education. Read full journal article at Plants, People, Planet…
By Amy Dunbar-Wallis, Gayle M. Volk, Alexandra M. Johnson, Adalyn Schuenemeyer, John Bunker, David Castro, Todd Little-Siebold, Lydia Pendergast, Richard Uhlmann, Laura Sieger, David Benscoter, Cameron P. Peace | July 31, 2022
Good News Podcast: Colorado Orange Apple
A ballad of a long lost apple. Listen to the story at Good News Podcast…
By Good News Podcast | October 26, 2020
The legendary Colorado Orange apple returns
In an interview with KSUT, Jude Schuenemeyer talks about why the Colorado Orange apple is special. He also gives us a few tasting notes. And he delves into the work to reintroduce the apple to consumers. He’s already shared the Colorado Orange with other growers, so they can propagate it and eventually return the storied fruit to kitchens and pantries. Listen to the interview at KSUT’s Open Range News…
By Mark Duggan | October 21, 2020
This ‘Extinct’ Colorado Apple Could Be Available in Grocery Stores Soon
Try describing the look and taste of a Honeycrisp apple. Even when holding one in your hand, this task isn’t so easy. It’s red, and is, uh, crisp. But many of the thousands of known apple varieties have similar appearances and flavors. Nowadays, genetic testing can allow growers to confirm specific cultivars (in much the same we can learn that a wine grape variety has been mislabeled for decades), but attempting to rediscover “lost” apple varieties that are only preserved through historical records is more akin to detective work… and in the end, you simply hope you got the right suspect.
After two decades of sleuthing, Addie and Jude Schuenemeyer—founders of the Colorado-based Montezuma Orchard Restoration Project—are officially saying “case closed” on one of their apple hunts. Addie says they are now “98 percent sure, give or take 3 percent” that they’ve rediscovered a local variety once thought to have disappeared: the Colorado Orange apple. Read full article in Food & Wine…
By Mike Pomranz | September 21, 2020
Lost for decades, the Colorado Orange apple variety has been found — officially
The Montezuma Orchard Restoration Project compared the fruit of a tree found near Cañon City to botanical illustrations and wax castings of award-winning apples to identify the lost treasure. Read the full article in The Colorado Sun. DEC 18, 2019 5:07AM MST
Also, read the story of the elusive Colorado Orange apple in MORP’s own words.
An apple revival near Four Corners is restoring hundreds of historic fruits — and the local ag economy
Using DNA testing in southwest Colorado, the Montezuma Orchard Restoration project welcomes back apple varieties like Winter Banana, Blue Pearmain, Ben Davis and Esopus Spitzenburg — and businesses are sprouting around them.
MCELMO CANYON — The apple orchard on Jude and Addie Schuenemeyer’s farm in a squiggle of a canyon in far southwest Colorado is a wild place. Turkeys gobble around on the hunt for bugs in native grasses that grow nearly as high as the gnarly limbs of the apple trees. Those trees are set hither and thither instead of lining up in typical tidy orchard rows. They bear apples that few fruit fans have likely heard of: Winter Banana, Blue Pearmain, Ben Davis and Esopus Spitzenburg…read the full article in The Colorado Sun.
Nancy Lofholm
PUBLISHED ON NOV 28, 2019 5:05AM MST
Gold Medal Orchard
11449 gold medal http://montezumaorchard.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/11449-gold-medal.pdf
HISTORIC GOLD MEDAL ORCHARD
Remembering Our Past, Envisioning The Future
 The historic Gold Medal Orchard, located in McElmo Canyon where it joins Trail Canyon, represents one of hundreds of remnant historic orchards located in Montezuma County and across Colorado. First planted in 1890 by James Giles, the orchard soon earned its name by winning a gold medal for the quality of its apples and peaches at the St. Louis World’s Fair in 1904.
Remaining on-site are several old apple, pear, and quince trees, portions of the historic orchard fence; and under the grand cottonwoods are two historic homes with sheds and a privy.
When you visit, close your eyes and imagine what you would have seen while standing here at the turn of the 20th century. Fruit trees spread across the canyon floor, pink, white, and red blossoms snowing down in the spring, limbs heavy with crops throughout the summer and fall. Apples, peaches, apricots, pears, cherries, and plums ripening in the warm sun and cool evenings in the perfect location to grow beautiful and flavorful fruit.
Time passed, the trees grew into their grandeur, and then slowly faded into the landscape. Over 100 years later, only a few historic trees remain, hardy remnants of the orchard’s former glory. Heritage fruit varieties were lost, and the story of the Gold Medal Orchard and its prize-winning fruits was nearly forgotten.
Today, the story of the Gold Medal Orchard is remembered by the Montezuma Orchard Restoration Project (MORP) through its work to preserve Colorado’s fruit-growing heritage. In 2015, the orchard was listed as one of Colorado’s Most Endangered Places by Colorado Preservation, Inc. (CPI). In 2019, the project was awarded the EPP Progress Award by CPI at the Dana Crawford & State Honor Awards, and through cooperation with MORP and the Kenyon family, is now saved.
When you are at the orchard, open your eyes wide and take a good look at the roughly 400 fruit trees growing before you. They represent rare fruit cultivars (primarily apples) that were grafted by MORP from this and other historic Colorado orchards. Envision these young trees of old genetics reaching their prime, and then still growing another hundred years from now. Gifts of our early fruit growers passed down by MORP for future generations to taste and preserve.
You are invited to share in this vision by becoming a Sustain-a-Tree Member of MORP.Â
