Today's fresh apples could be a year old: Surprising apple facts
Published 3 November 2024
Today's apples don't grow on towering trees, could have been picked in 2023, and taste way different than they used to.
And that's just the beginning of the surprising modern reality of a quintessentially American fruit ‒ one that captures our imagination each fall with apple-picking, apple cider doughnuts and apple pie.
Today's juicy Honeycrisps, sweet Fujis, crunchy SweeTangos or tart-ish Pink Ladies are the product of bewildering scientific and agricultural innovations. Orchards of today ‒ filled with short, trellised trees harvested by people on self-driving platforms or sometimes even robots ‒ sound like the stuff of science fiction.
But apple fundamentals have stayed the same. Apples remain a healthy, nutritious snack, low in calories, high in fiber and vitamin C. Eat them peel-on to get the most of their fiber and antioxidants.
USA TODAY spoke with apple breeders, growers, packers and researchers to find out the secrets of one of America's most popular fruits. Here's what we learned:
Apple orchards look more like vineyards than forests
A modern apple orchard looks nothing like the towering, pink blossomed trees of story books. And Johnny Appleseed would find no takers for his offerings.
“The thing most people find surprising is just what the orchards look like,” said Amanda Van Lanen, a history professor at Lewis-Clark State College in Lewiston, Idaho, and author of “The Washington Apple: Orchards and the Development of Industrial Agriculture.”
“You say ‘orchard’ and people have this pastoral orchard in their head.”
Modern apples are not grown from seeds but from scions (buds) grafted onto semi-dwarf or dwarf rootstock from disease-resistant strains. The trees grow to only 10 to 11 feet tall. As many as 1,300 to 1,500 can be planted per acre.