A new fruit hit markets in the U.K. this week. Round, red, sweet, and juicy, the hybrid fruit is described as a pear disguised as an apple. Until it receives an official name, the new fruit has been going by T109—or, to its friends, the “papple.”
The fruit is soft, like a pear, and sweet, like a pear, with notes of apple. Its skin (red and orange-yellow) and shape (stout and round) resemble an apple. Despite appearances, though, its not an apple at all. Its a member of the pear family, a hybrid of two European and Asian pear varieties.
Some say the new fruit—a bit like the more familiar Asian pear—is a fleeting novelty, reminiscent of the pineberry, a “designer fruit” of 2010 that promised to be the best of a strawberry and a pineapple, and seems to be more of a curiosity than a supermarket staple. Alternately, however, the papple could join a list of once-exotic hybrids that easily acclimated to the fruit bowl. After all, boysenberries are a cross between blackberries, loganberries, and raspberries, and Meyer lemons are believed to be a hybrid of a lemon and a Mandarin orange.
And, most familiar of all, most apple varieties are man-made hybrids. Braeburns, Galas, Pink Ladies, the SweeTangos, Honeycrisps, Fujis and other familiar edible apples are the result of grafted trees, making them technically hybrids.
The nickname might welcome a chuckle, but, to its breeders in New Zealand, the papple was a serious project. In the world of hybrids, the journey from farm to table is always long. Cultivating a new fruit cross is largely a trial-and-error process, and as few as one in 1,000 cross-breeding attempts are successful. Once a good parent set has been established, it can still take 10 to 15 years to get the new crop ready for the public. To breeders, market price can be worth it. Hybrids are priced $0.50 to $1 or more per pound than conventional fruits.
The papple currently costs £1 (or about $1.50) per fruit. Have you tried it? As far as new fruit experiences, how does it compare to all those others with hybrid names, like the pluot, plumcot, aprium, or grapple?
Anna Laurent is a writer and photographer. Her work explores how we look at plants, and how those plants behave.
No, it is not possible to directly cross apples with peaches. Apples (genus Malus) and peaches (genus Prunus) belong to different plant families and have different numbers of chromosomes, making them genetically incompatible for crossbreeding.
In a study published in the Journal of the American Society for Horticultural Science in 2001, the average lemon was revealed to be a hybrid of the citron and another genotype, which shared genes from the mandarin and pummelo.
The boysenberry is the result of combining raspberries, blackberries and loganberries. Known for its tart taste, the berry was cultivated in 1920 by Rudolph Boysen. Thus the name.
“One apple breeder told me it took 50,000 apple seedlings to get one tree that was better than the parent,” Marini said.
Don’t expect an apple hybrid anytime soon. Interspecific hybrids work only on species that are close together. Unfortunately for apple lovers, the closet thing to that fruit is a pear.
A mashup of the shaddock and sweet orange, the grapefruit was first chronicled in 1687 by Hans Sloane.
A new fruit hit markets in the U.K. this week. Round, red, sweet, and juicy, the hybrid fruit is described as a pear disguised as an apple. Until it receives an official name, the new fruit has been going by T109—or, to its friends, the “papple.”
Anna Laurent is a writer and photographer. Her work explores how we look at plants, and how those plants behave.
Some say the new fruit—a bit like the more familiar Asian pear—is a fleeting novelty, reminiscent of the pineberry, a “designer fruit” of 2010 that promised to be the best of a strawberry and a pineapple, and seems to be more of a curiosity than a supermarket staple. Alternately, however, the papple could join a list of once-exotic hybrids that easily acclimated to the fruit bowl. After all, boysenberries are a cross between blackberries, loganberries, and raspberries, and Meyer lemons are believed to be a hybrid of a lemon and a Mandarin orange.
The nickname might welcome a chuckle, but, to its breeders in New Zealand, the papple was a serious project. In the world of hybrids, the journey from farm to table is always long. Cultivating a new fruit cross is largely a trial-and-error process, and as few as one in 1,000 cross-breeding attempts are successful. Once a good parent set has been established, it can still take 10 to 15 years to get the new crop ready for the public. To breeders, market price can be worth it. Hybrids are priced $0.50 to $1 or more per pound than conventional fruits.
The fruit is soft, like a pear, and sweet, like a pear, with notes of apple. Its skin (red and orange-yellow) and shape (stout and round) resemble an apple. Despite appearances, though, its not an apple at all. Its a member of the pear family, a hybrid of two European and Asian pear varieties.
What happens if peach is grafted to plum and pear to apple?
FAQ
What fruit is between peach and apple?
What fruit is crossed with a peach?
What two fruits make a nectarine?
What is the cross between an apple and a pear?
What is a hybrid fruit?
Tangor, ugli, jostaberry and pluot… these are just a few curiously named hybrid fruits found at the grocery store or farmers market. With bizarre names, hybrids might sound like weird science, but these fruits and their many cousins are more natural and familiar than you might think. Hybrids don’t use genetically modified organism technology.
Do apples need cross pollination?
Apples require cross-pollination to set a good crop consistently. Some cultivars will set some fruit by self-pollination, but the fruit quality, size and number of fruits will be increased by providing cross-pollination. Most crabapples can be used for cross-pollination, as long as the bloom period overlaps.
What is a pit inside a peach called?
Another name for the pit inside a peach is the stone. Peaches where the flesh sticks or attaches to the stone are called clingstone types. The commercial canning industry in California primarily uses non-melting, clingstone peach cultivars. For these, the pits are removed mechanically when canning.
What are the different types of peaches?
Today we talked about all different kinds of peaches. Traditional yellow-fleshed peaches, mmmm, fantastic! White-fleshed peaches, mmmm, exquisite! White nectarines, mmmm, heaven on earth! Yellow sub-acid nectarines, mmmm.