Why apples are red

Stark Nurseries a tree nursery that is still in business today held a yearly fruit contest the apple industry in this country still being fairly young, this was a way in which they could discover new varieties to add to their collection of nursery stock. Jesse entered his now favorite apple, sending off a barrelful to the event apples back then were packed in barrels.

This time, the barrel and its ID stayed connected. Stark quickly bought the propagating rights from the aging Jesse Hiatt. From then on, Red Delicious took off. Everyone was thrilled with the apple, and many millions of trees were planted over the next few decades. Later, apple breeders took over, coming up with bigger and, more importantly to them, redder strains of the fruit.

There was so much excitement over Red Delicious, in fact, that Stark Bros. Never mind the fact that Golden Delicious is not in any way related to Red Delicious — indeed it was all a marketing ploy.

In the meantime, some people waxed poetic about both Jesse Hiatt and his tree. His name and the benefit he conferred upon mankind should be engraved, not only on the memory of time, but chiseled on an enduring pedestal beside the old parent tree that grew from out of his loving care. Maybe it was, compared to other apples that were available at the time.

What makes a bike balance? Leave a Reply Cancel reply Enter your comment here Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:. Email required Address never made public. Name required. Follow Following. Idaho Ask a Scientist Join other followers. Sign me up. Already have a WordPress. Log in now. A lot of humans like to eat red apples, too. Here in Washington State, we produce more than 2 million tons of apples each year, far more than any other state.

Another way to think about the answer to your question may be to look at how we see different colors. It absorbs all the colors of the rainbow—except for red. The red light reflects off the apple and our brain and eyes work together to let us know what color we are seeing. Red is a color that can be appealing to both humans and other animals. Search for:. In order to the red color to develop, anthocyanin needs some help. That help is in the form of direct sunlight, and optimal temperature.

There are apple cultivars that turn bright red, like Red Delicious, and there are cultivars that only blush red like the Pink Lady, and then there are varieties that are striped red like Honeycrisp. All of those apple cultivars contain anthocyanins but the genetic makeup of each of them distributes the pigment differently.

Apple biology is really tricky. In short, as the apples progress form tiny, developing fruit to full-on apples, they develop sugars in their structure, and the anthocyanins need this. This is why towards the end of the season apple trees are pruned of the topmost foliage, to let the sun shine on the apples.

Or, they will sometimes place reflective surfaces under the trees, to bounce the light under the apples. Temperature plays am important role in apple color development, but each cultivar is different.