Ask Professor Produce

Dear Professor, how did the Honeycrisp apple come about, and where has it been all my life? Can you explain why locally grown organic Honeycrisps are so hard to find?

The Honeycrisp apple. The Honeycrisp apple. During autumn the produce-loving world stands still for the Honeycrisp apple. I attempt to be reasoned about it, each year I make an effort to throw other contenders in the ring: what's better and more nostalgic than an old-fashioned Fireside? How can you discount the singular perfume of the Keepsake? Really, a fresh Regent can be just as good. Haralson for a pie, do or die!

In each case, I finally yield to the Honeycrisp and shake my head in defeat. Which apple can compete with that texture? The exploding liquid crunch that dissolves into what you'd swear was an entire mouthful of apple juice. Which other apple's flavor hits every note in succession; that palatable rush of sugared apple blossom at the fore, deep honey in the middle, and a slight tart twist at the end that keeps the fruit from becoming cloying. One statistic I read reported that no matter if people say they prefer sweet or tart apples, approximately 80% of those who sample the Honeycrisp say they prefer it overall. I can vouch for this with my own experience of sampling it out in our produce department. When was the last time a fruit united humanity in such numbers?

Such a delicious fruit makes people suspicious, they want to know if it has been modified purposefully in a laboratory, genetically speaking, or in some other way made to be unnaturally crunchy and delicious. The answer is no. Hybridization, our natural, yet easily human-controlled method for making new and better food experiences with produce, made the Honeycrisp too. As to that, there have been no records found regarding the Honeycrisp's exact parentage. One parent is confirmed through DNA to be the Keepsake, but the other is probably a long-since-discarded hybrid of its own. What is more shocking than its quasi-illegitimate status is the fact that the Honeycrisp apple was crossed and planted for the first time in (drum roll please) 1960! That's 49 years ago. Yes—forty-nine! So where has it been all your life? That's a better question than you might have thought.

Cross-pollinated and subsequently planted by the University of Minnesota Research Center in 1960, the first Honeycrisp seedlings began to grow in a secure greenhouse environment (back then of course it had no name, just an extension number). When initially planted out, these trees did not do very well; rough winters and a poor location in the orchard caused them to get poor marks from extension staff for many years. Nobody knew in advance that these apples would be anything special; there was none of that modern-day scientific exactitude we've come to expect from food engineers. Imagine if someone had known that one day these trees would change the way people conceived of apples, or to put it in other, more dramatic terms, that they were literally sitting on a gold mine.

At one point during the late 70's, they marked these weak, gnarly trees to be discarded. In fact, the oldest tree died on its own. We might ask, well, didn't anybody even try this fruit? Apparently not, because although a tree or two made it through that period, it took a fruit breeder from the University named Dave Bedford to make the first positive notes on these apples in 1983—at last describing them as having an "outstanding and promising texture." He spent the next several years figuring out harvest times for proper maturity. At some point between 1985-1987 he scribbled the name "Honeycrisp" in his margin notes, and thus we see the apple's discovery unfolding.

Finally in 1991 the University released the Honeycrisp apple and it was a huge success. This resulted in the planting of a massive amount of trees across the country that has started only recently to come into full production. The Honeycrisp apple is a rising star, and most markets (your Wedge produce department included) stock the apple only very seasonally; unlike more established varieties like Fuji and Gala apples, which are available year-round either domestically or internationally.

We get Honeycrisp apples in increasingly larger numbers from a couple of local orchards—one certified organic version from our friends at Breezy Hill Orchards of Maple Plain, MN, and one "transitional" organic version from Hoch Orchards, of La Crescent, MN. "Transitional organic" refers to a farm or orchard that is undergoing organic certification, even though they have ceased growing in a conventional manner (with pesticides, fungicides, etc.), they must "rest" their land and allow it to clean itself of any residue for three years before certification can be complete. Some of Hoch's land has already made it through this process, and so you will see certified organic apples of many varieties from them already this year. It is doubtful that Honeycrisp will be among them, however. The Hoch's expect the certification to be complete by next growing season.

Considering how long humanity has waited for this most perfect and unanimously loved apple, that isn't unbearable, is it? And until then, work with me here, folks—there are plenty of other delicious options to choose from. Have you tried the Prairie Spy, McIntosh, Honeygold, or Sweet 16, Red Baron?