Two medlars and a GoldRush
Jules Janick is a renaissance man ¬– a person of boundless, almost childlike, energy and curiosity, a generalist in an age of specialists. He would have been fitting company for people like Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin and Charles Darwin.
I first came into contact with Janick about 15 years ago, when I wrote an article (the first of several) about the PRI cooperative apple breeding program. Three universities ¬ – Purdue in Indiana, Rutgers in New Jersey and University of Illinois – combined their efforts with one steadfast objective. They wanted to develop apple varieties that didn’t need to be sprayed for control of apple scab.
They took a scab-resistant crabapple ¬and by, crossing and recrossing it with desirable varieties, developed a whole line of scab-resistant apples. The first was released in 1970 and new releases are still being made. There are more than 20 now. WineCrisp came out last year.
The one that struck my fancy, and led to my initial contact with Janick, was GoldRush, released in 1993.
“It’s a cult apple,” Janick told me, when I told him I’d planted one in my back yard.
It is an odd duck. What impressed me was how healthy an apple tree could be when it’s not repeatedly stripped of its foliage by apple scab, and that is the common fate of trees in backyard situations. I had three or four trees of three or four varieties, and the GoldRush still has leaves on into late November. And, of course, the fruit is scab-free, too.
Not surprisingly, many of the PRI apples are grown by hobby gardeners who buy then by ones and twos, not thousands, from the nurseries that cater to that trade.
The other odd thing about GoldRush is how hard and tasteless it is at harvest time, and how great it tastes after storage until March or April.
Janick didn’t start the PRI program ¬– it dates back to 1945 – but he came to Purdue in 1952 and worked with Ralph Shay, the Purdue plant pathologist who was one of the founders. Janick, a prolific writer, tells the whole history of the PRI program in an article on his Web site, www.hort.purdue.edu/newcrop. You really must explore that Web site.
When I joined the staff here at Fruit Growers News, one of my first trips was to the Indiana Horticulture Society meeting in Indianapolis. There, I met Janick face to face, told him I loved GoldRush and as a “reward,” he handed me a medlar.
What’s a medlar? Well, it’s something you’d expect a renaissance man to hand you. It’s a fruit that tastes like cinnamon-spiced apple sauce, but is only edible after “bletting.”
Here’s how Wikipedia describes them:
“Medlar fruit are very hard and acidic. They become edible after being softened (“bletted”) by frost, or naturally in storage given sufficient time. Once softening begins, the skin rapidly takes a wrinkled texture and turns dark brown, and the inside reduces to a consistency and flavor reminiscent of apple sauce. They can then be eaten raw, often consumed with cheese as a dessert, although they are also used to make medlar jelly and wine. Another dish is “medlar cheese,” which is similar to lemon curd, being made with the fruit pulp, eggs and butter.”
These fruits, once popular in Europe and especially in Victorian England, are quite rare now.
Needless to say, I planted two in my yard and have a bumper crop of about 40 fruits coming this year for the first time.
What I like about Jules Janick is what he says about life. Life is fun. You can be serious and do great work, but never give up the zest that comes from following interesting side paths that may seem like tangents at the time.