The rise of premium managed apple varieties, such as the popular Pink Lady, SweeTango, and Cosmic Crisp, as well as New York’s own SnapDragon and RubyFrost, are the result of careful breeding, innovative marketing, and strategic management, offering an exciting opportunity for those in the agricultural sector.
In this episode of Spilled Salt, Dr. Susan Brown of Cornell University discusses apples of the future with host Maureen Ballatori, and why breeders are focusing on creating apples with superior qualities.
Addressing Growing Problems with Advanced Apple Breeding
At the heart of these premium varieties is advanced apple breeding. Through traditional plant breeding methods (not to be confused with genetically modified organisms, or GMOs), breeders improve the taste, texture, and resistance to diseases of apple varieties.
One prime example is the SnapDragon apple, which was developed from Honeycrisp, a fan-favorite apple known for its crispness and sweet flavor. However, Honeycrisp is notoriously difficult to grow due to production issues like bitter pit, a disorder caused by calcium deficiencies.
To address these challenges, Dr. Brown and her team bred SnapDragon to retain the crispness of Honeycrisp while minimizing its growing problems. The result is an apple that delivers on taste and crunch but is easier for farmers to cultivate.
Developing Premium Managed Apple Varieties
Premium managed varieties, like SnapDragon and RubyFrost, are different from other apple varieties in that they are grown and marketed under strict controls. This ensures high quality while providing farmers with the tools and resources to be successful in growing them.
Managed varieties are produced within a club system, which regulates who can grow the apples and how they are marketed. For example, with SnapDragon, every grower in New York State was given the opportunity to join the club, ensuring fair participation while maintaining a consistent product. This system allows growers to control the supply and maintain high standards, while also benefiting from pooled marketing efforts that help raise consumer demand.
These premium managed varieties present an exciting opportunity to collaborate with farmers on data-driven practices that ensure optimal growing conditions and better quality control. The emphasis on research and development, both in the orchard and the marketplace, aligns well with the tech-forward approach of today’s agtech companies.
Meeting Consumer Demand for Tasty, Crisp Apples
In their discussion, Dr. Brown shared that what sets premium managed apple varieties apart is their ability to meet evolving consumer demands. She believes apples should be healthy treats, and as people become more health-conscious and look for higher quality food products, apples like SnapDragon and RubyFrost are positioned as premium options that stand out from the crowd.
In fact, the SnapDragon apple has been recognized with several awards, including the American Society of Horticultural Science’s Outstanding Cultivar Award, which further validates the importance of premium managed varieties in the apple industry.
Building a Strong Future for Apples and Apple Breeders
Premium managed apple varieties represent a unique opportunity to grow high-quality, marketable products that appeal to a wide consumer base. By combining advanced breeding techniques, sustainable practices, and tech-driven solutions, the future of apple farming is ripe for innovation.
What is most evident in this episode is that premium managed varieties are not just about apples—they are about building a stronger, more sustainable future for the entire agricultural industry.
Transcript
This transcript has been edited from its original form to support readability.
Maureen Ballatori: I’m Maureen Ballatori and this is Spilled Salt, a podcast on the thrills and spills from the food, beverage and agriculture industry.
Today’s guest is Susan Brown. We know that I love apples and so it’s clear that you all do too because our interviews with folks from the apple industry are some of our most popular on this show. And so I am absolutely delighted to have Dr. Susan Brown on the podcast today.
She leads the Cornell University Apple Breeding Program, one of the largest fruit breeding programs in the entire world. Susan was awarded the Wilder Medal for Outstanding Service to Horticulture in 2016 from the American Pomological Society.
And she’s just a true trailblazer in apple breeding and development. Breeders are able to improve fruit quality, productivity, insect and disease resistance, tolerance to cold weather, and the growth habits of trees and vines. That’s one of the reasons why they go about the work that they do to breed new varieties of apples.
In today’s conversation with Susan, we’re also talking about what does it mean to be genetically modified and how does a new apple variety launch into the market effectively and grow and scale from there? And what does it mean to have a premium managed variety like SnapDragon, Pink Lady, Sweet Tango, Cosmic Crisp, and so on?
We also talk, as always, about what does this expert see as coming down the pike in new developments? Susan has some very interesting thoughts to share on that front as well.
Enjoy the conversation.
Maureen: Hey, Susan, how are you? Wonderful, so great to see you. Thanks for joining me today.
I typically love to start with a little bit of background just to give everybody a little bit of a basis of understanding of the past leading up to the work you’re doing now, but you’ve been at Cornell for 15 years. And so feel free to share what happened before Cornell, but then I’d really love to hear where your initial interest in plant science started.
Susan Brown: I’ve actually been at Cornell for 39 years.
Maureen: Okay, so there wasn’t a lot before that then.
Susan: It was cute. I was talking to somebody at the hotel and he said, how long have you been at Cornell? And I said, almost 40 years. And he goes, 14? So yeah, I’ve been here a long time, but I’ve loved it. And my interest in plants in general, I was fortunate to grow up at a time when kids could just roam freely through the woods and the beaches.
My mom was an amazing plant person, so she knew native plants. And my dad, of all things, his hobby was racing pigeons. And yeah, so you breed pigeons to be very fast flyers.
And through that, I learned a little bit about natural selection and breeding. And I just was always fascinated by plants. And so when I was able to get graduate training in how to be a plant breeder, I wanted to be a plant breeder because as they explained in the course, I could create something that had never been seen before.
My predecessor, Bob Lamb, who was an amazing gentleman said, it’s like you’re an explorer. You know, when you bite into that apple that you created, it’s something that no one has ever had a chance to see. And it might be great and it might be awful but you did it.
Maureen: Yeah, and you’re the first ever. What a beautiful mentality.
Susan: It’s like I have the chance to be the mother of thousands and thousands of potentially new apple varieties. And just like you and I are moms, we love our children. But in apples, I can be ruthless if I don’t like a tree. It’s gone. It’s in the woodpile.
So, that’s pretty cool. And then just like anybody that’s been a parent, people will say, I don’t like genetically modified organisms. We’re all, if you have children, you’ve done genetic modification and you see the traits of you and your children. Well, just like that, I study the traits in Apple families and I can see which one gives the best quality or unique features and then I can play around with that in a different pair.
Maureen: So let’s talk about that for a little bit because I was about the idea of, I’m curious to hear your thoughts on how plant breeding and GMOs are similar, different, related, all of that. So when I was at the World Agritech Summit in March in San Francisco, there was a lot of discussion about CRISPR.
Talk about that. I’m far from an expert. That was one of, actually, I had only heard that term recently before going to that conference. So what can you share about that that the average person may not be aware of?
Susan: First I’d like to say that I purposely said genetically modified versus genetically modified organism, because that’s the key difference.
When we do plant breeding, we’re doing genetic modification.
When we say genetically modified organism, that means a specific process has been used, and that’s where it gets into the nitty gritty of whether you might have a selectable marker or you may have a gene that’s not native to apples. That’s where you get the organism.
But what people should know is everybody for some reason thinks the produce aisle is going to be full of GMOs. Well, actually, there are no, that I know of, genetically modified organisms for sale in produce aisles.
There are four genetically modified apples called Arctic apples. They’ve been modified so that they don’t turn brown. But those are grown and used in the baking industry.
So I’m a proponent of both technologies, but I think it’s important in being clear that a consumer has to be able to know. And so that’s where the new labeling comes into effect. And with CRISPR, it’s a means of becoming much more specific about what is being targeted.
But the problem, despite the fact that I’m a proponent, the problem is as scientists we’re learning everything we thought was simple is more complex. And so, you know, they tease that a PhD learns more and more and knows less and less. But sometimes you’re surprised that you think, okay, I can make this small change, but it may have an effect on other genes.
And there’s 54,000 genes in apples. That’s many more than are in humans. And so, you know, I think it’s powerful technology and we’ll learn from it, but I don’t think that you’re going to see CRISPR releases in the near future.
Maureen: Understood.
I was talking to my husband this morning. I said, I’ve got a podcast interview today and he said, who are you interviewing? I said, Susan Brown, she’s basically the inventor of a number of apples. And one of the, the most notable in the world, I would say.
Talk a little bit more about what you’re doing when you’re breeding apples. And you talked about that a little bit that you’re creating apples that have never been had, never been consumed before, never existed before. What does that process look like? What are you breeding for? What does a quality apple look like?
Susan: Cool, sure. So the process is during the spring, that short period, we actually are working in the field. So a lot of people think of a scientist and think in the lab, but we’re working on a tree.
A tree is designated as a seed parent. So that means it’s in the old terms, we used to use female male and now we use seed parent and pollen parent.
So that’s a seed parent. And we prepare that by taking off the petals and the stamens. Stamens and anthers are, if you’ve ever put lilies in a vase on your dining room table, those big yellow things, those are anthers that produce pollen. So we remove that.
The reason we do that is we don’t want bees to come in and make their own cross. And so I guess I’ll step back just a second.
A lot of people will try to grow apples from seed. They’ll cut an apple open, but they don’t realize that those seeds are half the mother plant or the seed parent. And it could represent, of the 10 seeds, two might have different parents than the rest because it brought pollen over. And so we control the process so that every seed and every flower gets pollen from a specific variety. And we don’t want bees anywhere nearby.
Maureen: So if that’s the goal, why not grow them in a greenhouse or some other sort of controlled environment so that the bees can’t get in at all?
Susan: That’s a good question. Money. Apples are large. We want to do this on a massive scale. We’re producing thousands of crosses. So nature creates some difficulties.
But in California, they very much do that with peaches. So at Floyd Zaiger, they can wheel them in and wheel them out. But we work around this.
Maureen: Got it, got it. So you’ve got the seed parent.
Susan: Right. So we put pollen on, so we’ll collect apple flowers that are called the balloon stage that kind of look like popcorn. And the flowers haven’t opened.
We take those and we use a comber screen and screen out the pollen, let it dry, and then we apply it to that seed parent. And so now every single fruit that’s going to be produced will have seeds that are those two particular parents.
Maureen: And so in that, so that’s the process of exactly what you’re doing, which is fascinating. What are you aiming to get out in the long run? Like, what are you breeding for?
Susan: Okay. So we know that apples are nutritious and convenient, and they’re kind of a powerhouse for the nutritional compounds that they possess.
But I want apples to be the chocolate of fruits. They should be a treat. And what we have recognized is we research what consumers want. And crispness is something that was very key.
And so the release of the SnapDragon, that would be a good example. So SnapDragon, we used Honeycrisp as a parent, but people don’t realize that you pay a lot for Honeycrisp. It’s a good apple, but it has a lot of production problems.
There’s something called a calcium disorder that causes bitter pip. And so we wanted to create something like Honeycrisp, but without those problems. And so what that meant is we had to create 3000 different possibilities of that parent and another parent.
We were able to get something that had the crispness of Honeycrisp, but did not have a lot of those problems. And I’m really excited about it, so .
The apple, that’s the official apple of the Buffalo Bills, which is really great. And the other news is I didn’t realize how much pride I had in my Polish ancestry, but it was named Innovative Plant Variety in Poland. My ancestors are smiling down.
That’s an apple that really has spread kind of by word of mouth. And that people that were addicted to honeycrisp apples tried it. And then they were like, well, what do mean it ran out? And the growers said, just eat the honeycrisp that you used to like. But, you know, they’ve become fans of it.
Maureen: I think that’s another really fascinating thing is that, so I worked on Crunch Time Apple Growers and helped support the marketing and the design for SnapDragon and Ruby Frost apples way back, six or seven years ago. That was the first time I understood premium managed apple varieties.
We had Kaari Staanard on the show last season who spoke about that a little bit.
But talk about running out of fruit and what does it mean to be premium managed and why does that happen?
Susan: Okay, yeah, and that’s something that we were very cognizant of where the first managed, well, Pink Lady was one of the first managed varieties. And then SweeTango, which is from the University of Minnesota, was one that got people’s attention here because growers in New York, sometimes a brother might be a member of that club and another brother was not able to. So we wanted to make sure we came up with a concept that was fair for everyone.
We actually offered every grower in New York state the opportunity to join, to be a member of the club. And therefore what was nice is we didn’t have any lawsuits, we didn’t have criticism because one grower said, I did not join the club. I’m kicking myself, but I had the opportunity.
Maureen: Fair in terms of who can grow it.
Susan: So what a club allows them to do is to control the quality aspects of the variety, but more importantly, it provides marketing dollars that are crucial. S
In the past, it would take 40 years for a variety to take off because a grower might plant an acre and the grocery store would say, well, that’s not enough production for me.
By doing the club variety, we automatically had the production, but we had really clever marketing from people like yourself that really helped it to differentiate.
Maureen: That’s such a tricky thing in anything that you’re selling in retail, right? Is the demand from the consumer and the supply, right? Is it a very delicate balance of, what is the farmer growing? What’s the output of that? And then is it aligned with the consumer demand?
And I think a better position to be in is we ran out. There was so much popularity that all of it’s gone as opposed to the opposite, right? Especially with something like an agricultural product where it exists only for so long. It’s got a shelf life, right?
That is such a brilliant program to be able to work both sides of the supply and the demand.
Susan: We were able to arrange it so that we named it and we had trees ready for production at the same time. And so a lot of times there’ll be a huge discussion.
Cosmic Crisp was one case. Cosmic Crisp is from the University of Washington. They devoted, I think now it’s up to $20 million in marketing. But they did it at a time when they didn’t have a lot of product. So everybody had heard about this apple and it generated excitement, but that needs to be followed through.
Maureen: The point you’re making there is yes to that supply and demand, but that can’t it can’t be so far off right?
So SnapDragon won an outstanding cultivar award from the American Society of Horticultural Science. What sort of significance does that kind of award have for you and for the industry?
Susan: Okay, so the only two varieties at Cornell, and we’ve released 69, that have won the award were Empire and Jonagold, which had received national and international fame. What I love about this award and the recognition is it’s of the research community recognizing that a plant breeding invention has benefited the industry.
And so I was surprised. I did not know it had been nominated. It’s from other dar Cornellians that supported it. But it just really was a wonderful recognition because some people don’t really think about the value of plant patents or plant inventions.
This is something that I do when I go to grower organizations. I’ve worked with the grandfathers, the fathers, now the grandkids. And, you know, they were very excited about having a variety that represents two varieties that represent New York and the fact that they’re growing them and they’re seeing the recognition.
Maureen: That’s wonderful. And they can only be grown in New York state, right? The Ruby Frost and the SnapDragon.
Susan: Right now they are being grown by some roadside stands because roadside stands give you a really good feeling for the consumer recognition. And so they are test marketing in Michigan, Ohio, Connecticut, and other areas.
Maureen: Interesting. Gotcha. But leading up to now, it’s only been New York State. Right? Got it. So how do you go about the name? How do you name a new variety?
Susan: We have, it’s been interesting. So if I looked at the history of it, I was speaking to a Webster science class. And in the past, we were naming them after Indian tribes, after towns, after counties in New York state. So there’s a Webster apple for the town of Webster. And this is where I recognize that I’m a great researcher, but I’m a lousy marketer.
So they were giving out names. And when I first saw SnapDragon, I was like, as a horticulturist, that’s a flower. But then the brilliant idea of an S logo and the dragon and the monster crunch and with RubyFrost, imparting the crispness and the snow white flesh.
And it was brilliant. I would never come up with it. I mean, we’ve come up with some names that have been mixed, but I loved the impact and John Russell in Wayne County was instrumental in fighting for SnapDragon as a name and he was absolutely right.
Maureen: So Cornell in the case of SnapDragon and Ruby Frost went outside to get those named, whereas in some cases you’re pulling from historical references to name something new.
Susan: Historical references, sometimes we do suggestions from people, but it’s always like their kid’s name or, you In the case of Jonagold, the breeder combined the two names, so Jonathan and Golden. So John and Gold are from the two parents’ names, but there’s some awful names in the history of apples.
There’s some wonderful ones like Seek No Further, and then one of my least favorite is there’s a delicious sport called Adam’s Apple. And it was supposed to tie in with Adam and Eve, but just reminds me of a lump on your throat.
Maureen: Interesting. Well, it’s an important thing, right? Because it has to be, there’s a lot that a name has to do, especially when it comes to produce, right? That it has to be something that’s memorable, that you can seek in the store, that can have an identity that aligns with it.
Susan: It’s distinctive.
Maureen: And so I do think that whoever created those, those identities, not just the names, but the identities across the board with the dragon that is SnapDragon and you know, the S and everything like you mentioned is such an important component of the big picture. Think of, you another one that we, my family actively seeks out in the produce aisle is the sumo oranges, right? They’ve got a very unique look. They’re known by name. Yes, exactly. Yeah.
Susan: Right. it’s, you know, we, it takes money to work with marketers, but it pays in the long run for sure.
Maureen: I couldn’t agree more. What are some of the new developments in the apple industry that are coming down the pike that you’re excited about?
Susan: You’re going to see in the marketplace, red-fleshed apples. Now in 1950, Roger Way had released apples with red flesh and the thought was that they might be more nutritional.
Maureen: Red fleshed?
Susan: I’m not sure. There’s some wonderful marketers of apples that are putting money behind this, but I give red-fleshed apples to classes when they come to visit and everybody’s always intrigued.
There can be an astringency or acidity associated with it that makes me think that this will be more of a novelty than a home run, but I’ve been wrong before. So I wasn’t sure about Rockit. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen them. They sell them in like, it looks like a plastic sleeve of tennis balls. And I was like, they’ll never make it in the marketplace. And $8 million later, I was proven wrong.
So we’re going to try to develop apples with better nutritional components. So there are some things called, fancy name, dihydrochalcones. But they’re very beneficial for glucose metabolism and diabetes.
We did a big study. This was my PhD student, Ben Gutierrez, who is now the curator of the USDA collection that keeps an entire collection of rare materials that readers can use.
So to kind of tie into that, the germplasm repository, a lot of people are like, well, we’ve lost genetic diversity. But here at Cornell and at the USDA, they’ve invested a lot of money to make sure some really rare things are kept.
We want to produce apples that are more nutritious, that brown less. So RubyFrost is an example of an apple that does not brown when it’s been cut.
We also have some unusual ones. So this is from last year, but it’s a full russeted apple. It’ll be interesting. Yeah, so russet is just a little tan, kind of like cork cells. So I think this is distinctive.
Maureen: It’s a brownish, yellowish brownish color.
Susan: The quality is phenomenal, but a lot of the growers are like, we used to throw those things out. So it’ll be interesting to see what, you know, consumers, how they react to, we’re going to do some sensory panels.
We have apples that combine some really unique flavors that people aren’t used to. And I think that we hope to grab their attention. So for baking, it’s going to give you a different profile completely.
There’s some that have a hint of anise that you either love or hate. And we also are producing some of the smaller size apples that children will like.
I think that there’s room for a lot of bolder flavors and eating experiences, but it’s a delicate balance. So I can create a really crisp apple, but if it’s too hard, people can’t eat it.
We had one that you could press a knife to the surface and it would pop open kind of like, and it would never go anywhere commercially, but there was a researcher that just loved to do that all the time.
Maureen: I think that it’s interesting that you’re pointing back to quality. It is and it isn’t like, it’s not a surprise, right? And that’s what we talk about with any of the food and beverage brands that we’re working with, that it has to be ‘taste first’.
I don’t care what it is. If it’s to be consumed, it must first taste good.
That’s what you’re speaking about with quality is that it has to be an enjoyable experience for the end result. Now that doesn’t mean that it has to be, has to work as a fresh eating apple in every scenario, right?
It can be optimized for baking and that sort of thing, but it has to be ‘taste first’ and foremost. I mean, it’s just, it’s a must be. And anytime I talk to a consumer packaged goods (CPG) brand that’s trying to launch something, that’s the first thing I say. Everything else can come after.
Are you sure that the taste and the quality is top notch?
Susan: And the consistency to make sure that wherever it’s grown, it’s the same consistency.
That’s something that we really stress because if it’s grown in another environment and isn’t as good… Get quality consistency.
When we started doing studies, we found that if a person ate a bad apple, they remember it as worse than it was. And then they switched to citrus or bananas or something else.
And if they eat a great apple, they don’t remember it as quite as great as it is. So that really puts you under the, you know, under the microscope in terms of how do we do this?
But I also want to stress that, you know, I’m talking a lot about our program. Kevin Maloney, who lives in Phelps, New York, is a wonderful person. He’s my research support specialist.
Maureen: Yeah, isn’t that interesting?
Susan: He’s actively doing a lot of the field operations and lab work. I’ve had graduate students, our field research group at Geneva is amazing. And so I’m talking about our program, but it benefits from the collaboration of just a slew of.
Maureen: Certainly, yeah. And I think that’s an important point to make. in my mind, it’s a given, right? I’m talking to you, but you have a bench of collaborators there that make your work possible. I think that’s with anybody, but it’s an important note.
And you mentioned consistency and like the growing environment too. And I think for any agricultural product, that’s something that can be, is of course an important consideration and can be real, too, in terms of that consumer demand that we were talking about.
If we think also about wine, or hemp, the cannabis industry is another one that is very, very influenced by the soil in which it’s grown and the environment in which it’s grown in.
So how do you plan for that when you’re doing plant breeding to release something? Do you do studies in other environments to see how it will grow in New York compared to Texas?
Susan: We concentrate on New York first, but even when you think about New York, how diverse it is. We have the Champlain Valley, we have the Hudson Valley, we have Western New York.
And so as part of the New York Farm Viability Institute, we put in a proposal to fast track apple releases and we put out material in different grower trials. And then all of a sudden you’re getting a phone call saying, wait a minute,you know, try this apple.
And so for SnapDragon, Steve Clark’s dad had picked one and he said, this is the best apple I’ve ever had. But he couldn’t remember which tree he had picked it from.
When you start hearing that over and over, but similarly, you might see something’s more prone to russet or it’s more prone to this disorder. So we got really valuable information.
Then we got buy-in from the growers and we’re continuing to do those types of tests. And then once a variety gets released, we test it.
So SnapDragon and RubyFrost are being planted in many different countries and are performing well in some places you wouldn’t expect.
Maureen: And so how does that information get collected and then syndicated back to growers who may want to think about, okay, I just, let’s say I want to convert, you know, my property to an apple farm and I’m trying to decide what is the best to put in the ground. How do I get that information?
Susan: Yeah, so Cornell Cooperative Extension is an agency that works. There are faculty, some are staff here. They work to disseminate information from our program.
But the other thing is we have something called the Fruit Quarterly released by the New York State Horticulture Society. Every researcher that does research has to publish in that journal.
It goes to every grower in New York state and Michigan. And I routinely do an update on new varieties and what’s out there. And that’s one of my most popular publications. Now, we can do a research publication that takes four years and, but this is something that gets read worldwide.
Maureen: Right. And is it new? You mentioned New York and Michigan. Is that because the growing environments are so similar?
Susan: Because the growing environments are similar, but also because they also have a state program that provides funding for research. And so they didn’t want to reinvent the wheel, they decided to partner with us.
Maureen: I love that. I love when that happens too, when two organizations that could be competitors really if they wanted to be, but choose to collaborate instead for the benefit of the industry. Love to see that. Last question for you. Can you tell me about a high moment and a low moment from your career? What comes to mind?
Susan:
Hmm. I’ve had a lot of high moments, which is wonderful.
In terms of a low moment, I formed a partnership. I have to be careful what I say. I formed a partnership where I thought we were going to partner with a company and really good things would happen. And when the announcement came out, it was more of a control situation than a win-win. And I had to do damage control. But I learned from it.
High moments are probably my students graduating, giving career advice to somebody and finding out that it changed their life. Because I said, follow your dreams. And I’m blessed. This has been an amazing career, which is why I’m still working after 39 years. But it’s been amazing.
Maureen: I think that it’s great to hear both sides of that. You’re clearly big on collaboration with how much it means to you to be able to have students come circle back and say what an impact you made on their lives. There’s a book, I believe by Adam Grant called Give and Take. Have you read that? Highly recommend.
Susan: No, but I will.
Maureen: It’s the philosophy that there are givers who just want to give to give and there are takers who seek every opportunity to take and collect things for themselves. And there are in some cases people who are a little bit of both, but generally people are at their core one or the other.
I always enjoy meeting another giver. I can see that in you. And I think it’s also one of the reasons why you’re able to thrive in your work because it takes such a collaborative thing to work across this ecosystem and agriculture.
Susan: My favorite quote is, I’ve been warmed by fires I did not build and I’ve drunk from wells that I did not dig. And that’s what my predecessors did and that’s what I hope to do going forward.
But this is a very giving community and when I came and I looked like I was about 10, I had professors that were very generous in teaching me or letting me use equipment. The growing community has been wonderful. So if I can pay back a fraction, that’s wonderful.
Maureen: Well,you’re clearly doing that. Thank you for joining me today. This was a fascinating conversation. I look forward to continuing to see the developments from you and the team at Cornell and watching the apple industry continue to evolve.