A 20-year quest to bring back Colorado’s rarest apple that was once thought lost
William Woody/For the Colorado Sun
The Colorado Orange apple is back.
The fruits of more than 20 years of sleuthing, DNA testing and slogging through a long-forgotten archive of apple drawings and wax casts have appeared in a Western Slope orchard and a northern Colorado tree nursery. And possibly on trees planted here and there in backyards and orchards across the state.
You won’t find them on store shelves or in bushels at farmers markets just yet, but the next stages of testing this almost-lost heirloom apple are underway.
Unfortunately, the first reported bites of the apple did not spark joy.
“It was sweet, but not very exciting,” said Steve Ela of Ela Family Farms in Hotchkiss.
Read more at ColoradoSun.com
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