MOLALLA, Ore. — On a modest farm southeast of Portland, volunteers nurture thousands of cuttings taken from a world class collection of obscure apple varieties.
Their goal is to copy the eclectic collection and sustain its genetic diversity before its aging owner retires, sells or the collection falls into disarray.
The volunteers, roused through such groups as the Home Orchard Society, have found unexpected allies: Hipster hard cider makers, whose booming industry seeks the bitter-sweet or even bitter-tart flavors of old heirloom apples, not the Honeycrisp, Fuji or the half-dozen other fresh-eating varieties most commonly sold in grocery stores.
“The cider makers have found the older varieties produce the complex, multi-layered flavors they need,” said Joanie Cooper, who owns the Molalla farm where the orchard collection is being established. “The new ones are just sweet and don’t add character to cider.”
“All of this makes sense,” said Pete Mulligan, a key project supporter and partner in Bull Run Cider outside of Portland. “This is the fastest growing adult beverage in the country.”
At the root of this collaboration is the renowned Botner Collection in Yoncalla, Ore., which was established by amateur horticulturist Nick Botner and his wife, Carla. Trading and exchanging with other private and public collectors over several decades, Nick Botner gathered an estimated 4,000 apple varieties from around the world, including from old pioneer homesteads in the U.S. He grows them on his farm.
But the farm is for sale. Cooper, who’s long been active in the Home Orchard Society, said Botner, near 90, told her, “You need to buy my farm. Move down here and save my trees.”
That wasn’t feasible. In addition, Cooper said the farm is not commercially viable, because in many cases Botner has only one tree per variety.
In 2011, intending to preserve the genetic diversity represented in the Botners’ orchard, Cooper and others set out to duplicate it.
In 2012, Cooper formed a non-profit, the Temperate Orchard Conservancy, and began the effort to plant the copied varieties on Almaty Farm, her 40-acre property outside of Molalla. Cooper said the farm will distribute cuttings to other orchardists.
“We have big and broad plans,” she said. “This isn’t going to be a static collection.”
It is tedious work. Volunteers take cuttings, called scions, and graft them to root stock. They’re grown out in pots under shade cloth before being planted at Cooper’s farm. The non-profit eventually will take over the property, Cooper said. Down the road, the conservancy may be able to help support itself by selling trees.
Each tree wears a metal tag with identification drawn from Botner’s eclectic records: Common name, planting block and row number.
The varieties range from Muscaset de Lense, a French cider apple, to Huvitus, which originated in Finland. Others are identified as Glass King, Lyman Prolific, Kensei, Harlamowski, Joy’s Delight and Marlin Stephens.
“Most of these, you wouldn’t know what they are,” Cooper said.
So far, volunteers have copied about 3,000 of the estimated 4,000 varieties in the collection.
The USDA maintains an apple variety collection in Geneva, N.Y., but the Botner collection holds some that aren’t found there. Cooper said the conservancy has a different mission.
“They have a collection, but their goal is not to save every heirloom variety,” Cooper said. “Ours is.”
The work wins cheers from Joseph Postman, who curates the USDA’s pear collection outside of Corvallis, Ore.
Grocery chains primarily sell four or five apple varieties, and lack of diversity is a genetic vulnerability, Postman said. Having access to hundreds opens the market to local products, he said.
The alcoholic fruit drink industry is pushing the renewed interest in varieties that aren’t widely grown commercially, Postman said. Over the past dozen years, most of the requests Postman’s received for pear cuttings come from “perry” makers. Perry is to pears as cider is to apples.
At Bull Run Cider in Forest Grove out side of Portland, Mulligan and partner Galen Williams make hard cider, maintain their own orchard and sell trees to other orchardists.
It’s critical the industry grow its own cider varieties as soon as possible, Mulligan said. Some cideries now make do with juiced dessert apples, he said.
Cooper, the non-profit Temperate Orchard Conservancy founder and owner of Almaty Farm, said her interest began when she realized the rural property she owned years ago near Amity, Ore., had remnants of an orchard planted in the late 1880s. She sought identification and was entranced by the long-forgotten varieties.
She’s transplanted that fervor to her new farm, Amaty. The farm name comes from a city in Kazakhstan and reportedly means “full of apples.” The region is often described as the birthplace of modern apples, and so the name appeals to Cooper.
“That’s what I call it,” she said.