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CapitalPress.com
November 27, 2015
People & Places
Quest for the best apple
By DAN WHEAT
Capital Press
WENATCHEE, Wash. —
When Kate Evans was a little
girl in Sheffield, England, she
enjoyed pulling apart plants in
her parents’ garden.
She was seeing how they
were made. She was looking for
flower and leaf buds.
“My parents were fine with
it. We had lots of flowers. There
were enough to spare,” she says
with a smile.
Forty years later, she’s devel-
oped and manages what is argu-
ably the most advanced apple
breeding program in the world.
It’s the first to use DNA testing
for fruit quality, in other words
aimed at the best firmness, crisp-
ness, juiciness, flavor, sweetness
and storability of apples.
Some European apple
breeding programs were first
in applying DNA testing to dis-
ease resistance, she said.
Evans came to the Washing-
ton State University Tree Fruit
Research and Extension Center
in Wenatchee seven years ago
as an associate professor of hor-
ticulture and pome fruit (fruit
produced by flowering plants)
breeder and head of the center’s
apple breeding program. She
succeeded Bruce Barritt who
retired and had started the pro-
gram 14 years earlier.
Evans had her doctorate in
plant molecular biology and
had spent 16 years leading apple
and pear breeding programs for
East Malling Research, in En-
gland.
When she arrived in
Wenatchee, the center’s ap-
ple breeding program was just
heading toward DNA testing.
“It was in its absolute in-
fancy, so a lot of the work
I’ve focused on is how to use
that technology to develop the
logistics of the application be-
cause it has to be 100 percent
accurate regarding the trace-
ability of the data to the indi-
vidual seedlings,” she said.
“When you use the data,
you remove or throw away the
seedling. So it’s terminal se-
lection. If you make a mistake
and throw away the wrong one,
you’ve wasted everything,” she
said.
DNA testing is done at seed-
ling selection stage and prior
to that in selecting the most ef-
ficient parent combinations to
produce desired characteristics.
Previously, parents were
chosen for their general fruit
and tree characteristics, but with
DNA genetic markers parents
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Kate Evans, Washington State University apple breeder, looks at fruit from breeding selections at the WSU Tree Fruit Research and
Extension Center, Wenatchee, Wash., Nov. 17. The apples came out of cold storage and were brought to room temperature for a week
before being measured for firmness, crispness, flavor and juiciness.
can be better selected to reduce
the number of poor progeny. A
genetic marker is a gene or short
sequence of DNA that’s a good
indicator of a specific trait or
characteristic.
“You can have markers for
single traits, markers for multi-
ple traits and several markers for
the same trait. Not often is a trait
controlled by a single gene,” she
said.
“We know acidity is pre-
dominately controlled by two
major genes, but for other more
complicated characteristics the
DNA tests only explain a por-
tion of the overall characteris-
tic,” Evans said.
A lot of research is going into
identifying more DNA markers.
But it is slow work. The US-
DA-funded RosBREED project
led by geneticists Amy Lezzoni,
professor of plant breeding at
Michigan State University and
Cameron Peace, associate pro-
fessor of horticulture at WSU in
Pullman, is making progress.
Quality and storability are
the overriding targets of the
WSU apple breeding program.
Producers want fruit that pleases
consumers and stores well for
year-long sales.
More specifically, Evans
uses DNA testing to aim for
desired levels of flavor or sweet-
ness versus tartness (sugar ver-
sus acidity), firmness, texture
Western Innovator
Kate Evans
Age: 49
Born and raised: Sheffield, England
Family: Husband, Peter Smytheman,
entomologist and research intern
WSUTFREC. Children: Thomas, 16; Chloe, 15; Luke, 12; and
Mathew , 10.
Education: Bachelor’s in genetics and plant biology, Leeds Uni-
versity, Leeds, England, 1988; doctorate in plant molecular biology
from Durham University, Durham, England, 1991.
Occupation: associate professor horticulture and pome (fruit pro-
duced by flowering plants) fruit breeder, WSU Tree Fruit Research
and Extension Center, Wenatchee, Wash.
Work History: Senior research leader responsible for commercial
and strategic apple and pear breeding at East Malling Research,
East Malling, Kent, England, 1992-2008.
and ripening.
It takes about 18 years from
crossing parents for hybrid seed
to reach commercial release of a
new variety.
“The DNA technology is
more focused on efficiency than
speed, but in five years we may
be at a point of having sufficient
DNA markers for important
characteristics that we will be
able to take out one of the se-
lection phases and save three to
four years,” Evans said.
Three new varieties were
released from the program in
recent years, all from Barritt’s
breeding. WA 2 didn’t gain
traction in the industry because
By JOHN O’CONNELL
Capital Press
there was no commercial name
and companies were leery of
marketing a variety that could
end up with multiple names. WA
5 had some long-term storabili-
ty issues. WA 38, released over
the past several years, was giv-
en the name Cosmic CrispTM
by WSU in 2014. Proprietary
Variety Management, a Yakima
company that specializes in va-
riety management, is assisting
WSU with the apple.
Nurseries budded trees
this past fall and there may-
be 500,000 trees, instead of
300,000, divvied out to grow-
ers by lottery for planting in the
spring of 2017, Evans said.
“I’ve heard more than 1 mil-
lion are on order for 2018, so
that’s high industry interest,”
Evans said.
Any apple released by WSU
has to be available to all grow-
ers. That’s in contrast with the
trend of recent years of apple
companies gaining exclusive
North American rights to Euro-
pean and other foreign varieties
and managing them with their
own growers.
There’s value in the pro-
gram producing varieties for all
Washington growers and vari-
eties suitable for Washington’s
climate, Evans said.
WA 38 was bred from Enter-
prise and Honeycrisp in 1997 by
Barritt. It has great sweet, tangy
flavor and great texture and
beauty, Evans said. It has many
qualities of the popular Honey-
crisp but with fewer horticultur-
al challenges, she said.
Evans said she doesn’t know
when the next variety will be re-
leased. Four selections are in the
final phase but they may or may
not reach release, she said.
Beside the apple program,
Evans is starting a pear root-
stock breeding program.
“One of the major challenges
is the lack of a dwarfing, preco-
cious, cold-hardy rootstock that
would enable the pear industry
to move into modern orchard
production systems,” she said.
John O’Connell/Capital Press
Jim and Carol Guthrie feed cattle together at their Inkom, Idaho,
ranch. The couple will receive the prestigious President’s Cup
award on Dec. 2 during the Idaho Farm Bureau Federation’s
annual banquet.
dent’s Cup award during Ida-
ho Farm Bureau Federation’s
annual banquet.
Idaho Farm Bureau spokes-
man John Thompson said the
state board makes nomina-
tions for the President’s Cup,
a lifetime achievement award
recognizing extraordinary ser-
vice to state agriculture.
“Their leadership has
been up there with the very
best people we’ve ever had,”
Thompson said.
Jim became active in
Farm Bureau shortly before
his wife, when he ran for the
Bannock County board at the
encouragement of his son,
Doug, a Farm Bureau agent.
Jim has served on the coun-
ty board ever since, and has
worked especially hard in
supporting the organization’s
efforts to protect private prop-
erty rights.
Jim encouraged his son,
Sen. Jim Guthrie, R-McCam-
mon, to introduce a bill in
the state Legislature barring
greenbelt trail organizations
from condemning private
property to complete trails.
The bill passed last year.
More recently, Guthrie lob-
bied in support of land own-
ers who successfully stopped
a county proposal to forcibly
validate easements to access
public land through their pri-
vate property.
“This year has probably
been the busiest year we’ve
had on account of private
property rights,” Jim said.
Carol went on to be elect-
ed to the district and then
state Farm Bureau boards.
When she joined the state
organization, she said 19
counties had active women’s
committees. All but three
counties had active women’s
committees when she left the
state board last year, having
been elected to serve with
American Farm Bureau Fed-
eration. Carol said Farm Bu-
reau President Bob Stallman
likes to utilize women in lob-
bying, convinced lawmakers
are more swayed by their ar-
guments.
“Where men are all busi-
ness, women have a personal
story about how a bill is go-
ing to affect their families,”
Carol said.
Carol and Jim recent-
ly attended the American
Agri-Women Conference in
Maine, where groundwork
was laid for a coalition of
women from various farm
groups to work toward com-
mon goals.
On their ranch, the Guth-
ries carved a unique niche,
specializing in roping cattle,
which they leased for roping
competitions in four states.
They also built an expansive,
indoor arena to host roping
competitions. In recent years,
they’ve scaled back the rop-
ing business, shifting toward
beef cattle, but still host an
occasional event.
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Index
California .............................. 10
Dairy .................................... 15
Idaho ...................................... 9
Livestock ............................. 14
Markets ............................... 16
Opinion .................................. 6
Oregon .................................. 8
Washington ..........................11
Correction policy
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Convention Center, Portland, 503-
595-9121.
Friday, Nov. 20
Tuesday-Thursday
Dec. 1-3
Agri-Business Council of Ore-
gon Denim & Diamonds Auction,
Dinner & Awards, 5 p.m. Oregon
Established 1928
Board of directors
Mike Forrester ..........................President
Steve Forrester
Kathryn Brown
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Corporate officer
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Chief operating officer
Idaho couple to be honored for years of Farm Bureau service
INKOM,
Idaho
—
Throughout the past two
decades, Carol Guthrie has
served in all levels of Farm
Bureau Federation, working
to get women more involved
in the organization’s activi-
ties.
When she was first ap-
pointed as Bannock County
Farm Bureau’s women’s lead-
ership chair, Carol and the
county president’s wife were
the lone women organizing
essay and speech contests and
other efforts to promote ag-
ricultural awareness in their
community.
Nowadays, however, Ban-
nock County has arguably the
state’s most active women’s
committee, thanks to a poli-
cy Guthrie helped implement
requiring couples to join the
county Farm Bureau board
together.
Fittingly, Carol and her
husband, Jim, will be honored
as a couple on Dec. 2 in Fort
Hall when they’re presented
with the prestigious Presi-
Capital Press
Friday-Saturday
Nov. 27-28
Open Alpaca Barn, Alpacas of
Oregon, Sherwood, 503-628-2023.
Idaho Farm Bureau 2015 An-
nual Meeting, Shoshone Bannock
Hotel, Fort Hall, Idaho.
Saturday-Wednesday
Dec. 5-9
California Farm Bureau Federa-
tion 97th Annual Meeting, Pepper-
mill Resort and Spa Casino, Reno,
Nev.
Monday-Tuesday
Dec. 7-8
Oregon Seed Growers League
Annual Meeting, Salem Conference
Center, Salem, 503-364-1673.
Tuesday-Thursday
Dec. 8-10
Oregon Farm Bureau Annual
Meeting, Sun River, Ore., http://
www.oregonfb.org/events/
Sunday-Wednesday
Jan. 10-13
American Farm Bureau Annual
Convention, Orlando, Fla.
Tuesday-Thursday
Jan. 12-14
Potato Expo 2016, Mirage Hotel
and Casino, Las Vegas.
Thursday-Friday
Jan. 14-15
Oregon Mint Growers 67th An-
nual Meeting, Salishan Lodge &
Golf Resort, Gleneden Beach.
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