Written by Meaghan Mechler
As we all settle into the quiet of winter, more distant from our past growing season than our future one, perhaps you share my bewilderment reflecting on 2025. Ontario is no stranger to big weather swings, but this year has moved more like whiplash. April brought us record colds; May brought record heat; July was hazy with smoke; September was cold and wet; October was hot and dry; and November was cold and wet. While this ride provokes many deep emotions, one surprising feeling is gratitude. Specifically, gratitude for heirloom fruits. The cultivars that have ridden alongside us through generations of shifts and uncertainty, and who show the most promise to ride out our next chapters of change.
Heirloom cultivars are our fruits that have been grown and shared generation-to-generation. Generally, earning that title after 50 years, though some are as old as 450 AD. They have distinct characteristics (flavour, appearance, historical usage, etc.) and heritage that is important to regional, ethnic, and family groups. Heirloom cultivars’ genes reflect not only the conditions of their environmental birthplace but the preferences and needs of the people who cherished them enough to graft and reseed. Through the selections made during their movement through time and place, lineages developed deep breadth of genetic diversity. Genes that showed resilience amid change are passed down in heirlooms.
Heirloom fruits tell us much about our history, and also rise to the challenges of our future in ways the narrow pool of modern cultivars simply cannot. Commercial agriculture has favoured high-yielding, uniform cultivars that store similarly, resulting in 80-90% of fruit and vegetable varieties being discarded in the 20th century (Testolin et al., 2019). Although commercially abandoned, heirloom species have survived in the margins, shared among fruit lovers, and hidden in old, forgotten orchards. These cultivars, once discarded, are becoming increasingly important for food security.
Since 1920, nearly all apple cultivars can be traced back to six ancestors: ‘Golden Delicious,’ ‘Cox’s Orange Pippin,’ ‘Jonathan,’ ‘McIntosh,’ ‘Red Delicious,’ and ‘James Grieve’ (Aoun, 2024; Bannier, 2011). Six apples cannot come close to carrying the treasure trove of traits held amongst over 7,000 known culinary apple cultivars. Apples, like all fruit crops, exhibit an extraordinary diversity of traits that have been selectively shaped over millennia of climate shifts, disease and pest adaptations, and human needs (Jain et al., 2023). Heirlooms, which pull from deeper gene pools, demonstrate higher fitness, vigour, and resistance to disease and environmental change (Bannier, 2011; Dan et al., 2015). Heirlooms hold within them and use traits that we may need more and more, offering hope for resilient food crops.
Heirlooms carry genes that have been collected over millennia of temperature rise and fall, of precipitation shifts, of the emergence of new diseases and pests. People carried fruit across continents and oceans and latitudes, asking them to adapt and change with each new landscape. Change and uncertainty are as much at the core of heirloom's DNA as nutrition, flavour, and abundance. This year, it was uncertain what each month would bring, and the events of the next year are even more uncertain. Vaguely, we know that temperatures will rise, precipitation patterns will shift, and each month will have its new extreme event. But we also know heirlooms will remember the gifts they carry; they will remember how to overcome drought stress, how to tolerate cold snaps, how to close a wound quickly. I have immense gratitude for these trees that can feed us and grow alongside us through the extremes and changes of next season and the many seasons to follow.
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Many of the apples we offer are scions grafted from the trees my grandfather planted on our family farm. My grandfather had a love of heirlooms and saw every tree he planted as a gift to his grandchildren’s grandchildren. The heirlooms we offer are legacies of his love for those who came before him, and for generations of children he would never meet. While a few of our apples trace their roots back to the 1920s Big Six, three special and diverse cultivars from my family farm deserve a spotlight. Milwaukee, Tangowine, and Paten Greening.
Milwaukee is an open-pollinated change seedling discovered on a farm in Wisconsin in the late 1800s. Milwaukee’s lineage can be traced back to only one ancestor, Duchess, a cold-hardy Russian apple. It is an exceptional apple for drying, baking, and cider. Tangowine is another chance seedling, discovered in the 1960s on a farm in New Brunswick. It is my mom’s favourite apple for its sweet, tangy flavour, beautiful, deep burgundy skin, and red-streaked flesh. Finally, the once thought to be an extinct cultivar, Paten Greening. Paten Greening is a chance seedling discovered and cherished by Midwest farmers who needed winter-hardy apples. This fruit was rediscovered in 2018 on my family farm, following a Canadian author’s yearlong hunt for the missing cultivar. Widely thought to be extinct, our family had one remaining Paten Greening, originally purchased in 1988 from Corn Hill Nursery in New Brunswick. Paten Greening has proven to be a hard cultivar to sell, as hardly anyone knows it. It can be enjoyed fresh, but it was most excellent in cider mixes.
So if you're feeling anxious about the year ahead and the projections for summer 2026 and beyond, consider planting heirlooms as an act of hope. Matt and I would be happy to chat about your growing situation and help you figure out which trees will be a good fit for you.
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(Dr.) Meaghan Mechler is an agroecologist and recent PhD graduate from the University of Guelph. She studied in Dr.John Cline's Pomology lab, looking at how to use beneficial microbes and the right rootstock to prevent Apple Replant Disease. Meaghan has been working with the Urban Orchardist since 2023 and also teaches botany, ecology, and crop science courses at Toronto Metropolitan University and the University of Guelph.
References
Anastasiadi, M. Et al. (2017). Biochemical Profile of Heritage and Modern Apple Cultivars and Application of Machine Learning Methods To Predict Usage, Age, and Harvest Season. Journal of Agriculture and Food Chemistry. 65(26), https://pubs-acs-org.ezproxy.lib.torontomu.ca/doi/10.1021/acs.jafc.7b00500
Aoun, M. (2023). Unlocking heirloom diversity: a pathway to bridging global challenges in modern apple cultivation. Front. Hortic. 17(2), https://doi.org/10.3389/fhort.2023.1268970.
Dan C., Sestras A. F., Bozdog C., Sestras R. E. (2015). Investigation of wild species potential to increase genetic diversity useful for apple breeding. Genetika. 47(3), 993–1011. doi: 10.2298/GENSR1503993D
Jain, S. et al. (2023). Preserving for the Future: The Critical Role of Germplasm Conservation in Fruit Crop Resilience. International Journal of Environment and Climate Change. 13 (11), 4651-4661.
Testolin, R., et al. (2019). Genotyping apple (Malus x domestica Borkh.) heirloom germplasm collected and maintained by the Regional Administration of Friuli Venezia Giulia (Italy). Sci. Hortic. 252, 229-237. doi: 10.1016/j.scienta.2019.03.06