The University of Saskatchewan has been breeding apples since the 1920s. In the last 25 years, we have grown 35,000 seedlings and selected the best for further use in our breeding program. In most recent years, enhanced cold hardiness, fruit quality, and storage life have been used as criteria for selecting the next generation of prairie apples.

Growing apples gardening at usask link

U of S Apple Introductions

These are apple cultivars selected from U of S seedlings in the last 20 years. Only those listed as 'U of S Introductions' are recommended by the U of S Fruit Program. Others have been named by the former Prairie Apple Producers Inc. (PAPI).

-U of S Cultivar Introductions


-U of S Seedlings Named By PAPI

Popular Prairie Apple Cultivars

If you live on the Canadian prairies, and there's an apple growing in your backyard, then there's a good chance that apple is on this list. These are the apples that have survived on the prairies, despite our cold prairie winters and hot dry summers.

Seedlings

The term 'seedling' can be ambiguous. Young fruit trees are often referred to as 'seedlings', but fruit trees used commercially or grown in your backyard are never grown from seed. Desirable fruit quality and growth habits are preserved by using vegetative propagation, which makes exact copies or clones of the mother plant. So when we or any other fruit research organization refer to seedlings, we are describing trees that have been grown from seed. These seeds are the careful product of time-consuming controlled crosses, where the pollen used to fertilize the flower is carefully chosen in order to produce the most desirable offspring. 

Rootstocks

The foundation for all apple trees. Apples are not propagated on their own roots but are grafted onto a rootstock. This has many advantages. It allows apples to be put on dwarfing, disease-resistant, or hardy rootstock. It also allows propagators to take immature plants that are growing vegetatively for years before fruiting and graft mature material that will fruit much sooner allowing the grower to harvest fruit off of a much smaller tree.

Articles

Resources

 

Prairie Fruit Genebank

The University of Saskatchewan has a long history of apple breeding. Some of our breeding stock was recieved as early as 1920 and some more recent additions have come from as far away as China.

Our collection includes:

Adanac
Amur Red
Andersen
Battleford
Brightness
Brookland
Carlos Queen
Chipman
Columbia
Dauphin
Dawn
Dolgo
Edith Smith
Exeter
Florence
Garnet 
Goodland
Haralson
Harvester
Heyer #6
Heyer #12
Heyer #20
Honeycrisp
Kerr
Kingscourt
Lasiuk #2
Minn #447
Minn #1695
Norcue
Noret
Norhey
Norkent VF (SX97-02)
Norland (PF #6)
Norson
Parkland (PF #26)
Patterson
PF#5
Prolific
Quality Crab
Quinte
Rosthern #18
Rutherford
September Ruby
SK Prairie Sun
Sunnybrook
Trail
Trailman
Transcendent Crab
Wealthy
West Education Hardy Selection (WEHS)*
WestlandFruit crops/Westland.pdf
Winter Queen
Northland Crab
Minn #1694
Minn #1727
Minn #1728
Minn #1767
Klimchuck
OP Rosybloom
Fuchsia Girl
M-7820
PF50 (Fall Red)
PF44
PF10
PF47(Red Sparkle)
PF12
Green Delicious x OP(seedlings)
Bibby
Renown
Unity
?Robin?
Rescue 
PF51 x Sept. Ruby
Coutt #252
Coutts #115
Gemini (Coutts # 121)
Trusevitch 11-14-50
Simonette #1847
Quincy
OP Thunderchild (seedlings)
Thunderchild x WC #1 (seedlings)
WC #1 x Thunderchild (seedlings)
Centennial Crab
Belle du Quebec
Red Baron

 

Complete List of Apple Germplasm