Apples are also made into apple butter and apple jelly

Apples are also made into apple butter and apple jelly. They are also used (cooked) in meat dishes.In the UK, a toffee apple is a traditional confection made by coating an apple in hot toffee and allowing it to cool. Similar treats in the U.S. are candy apples (coated in a hard shell of crystallized sugar syrup), and caramel apples, HP Pavilion dv6-3125er Laptop CPU Cooling Fan coated with cooledcaramel.Apples are eaten with honey at the Jewish New Year of Rosh Hashanah to symbolize a sweet new year.Farms with apple orchards may open them to the public, so consumers may themselves pick the apples they will purchase. Sliced apples turn brown with exposure to air due to the conversion of natural phenolic substances into melanin upon exposure to oxygen.^[64HP 606575-001 Laptop CPU Cooling Fan ^] Different cultivars vary in their propensity to brown after slicing^[65] and the genetically engineered Arctic Apples do not brown. Sliced fruit can be treated with acidulated waterto prevent this effect. Organic apples are commonly produced in the United States.^[66]  HP Pavilion dv7-6185us Laptop CPU Cooling Fan Organic production is difficult in Europe, though a few orchards have done so with commercial success,^[66] using disease-resistant cultivars. A light coating of kaolin, which forms a physical barrier to some pests, also helps prevent apple sun scalding. One form of apple allergy, often found in northern Europe, is called birch-apple syndrome, and is found in people who are also allergic to birch pollen.^[67DELL DFS491105MH0T Laptop CPU Cooling Fan ^] Allergic reactions are triggered by a protein in apples that is similar to birch pollen, and people affected by this protein can also develop allergies to other fruits, nuts, and vegetables. Reactions, which entailoral allergy syndrome (OAS), generally involve itching and inflammation of the mouth and throat,^[67] but in rare cases can also include life-threatening anaphylaxis.^[68] HP 532613-001 Laptop CPU Cooling Fan This reaction only occurs when raw fruit is consumed—the allergen is neutralized in the cooking process. The variety of apple, maturity and storage conditions can change the amount of allergen present in individual fruits. Long storage times can increase the amount of proteins that cause birch-apple syndrome. Compaq Presario CQ60-417DX Laptop CPU Cooling Fan In other areas, such as the Mediterranean, some individuals have adverse reactions to apples because of their similarity to peaches.^[67] This form of apple allergy also includes OAS, but often has more severe symptoms, such as vomiting, abdominal pain and urticaria, and can be life-threatening. HP Pavilion dv7-3060us Laptop CPU Cooling Fan Individuals with this form of allergy can also develop reactions to other fruits and nuts. Cooking does not break down the protein causing this particular reaction, so affected individuals can eat neither raw nor cooked apples. Freshly harvested, over-ripe fruits tend to have the highest levels of the protein that causes this reaction.^[67]  HP KSB06105HA Laptop CPU Cooling Fan Breeding efforts have yet to produce a hypoallergenic fruit suitable for either of the two forms of apple allergy. The seeds of apples contain small amounts of amygdalin, a sugar and cyanide compound known as a cyanogenic glycoside. Ingesting small amounts of apple seeds will cause no ill effects, but in extremely large doses can cause adverse reactions. Dell Latitude E6510 Laptop CPU Cooling Fan There is only one known case of fatal cyanide poisoning from apple seeds; in this case the individual chewed and swallowed one cup of seeds. It may take several hours before the poison takes effect, as cyanogenic glycosides must be hydrolyzed before the cyanide ion is released. HP Pavilion dv6-2019er Laptop CPU Cooling Fan The proverb "An apple a day keeps the doctor away", addressing the health effects of the fruit, dates from 19th century Wales.^[70] Preliminary research suggests that apples may reduce the risk of colon cancer, prostate cancer and lung cancer.^[71] Apple peels contain ursolic acid which, in rat studies, increases skeletal muscle and brown fat, and decreaseswhite fat, obesity, glucose intolerance, and fatty liver disease.^[72] HP Pavilion dv6-3126ea Laptop CPU Cooling Fan According to the United States Department of Agriculture, a typical apple serving weighs 242 grams and contains 126 calories with significant dietary fiber andvitamin C content.^[73] Apple peels are a source of various phytochemicals with unknown nutritional value^[64] and possible antioxidant activity in vitro.^[74] HP 532613-001 Laptop CPU Cooling Fan The predominant phenolic phytochemicals in apples are quercetin, epicatechin, and procyanidin B2.^[75] Apple juice concentrate has been found in mice to increase the production of the neurotransmitter acetylcholine.^[76] Other studies have shown an "alleviation of oxidative damage and cognitive decline" in mice after the administration of apple juice.^[77HP Pavilion dv6-3300ss Laptop CPU Cooling Fan ^] Fruit flies fed an apple extract lived 10% longer than other flies fed a normal diet. Pollination is the process of pollen from one flower being transferred to another, required for certain plants, in this casefruit trees, to produce seeds with surrounding fruit. The material required for tree reproduction comes from separate flowers to allow transfer of genetic material from separate fruit trees. IBM Lenovo Thinkpad W500 Series Laptop CPU Cooling Fan The pollination process requires a carrier, which can be animal, wind, or human intervention. Plants can be manually cross-pollinated to make seeds that can produce trees and fruit with desired attributes. Some tree species cannot be self-pollinated. Most apples are self-incompatible and must be cross pollinated. HP 646578-001 Laptop CPU Cooling Fan A few are described as "self-fertile" and are capable of self-pollination, although even those tend to carry larger crops when cross pollinated. A relatively small number of species are "Triploid", meaning that they provide no viable pollen for themselves or other apple trees. Apples that can pollinate one another are grouped by the time they usually flower so cross-pollinators are in bloom at the same time. HP Pavilion dv5-1020et Laptop CPU Cooling Fan Pollination management is an important component of apple culture. Before planting, it is important to arrange for pollenizers - varieties of apple orcrabapple that provide plentiful, viable and compatible pollen. Orchard blocks may alternate rows of compatible varieties, or may plant crabapple trees, orgraft on limbs of crabapple. HP Pavilion dv5030 Laptop CPU Cooling Fan Some varieties produce very little pollen, or the pollen is sterile, so these are not good pollenizers. Good-quality nurseries have pollenizer compatibility lists. Growers with old orchard blocks of single varieties sometimes provide bouquets of crabapple blossoms in drums or pails in the orchard for pollenizers. Compaq Presario CQ61-416EG Laptop CPU Cooling Fan Home growers with a single tree and no other variety in the neighborhood can do the same on a smaller scale. During the bloom each season, commercial apple growers usually provide pollinators to carry the pollen. Honeybee hives are most commonly used, and arrangements may be made with a commercial beekeeper who supplies hives for a fee. HP 532614-001 Laptop CPU Cooling Fan Orchard mason bees are also used as supplemental pollinators in commercial orchards. According to Christopher O'Toole's The Red Mason Bee, Osmia rufa is a much more efficient pollinator of orchard crops than the honeybee.^[1] Home growers may find these more acceptable in suburban locations because they do not sting. HP Pavilion dv5-1020et Laptop CPU Cooling Fan Some wild bees such as carpenter bees and other solitary bees may help. Bumble bee queens are sometimes present in orchards, but not usually in enough quantity to be significant pollinators. Symptoms of inadequate pollination are small and misshapen apples, and slowness to ripen. The seeds can be counted to evaluate pollination.  HP 646578-001 Laptop CPU Cooling Fan Well-pollinated apples have best quality, and will have seven to ten seeds. Apples with fewer than three seeds will usually not mature and will drop from the trees in the earlysummer. Inadequate pollination can result from either a lack of pollinators or pollenizers, or from poor pollinating weather at bloom time. HP Pavilion dv5-1020et Laptop CPU Cooling Fan Multiple bee visits are usually required to deliver sufficient grains of pollen to accomplish complete pollination. The blossoms of all California Almond varieties are self-incompatible, requiring cross-pollination with other varieties to produce a crop. The single most important factor determining a good yield is pollination during the bloom period. HP Pavilion dv5030 Laptop CPU Cooling Fan More than a million colonies of honey bees are placed in California Almond orchards at the beginning of the bloom period to pollinate the crop. California beekeepers alone cannot supply this critical need, which is why honey bees travel across the country to the San Joaqin Valley each year. Compaq Presario CQ61-416EG Laptop CPU Cooling Fan Although the recommended number of hives per acre is 2 to 3, due to the high demand in conjunction with the reduced availability of commercial beehives, many almond growers have to make due with a lower hive density during pollination. These growers started using semiochemical formulations, like SPLAT Bloom,^[2] to compensate for the low hive density. HP 532614-001 Laptop CPU Cooling Fan SPLAT Bloom manipulates the behavior of the bees, inciting them to spend more time foraging, and thus pollinating flowers in entire the almond orchard (increasing pollination and fruit set), not only close to the hive.Pears are similar to apples, with the notable exception that pear blossoms are much less attractive to bees, due to lower sugar content than apple or contemporaneous wildflower nectar. HP MCF-W13BM05 Laptop CPU Cooling Fan Bees may abandon the pear blossoms to visit dandelions or a nearby apple orchard. There are three methods used that commercial growers use to compensate for this low attractiveness of pear flowers. One is saturation pollination, that is to stock so many bees that all area blossoms are worked regardless of the attractiveness to the bees. HP Pavilion dv5-1174ca Laptop CPU Cooling Fan The second is to delay the movement of the beehives into the orchards until there is about 30 per cent bloom. The bees are moved into the orchard during the night and will usually visit the pear blossoms for a few hours until they discover the richer nectar sources. The third method is to use semiochemical formulations, like SPLAT Bloom,^[2] HP Pavilion dv7-3050ec Laptop CPU Cooling Fan to manipulate the behavior of the bees, inciting them to spend more time foraging in the pear orchard, thus increasing pollination and fruit set. The recommended number of hives per acre is 1. Many citrus varieties are seedless and are produced parthenocarpically without pollination. Some varieties may be capable of producing fruit either way, having seeds in the segments, if pollinated, and no seeds if not. HP KSB06105HA Laptop CPU Cooling Fan Citrus that requires pollination may be self-compatible, thus pollen must be moved only a short distance from the anther to the stigma by a pollinator. Some citrus, such as Meyer Lemons, are popular container plants. When these bloom indoors, they often suffer from blossom drop because no pollinators have access.Hand pollinate by a human pollinator is a solution, HP 646578-001 Laptop CPU Cooling Fan though it is important to learn A few citrus varieties,^[3] including some tangelos and tangerines are self-incompatible, and require cross pollination. Pollinizers must be planned when groves are planted. This last group generally requires the addition of managed honeybee hives at bloom time for adequate pollination. HP 489126-001 Laptop CPU Cooling Fan Malus sieversii is a wild apple native to the mountains of Central Asia in southern Kazakhstan, eastern Uzbekistan,Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Northern Afghanistan and Xinjiang, China. It has recently been shown to be the sole ancestor of mostcultivars of the domesticated apple (Malus domestica). DELL Inspiron E1405 Laptop CPU Cooling Fan It was first described (as Pyrus sieversii) in 1833 by Carl Friedrich von Ledebour, a German naturalist who saw them growing in the Altai Mountains. It is a deciduous tree growing to 5 to 12 metres (16 to 39 ft), very similar in appearance to the domestic apple. DELL DFS541305MH0T Laptop CPU Cooling Fan Its fruitis the largest of any species of Malus, up to 7 cm diameter, equal in size to many modern apple cultivars. Unlike domesticated varieties its leaves go red in autumn: 62.2% of the trees in the wild do this compared to only 2.8% of the 2,170 English cultivated varieties.^[2] The species is now considered vulnerable to extinction. HP G62-341NR Laptop CPU Cooling Fan Malus sieversii has previously been identified as the main contributor to the genome of the cultivated apple (Malus domestica), on the basis of morphological, molecular, and historical evidence.^[3] A DNA analysis in 2010^[4] confirmed M. sieversii as the progenitor of the cultivated apple. HP Pavilion dv6648el Laptop CPU Cooling Fan A third species that has been thought to have made contributions to the genome of the domestic apples is Malus baccata, but there is no evidence for this in older apple cultivars.^{[citation needed]} Almaty, the largest city in Kazakhstan, and formerly its capital, derives its name from the Kazakh word for 'apple' (алма), and is often translated as "full of apples" HP Pavilion dv7-6151ed Laptop CPU Cooling Fan (the region surrounding Almaty is home to forests of Malus sieversii);alma is also 'apple' in other Turkic languages, as well as in Hungarian. The Soviet-era name, Alma-Ata, is Kazakh for "Father of Apples." Toshiba Satellite P100-386 Laptop CPU Cooling Fan These and other Malus species have been used in some recent breeding programmes to develop apples suitable for growing in climates unsuitable for M. domestica, mainly for increased cold tolerance.^[5] Malus sieversii has recently been cultivated by the United States Agricultural Research Service,  HP G42-380LA Laptop CPU Cooling Fan in hopes of finding genetic information of value in the breeding of the modern apple plant. Some, but not all, of the resulting trees show unusual disease resistance. The variation in their response to disease on an individual basis is, itself, a sign of how much more genetically diverse they are than their domesticated descendants.  HP G60-230us Laptop CPU Cooling Fan Fruit tree propagation is usually carried out vegetatively (non-sexually) by grafting or budding a desired variety onto a suitable rootstock. Perennial plants can be propagated either by sexual or vegetative means. Sexual reproduction begins when a male germ cell (pollen) from one flower fertilises a female germ cell (ovule, incipient seed) of the same species, HP KSB06105HA Laptop CPU Cooling Fan initiating the development of a fruit containing seeds. Each seed, when germinated, can grow to become a new specimen tree. However, the new tree inherits characteristics of both its parents, and it will not grow 'true' to the variety of either parent from which it came. That is, it will be a fresh individual with an unpredictable combination of characteristics of its own. SONY Vaio VPC-EB1E0E Laptop CPU Cooling Fan Although this is desirable in terms of producing novel combinations from the richness of the gene pool of the two parent plants (such sexual recombination is the source of new cultivars), only rarely will the resulting new fruit tree be directly useful or attractive to the tastes of humankind.  Compaq Presario CQ70-220EO Laptop CPU Cooling Fan Most new plants will have characteristics that lie somewhere between those of the two parents. Therefore, from the orchard grower or gardener's point of view, it is preferable to propagate fruit cultivars vegetatively in order to ensure reliability. This involves taking a cutting (or scion) of wood from a desirable parent tree which is then grown on to produce a new plant or 'clone' of the original. HP Pavilion dv7-3060sb Laptop CPU Cooling Fan In effect this means that the original Bramley apple tree, for example, was a successful variety grown from a pip, but that every Bramley since then has been propagated by taking cuttings of living matter from that tree, or one of its descendants. The simplest method of propagating a tree vegetatively is rooting or taking cuttings. ACER Aspire 7720 Series Laptop CPU Cooling Fan A cutting (usually a piece of stem of the parent plant) is cut off and stuck into soil. Artificial rooting hormones are sometimes used to improve chances of success. If the cutting does not die from rot-inducing fungi ordesiccation first, roots grow from the buried portion of the cutting to become a new complete plant. SONY UDQF2PH52CF0 Laptop CPU Cooling Fan However although this works well for some plants (such asfigs and olives), for most fruit tree cultivars this method has much too low a success rate to be commercially viable. Root cuttings (pieces of root cut off and induced to grow a new trunk) are also not used to propagate fruit trees, although this method is successful with some herbaceous plants. Compaq Presario CQ61-216TU Laptop CPU Cooling Fan A refinement on rooting is layering. This is rooting a piece of a wood that is still attached to its parent and continues to receive nourishment from it. The new plant is severed only after it has successfully grown roots. Layering is the technique most used for propagation of clonal apple rootstocks. Toshiba Satellite A215-S5802 Laptop CPU Cooling Fan The most common method of propagating fruit trees, suitable for nearly all species, is grafting onto rootstocks. This in essence involves physically joining part of a shoot of a hybrid cultivar onto the roots of a different but closely related species or cultivar, so that the two parts grow together as one plant. Toshiba Satellite A210-1BC Laptop CPU Cooling Fan The process of joining the two varieties must ensure maximum contact between the cambium (the layer just below the bark) of each, so that they grow together successfully. Grafting is a preferred method because it not only propagates a new plant of the desired hybrid cultivar, DELL Inspiron 630m Laptop CPU Cooling Fan it usually also confers extra advantages as a result of the characteristics of the rootstocks (or stocks), which are selected for characteristics such as their vigour of growth, hardiness and soil tolerance, as well as compatibility with the desired variety that will form the aerial part of the plant (called the scion). ACER Travelmate 4152nlci Laptop CPU Cooling Fan For example, grape rootstocks descended from North American grapes allow European grapes to be grown in areas infested with Phylloxera, a soil-dwelling insect that attacks and kills European grapes when grown on their own roots. Two of the most common grafting techniques are 'whip and tongue', carried out in spring as the sap rises, and 'budding', which is performed around the end of summer. HP Pavilion dv6-3034tx Laptop CPU Cooling Fan One reason for grafting onto rootstocks is that this enables the grower to determine the tree's eventual size. Apple tree size classes number from one to ten in increasing height and breadth.^[1] A "1" is a dwarf which can be productive and as short as 3 feet (0.91 m) with proper pruning. HP G62-107SA Laptop CPU Cooling Fan A "10" is the standard sized tree with no dwarfing and will grow to 20 feet (6.1 m) tall and wide or more, dependent upon the variety chosen. In general the class range is (1) 10-20% of full size, (2) 20-30%, (3) 30-40% and so forth to size 10 which is 100% of full size. The following are a selection of apple tree rootstocks.  HP G62-455TX Laptop CPU Cooling Fan They are referred to by numbers prefixed by letters indicating the developer of the rootstock. "Bud 118" A winter hardy early bearing replacement for MM 111 bred in the Soviet Union. Full sized tree unless allowed to bear young which will stunt its growth. Hardy to USDA zone 3. "Bud 9" A winter- hardy, early- bearing replacement for M9 bred in the Soviet Union. HP 532617-001 Laptop CPU Cooling Fan