For many of these collectors, the food of choice is apples. Elwood Fisher of Harrisonburg, Virginia, in the apple-growing country of the Shenandoah Valley, specialized in seeking variety in a food that is fast being reduced to a few supermarket species. The Washington Post reported that Fisher managed to grow more than a thousand varieties of apples on half an acre by splitting dwarf trees and forcing them to grow in two directions, with different varieties growing on each tree.

Fisher hung around country gasoline stations, where he asked old-timers for the names of people who used to graft trees, knowing that the grafters can lead him to old orchards. He also queried ministers who serve several churches within a region. These preachers, known as “circuit riders,” often get invited to Sunday dinner at homes all over the area, and they are likely to know where the orchards are. Honey producers are also helpful, for their favorite creatures are busy as bees pollinating fruit trees

The search for apples takes U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) scientists as far afield as Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan in a search for fruit trees with resistance to the fungal disease apple scab. Why there? Researchers believe that’s the center of origin of the domestic apple. Philip L. Forsline, the USDA team leader, and his colleagues brought back several potentially helpful cuttings from one such expedition.

Then scientists started the process of planting the cuttings in special quarantine areas, observing them for signs of disease, then finally planted in test plots and grown out, a process that in the case of fruit trees can take several years. Then promising samples are distributed to breeders in other regions who test them for adaptability to a variety of local conditions.

The task can be disappointing. Thousands of apple seeds brought back to the U.S. from an expedition in 1989 produced four hundred growing trees, but by their fourth year only three of them were bearing fruit.

Click the following links to lean about collecting of tomatoes, potatoes, pigeonpeas, and a maize that was once thought to be extinct. Or return to the previous page about explorers.

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