4 things to know about the U of M's new apple

Researchers at the University of Minnesota have launched a new apple variety. Jim Luby, a fruit-breeding professor at the University of Minnesota, told MPR's Cathy Wurzer that the MN55 promises "Honeycrisp delight" early in the season when good eating apples are missing.

"This will be the first thing that we've had in that part of the season -- and I'm talking here in Minnesota -- in sort of late August that really captures that kind of texture Honeys crisp has," he said.

Here are four things you might not know about the University's newest apple.

1. It falls off its tree prematurely
MN55's downfall, he said, is just that -- the apples drop from the tree right before harvest. Because food health codes don't allow apple growers to collect fruit on the ground, the new variety's premature fall presents growers with a challenge.

"It's not just one of those that you can just let go," he said. "It's a child that will need some attention."

2. It's the product of a transnational crossbreed
Luby said researchers crossed the University's Honeycrisp with an Arkansas-originating variety with the intent of capturing the first's texture with the second's early harvest. They first began work in the '90s, he said, and researchers struggled to isolate and combine the desirable qualities of each parent variety.

"It's just like if you're a parent and you have kids, and you kind of wonder sometimes -- 'Where did that kid come from?' -- but this one actually worked out," he said. "Sometimes it's nice when genetics works."

3. It'll get a new name
Nurseries are making the first trees now for growers to plant in a year or two, Luby said, so the first commercial fruit won't be available on the shelf for apple fiends until 2018 or 2019. Within 18 months, he said, focus groups will help fruit breeders anoint the variety with a less clinical name. Like the University's other apples -- Frostbite, Zestar, Sweetango and Prairie Spy to name a few -- MN55's permanent name will be distinctive and unique, he said.

"Naming apples is even harder than naming children. You can have two or three Cathy's in the classroom and it's not a big deal, but you can only have one kind of apple," Luby said.

4. University fruit breeders have a favorite baking apple
Though the Honeyscrisp is often hailed as the University's most popular breed for it's crunch and tang, Luby said it's not what the people who invented it put in their apple pies. Instead, he said Zestar, heralded on its University webpage for its "brown sugar overtone" is fruit breeders' apple of choice for baking.