- on Saturday, Sept. 25, from 8 to 11 a.m., and afterwards, taste test local apples and get an exclusive first peek at the new CU Museum of Natural History exhibit. . The deadline for registration is Thursday, Sept. 23, at noon.
- about The Open Orchard Project in the Paleo Hall at the CU Museum of Natural History on Saturday, Sept. 25, at 1 p.m. . Participation in the Apple Blitz is not required to attend. Masks are required indoors when on campus.
For complete details, visit the CU Museum of Natural History’s online calendar.
Banner image: Amy Dunbar-Wallis of the 鶹 Apple Tree Project and two students hold up a grafted apple tree specimen.(Credit: CU 鶹)
Fall means cooler temperatures, changing leaves and apples ready for the picking. This year, there is a bumper crop of ripe Delicious, Ben Davis and yet-to-be-identified fruits in and around 鶹 thanks to a wet spring.
For some, it may come as a surprise that apples can flourish along the dry Front Range, but due to the wide variety of genetic diversity in apple trees, some varieties don’t mind the drier climate. In fact, the trees here have a history: In the late 1800s, settlers brought their own seeds from farther eastand planted apple trees for subsistence and agriculture. The offspring of those early apple trees are still here—and they need our help.
This weekend, the CU 鶹-based 鶹 Apple Tree Project invites the community to help preserve this local apple legacy by locating and collecting data on apple trees in 鶹 backyards and on public lands.
“We’re excited to leverage these fantastic old apples across 鶹 as educational experiences for our students and to serve the local 鶹 community,” said Lisa Corwin, co-investigator of the project and assistant professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology.
Founded in the second half of 2017 by Katherine Sudingof the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, and supported in part by the Office of Outreach and Engagement, the 鶹 Apple Tree Project is an educational research endeavor that explores the genetics and history of apple varieties in 鶹 and the surrounding area. The goal? To better understand these heirloom trees and how to keep their unique varieties fruiting into the future.
While states like Washington and New York are best known for their apple-centric agriculture, Colorado was once one of the top apple-growing states in the country. This trend declined in the early 1900s as environmental and economic changes proved unfavorable for Colorado orchards, but many of these old trees remain throughout the 鶹 area.
However, the life expectancy for an apple tree is at most 100 years. Do the math backwards from 2021, and it becomes clear that there is real urgency to capture the unique biodiversity in these varieties from the early 20th century before they disappear.
“They're beautiful, wonderful pieces of our heritage,” said Corwin. “These trees can also help us understand if different varieties would fare better in 鶹 County. Should we be planting specific varieties in future orchards and in people's backyards that might fare better in the dry and cold weather that we have here?”
Better understanding 鶹’s backyard
Amy Dunbar-Wallis, project manager of the 鶹 Apple Tree Project and a graduate student in ecology and evolutionary biology, works to connect the community with students on and off campus and use the project’s research to benefit local citizens, the city and county.
This is the project’s fourth year of offering programmingand this weekend presents a hands-on opportunity. This Saturday, , which will focus on locating and sampling trees from neighborhoods in Martin Acres and North 鶹.
Teams of undergraduate students, who are studying the apple trees to understand local ecological systems, will partner with community members to survey these neighborhood trees, adding to the 700 local trees already tagged and measured. They’ll measure a tree’s canopy, its trunk, how many apples it’s producing and whether there is any wildlife in the area.
The results will be fed into the project’s interactive, . A mobile phone map app, created by CU 鶹 computer science students, will debut by the end of the year.
“People can actually see where these different apple trees are, and they can go and explore the ones that are on public land. It’s a really cool piece of living history because we're adding to that historic record of where these trees are, what their health isand so on,” said Dunbar-Wallis. “And we're really excited to continue to work as a community-university partnership.”
After the data collection, participants will be able to share their stories at the CU Museum of Natural History, taste the apples and get exclusive access to the museum's exhibit about apple trees in 鶹. The exhibit is the combined effort of undergraduate research, computer science students, historians, artists and community members, and opens to the public on Monday, Sept. 27.
Fruit of the future
In addition to data collection, the project grafts selected specimens onto healthy apple tree rootstock in the hopes of growing new, robust genetic copies.
And in October, visiting artist Sam Van Aken will plant what will become multi-grafted art trees on campus. Beginning as one variety of apple tree, Van Aken will return over the next three spring semesters to grafup to 20 to 30 different types of apples all onto the same tree.
Not only will these individual trees grow different varieties of apples, but they will flower in different places at different times each spring, according to Corwin.
“You'll have different flower colors, different flower scents, potentially different types of pollinators, different types of bees for whichever variety they're most drawn to. It's going to be really lovely and very visually stimulating,” said Dunbar-Wallis.
The public is welcome to about at the CU Museum of Natural History on Saturday, Sept. 25 at 1 p.m. This collaboration through the 鶹 Museum of Contemporary Art is part of CU 鶹's Art + Science + Action Cohort.