Jonathan McRae

Wow.

But it's not particularly resistant to increased heat or increased climate change?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And so that's great.

So the idea is that you have this apple that is adaptive to the Washington state sort of climate because most of the apples that were being grown in Washington state, my understanding is, were not from there.

And so this is a sort of an apple that works in this environment, is robust, doesn't go as brown as easily, and lasts long on the shelf.

Yeah, that's great.

I'm imagining one of those 17,000 names was Apple McAppleface.

Am I correct in saying that?

Oh, okay.

I'm really surprised.

I had one of those people put that in.

So with CRISPR, CRISPR is a way of doing this in a much quicker way using genetically enhanced methods, right?

So CRISPR allows you to edit or turn off certain genes that aren't necessarily useful.

Why did you not choose to take this approach?

to creating your apple?

Because surely that would be a much quicker way of creating the best possible fruit.

Well, no, I mean, the pink lady is pretty much the pinnacle of breeding, in my opinion.

The pink lady is a fantastic apple, top of the apple pyramid for me.

So I would love to try the sunflare next time I'm in Washington state.