Susan Brown

Every leaf has the genetic potential to make a tree.

So we take a leaf from the tree that we want to propagate, so in this case, let's say honeycrisp, and we put it on a rootstock by matching the bud to the growing material.

And then when that heals in,

It's cut off and it makes a new tree.

Honeycrisp is a wonderful apple.

Great name, great marketing, really popular with people.

But only about 40% of the Honeycrisp makes it from the orchard to the grocery store.

So in an orchard, a tree is there and bees are going to bring pollen.

But if I take off the petals and the anthers...

That's the part of the flower that attracts the bee.

And so that process is called emasculation, which gets a lot of laughs during talks.

Okay.

So what then do they do?

So a pollen parent, we select the flowers before they open.

And we use a screen or a comb and we comb out the anthers.

And this is enough pollen to pollinate a ton of flowers.

So if we had a flower here, I'd be like gently touching the stigma, which is the receptive surface that the pollen grains grow down.

And then we collect the seeds.

So right this time of year, we're collecting the fruit.

And then by hand, we extract the seeds.