2023-24 Heritage Orchard Conference

David Benscoter is a retired federal law enforcement agent. I spent six years as an FBI special agent and 18 years as an IRS criminal investigator. In 2012, I started getting interested in antique apples when I pruned the 100 year old orchard of a friend just north of Spokane, Washington. As I tried to identify the apple trees in her orchard I learned that eastern Washington has a rich but nearly little known apple growing history. The state of Washington is famous for growing apples but those orchards are mostly irrigated orchards along the Columbia River and its tributaries in the central part of the state.

I began researching the history of apple growing in eastern Washington in 2013 and I soon learned that apples now considered extinct were grown in eastern Washington and northern Idaho in the early 1900’s. I began searching for extinct or lost apple varieties in Whitman County, Washington. Joanie Cooper and Shaun Shepherd, two gifted apple identification experts who live in Oregon, agreed to evaluate the apples I sent them. Joanie and Shaun are also known for establishing The Temperate Orchard Conservancy, a place where fruit trees in danger of extinction can find safety and be preserved forever. I later partnered with the Whitman County Historical Society and started The Lost Apple Project.

In 2014 my search turned up a formerly extinct apple, the Nero. In 2016, two other once lost apples were rediscovered in Whitman County, the Dickinson and the Arkansas Beauty. In total, The Lost Apple Project and the Temperate Orchard Conservancy have found 23 apple varieties once thought to be extinct. Over 250 apple varieties have been documented as growing at one time in eastern Washington and northern Idaho. We are looking for 39 of those apples as they are today considered lost or extinct. Our hope is to find these lost varieties and re-introduce them to the public.

EJ Brandt is a retired electronic technician for Washington State University and is also a former Pararescue USAF Special Forces member. Currently living in Troy, Idaho, EJ is involved with The Lost Apple Project and Heritage Apple Research. EJ is responsible for the rediscovery of the Regmalard apple in the Moscow, Idaho region.

John Bunker is an apple historian, gardener and orchardist. In 1984 he started the cooperative mail-order nursery Fedco Trees. In 2012 he founded the Maine Heritage Orchard in Unity Maine. His recent book, “Apples and the Art of Detection” recounts his 40 years of tracking down, identifying and preserving rare apples. He lives with Cammy Watts on Superchilly Farm in Palermo Maine. To contact John or to learn more about John and Cammy’s activities, go to outonalimbapples.com.

Dan Bussey was born in southern Wisconsin and is a fifth generation owner of land settled by his ancestors that was once surrounded by apple trees planted generations earlier. The memory of those trees started a lifelong interest in raising heirloom fruit trees, especially apples. Dan has taught fruit tree grafting classes for over 35 years and operated a small apple orchard and cider mill before becoming the orchard manager of the Seed Savers Exchange in Decorah, Iowa. For over 30 years, his interest in apple history culminated in the 2016 publication of the "Illustrated History of Apples in the United States and Canada," which won the 2018 Literature award from the Council of Botanic and Horticultural Libraries Assoc. in New York.

Since retiring, Dan continues to teach grafting and is a consultant for the Badger Apple Project, the University of Wisconsin, Oshkosh campus orchard and is the originator and orchard manager of the Silverwood Park community heirloom apple orchard near Edgerton, Wisconsin where he grew up. Dan continues writing on apple history.

Brandon is a fermentation fanatic based in northern California with a keen interest in making cider, wine and fruit spirits. After years of making wine with guidance from natural wine legend Tony Coturri, a chance encounter at a hotel bar led him to Finnriver Cider in Washington. Six months after his introduction to fine cider, he traveled to the UK for cidermaker training. Since then, he has attended and taught courses around the U.S. Though still committed to his non-commercial status, today Brandon now finds himself fully immersed in and connected to the global cider community.

He has served as an orchard docent at the historic Filoli Estate in Woodside, California and has won notable awards for his ciders. He has served as a judge for the Northwest Cider Cup and the Great Lakes International Cider & Perry Competition, as well as several international spirits competitions. Brandon is also the Chair for the Good Food Awards: Cider Category, He is WSET certified in wine and is just one of 62 Certified PommeliersTM in the U.S.

David is a technologist specializing in software, systems and product development. His experience covers a wide range of industries and includes consumer-oriented products, large-scale enterprise software development and DevOps. He spends his days weaving complex technologies into systems and products that are simple, functional and beautiful. And when he isn't building products, his work extends into horticulture and historic fruit cultivars.

His involvement with the Lost Apple Project involves searching the Pacific Northwest for apple varieties that have been forgotten over time. Each discovery adds another piece to the puzzle of North America's apple heritage. And as a member of the Historic Fruit Tree Working Group of North America, David collaborates with a team of interdisciplinary experts. Their collective efforts focus on conserving North America's fruit tree cultivars through research, collaboration, technology and education.

Diane Flynt, founder of Foggy Ridge Cider and author of Wild, Tamed, Lost, Revived: The Surprising Story of Apples in the South, grows cider apples in the southern Appalachians and writes about fruit, farming and the south. Her book offers a new take on the history of the apple and how it changed the south. Showing how southerners cultivated over 2,000 apple varieties from Virginia to Mississippi, ranging from northern varieties that flourished on southern soil to hyper-local varieties grown by a single family in one county, the book shares surprising stories of a fruit that was central to the region for over two hundred years.

A Georgia native, Diane worked for over 20 years in corporate America before seeing the light and returning to her farming roots. In 1997, Diane planted a cider apple orchard with over 30 heirloom cider varieties. Diane’s vision was to “plant excellent ingredients” and to make fine cider using the same techniques and care that go into making fine wine. Southern cider varieties like Hewe’s Crab and Grimes Golden, as well traditional English cider apples such as Tremlett’s Bitter, produced top quality cider fruit for Foggy Ridge Cider’s six cider blends. In 2018 Diane produced her last cider vintage called Foggy Ridge Final Call. She now sells apples to cidermakers throughout the south.

Today, Diane is active in national and state apple and cider initiatives and has played a leading role in promoting Virginia wine. She speaks on cider, farming and food culture in national and regional forums. The University of North Carolina Press will publish Wild, Tamed, Lost, Revived in September 2023. The book can be pre-ordered from Amazon.

“If you suspect the apple-evangelist's, Diane Flynt's, book would be an ode to tree fruit you'd be wrong. Instead Wild, Tamed, Lost, Revived is a personal and anecdotal walk through the storied orchard of the American South led by one of our country's most poignant symbols, the apple. “— Vivian Howard, restaurateur author of Deep Run Roots: Stories & Recipes from my Corner of the South, and host of Somewhere South and A Chef’s Life

Diane lives with her husband, Chuck, in Dugspur, Virginia, on the site of the Foggy Ridge Cider orchards.

Cider expert, historian and author, allintocider.com, Darlene Hayes is a well regarded international cider judge and teacher. She is editor of the all things apples, orchards and cider zine Malus (maluszine.com), and writes about cider for a variety of publications. She is currently exploring the history and character of the wide variety of apples that are used in cidermaking.

Kris Heeter (aka Dr. Kris Klueg) is a research biologist and associate director for a genetic repository at Indiana University. She is the president of the North American Fruit Explorers (NAFEX) and the Indiana Nut and Fruit Growers Association (INFGA) and is on the board of directors of the Northern Nut Growers Association (NNGA).

She and her husband, Brian, have a small orchard and classified forest on a 100-acre place in Solsberry, Indiana, near the famous Tulip Trestle (the world’s third-longest railroad viaduct). Kris has worked with INGFA to develop the first Indiana fruit and nut tree repository on their property.

Ike Kerschner is from a non-farming background but has been interested in fruit production for as long as he can recall. Ike started working on a small orchard at age 15 and went on to get a horticulture degree from Penn State. He started his own farm in 1992 after working for some large commercial orchards. From the very beginning, Ike’s orchard was focused on growing specialty fruits. He tested hundreds of varieties with unique characteristics but found most of them unsuitable for commercial production. Ike decided he would create his own set of cultivars suited to the conditions of North Star Orchard, without regard to their outward appearance, but rather focus on flavors and textures.

Sarah Kostick has been involved in tree fruit research for the past nine years. She received a Master of Science in applied plant sciences from the University of Minnesota in 2014. Kostick completed a doctorate in horticulture with an emphasis in plant breeding under Dr. Kate Evans, at Washington State University. Kostick's dissertation work at Washington State University focused on resistance to fire blight, a devastating bacterial disease, in apple. After completing her doctorate, Kostick joined the University of Minnesota Apple Breeding Program as a researcher under Dr. James Luby. Kostick currently helps manage the University of Minnesota apple breeding program and is involved in various research projects that support the program.

Todd Little-Siebold is a professor of history at College of the Atlantic in Bar Harbor, Maine. He teaches about the history of apples as well as many other types of history, and he has been collaborating with John Bunker and the Maine Heritage Orchard since its inception. He focuses on historical resources that can document which cultivars were grown where in Maine and when they were prevalent to help with the process of identification. He also collaborates with the Peace Lab at Washington State University on DNA fingerprinting of historic cultivars in an effort to document the history of the introduction of European cultivars in the Americas.

Rebecca McGee is a research geneticist (aka plant breeder) with the USDA ARS and an adjunct professor in the Departments of Horticulture and Crop and Soil Sciences at Washington State University. Her current research focuses on biofortification and breeding for improved resistance to abiotic and biotic stresses of pulse crops. She is an avid explorer, natural historian and apple enthusiast, and is a volunteer with the Lost Apple Project.

Kyle Nagy is the superintendent and orchard operations manager at the University of Idaho’s Sandpoint Organic Agriculture Center (SOAC). He received his bachelor’s in horticulture from the University of Minnesota and recently completed his master’s in environmental science at the University of Idaho. The orchard at SOAC has 70 varieties of hardy apples, mostly heritage varieties, along with a handful of pear, plum and cherry varieties. SOAC is the only University of Idaho research station dedicated to organic and sustainable agriculture research.

Greg is a retired Whitman County commissioner. He served the people of Whitman County, Washington for 12 years before retiring. During his time as a commissioner, Greg held several state appointed positions, including chair of the Washington State Transportation Board for eight years. Prior to his work as a commissioner, Greg was employed at Arrow Machinery, a local John Deere dealership, for 26 years. In his private life, Greg and his wife, Sherry, were charter members of the Whitman County Historical Society, founded in 1972, and is currently the past president. He has also been a board member for the Merry Glen Parents Cooperative, a group home in Spokane, Washington, for loved ones with developmental disabilities. Greg served as president for many years and has recently retired from that position.

Cameron Peace is fascinated by fruit, genetics, history and what breeding offers future generations. He is a professor in the Department of Horticulture at Washington State University, and his research program aims to bring the benefits of natural diversity and the genomics age to fruit breeding. He uses new genome-wide DNA profiling techniques to understand the inherited attributes and ancestry of fruit trees. His current passion is reconstructing the family tree of all apple varieties, and the same for cherry. In Pullman, he oversees the student-run Palouse Wild Cider Apple Breeding Program.

Lydia is a recent graduate from the College of the Atlantic where she received a bachelor’s in human ecology. She has interned with John Bunker, The Maine Heritage Orchard, and the Montezuma Orchard Restoration Project. Lydia has a passion for digital solutions for living collections management and historical research. Inspired by her work as history professor Todd Little-Siebold's pomological research assistant, she ended her undergraduate degree with a capstone project in methods of documentation in apple crop conservation.

Montezuma Orchard Restoration Project (MORP) works to preserve Colorado’s fruit growing heritage and restore an orchard culture and economy to the southwestern region. The roots of MORP were established when co-founders Jude and Addie Schuenemeyer began their horticulture careers in 2001. For 15 years, they ran a nursery that had originally been in business for over 50 years and had a lot of older clientele who often asked about apple varieties they remembered enjoying as children. In asking around, the Schuenemeyers realized just how many old trees still grew in the region — hidden or right in plain sight — sometimes forgotten, and other times revered by the families who always remembered. They founded MORP in 2008 with the belief that the remarkable orchard culture and economy that once thrived in southwestern Colorado could be rebuilt.

Richard Uhlmann is co-founder of the Idaho Chapter of the Lost Apple Project, a founding member of the Historic Fruit Tree Working Group of North America and a University of Idaho Master Gardener. He is a retired gastroenterologist in Boise, Idaho, and was an associate professor of Medicine and Public Health at the University of Washington.

For nearly 20 years, Gayle Volk, a plant physiologist at the National Laboratory for Genetic Resources Preservation in Fort Collins, Colorado, has been performing genetic analyses on apple cultivars and wild species in the USDA National Plant Germplasm System's apple collection located in Geneva, NY. She and her collaborators have used the USDA apple cultivar collection as a reference set to identify the cultivar names of historic apple cultivars in local collections and on public lands. Her presentation will provide information about the USDA apple collection as well as some of the historic apple research that has been performed.