Increasingly diverse food preferences are spawning new apple types, which could soon push old favorites out of grocery stores. Lynd Fruit Farm in Pataskala, Ohio, is packed every autumn with folks who come to pick more apples than they know what to do with. The trees are laden with ripe fruit, ranging from supermarket staples such as Red Delicious and Gala to the locally developed Melrose and the heirloom variety Winesap. For the past three years, though, Lynd has also sold a new apple, EverCrisp, whose growers are already dreaming big. Bill Dodd, president of the Midwest Apple Improvement Association (MAIA), the organization that developed EverCrisp in 2016, says this year he expects between 70,000 and 80,000 bushels to come from the 700,000 trees they’ve planted. By 2020, the number of planted trees is expected to reach one million. Sixty-year-old Dodd’s ambition is hardly unique. EverCrisp is among a slew of new commercial varieties developed and recently released in the U.S. that are dramatically expanding the types of apples that Americans will find in supermarkets in the months and years to come. | 