Fruits of History and Sustainability
The seeds of history took root in the Boulder Apple Tree Project and are now blossoming in the Buffs Backyard Orchard.
In 2017, the Boulder Apple Tree Project began as a way to locate, catalog and preserve the rich apple history of the city, dating to before the turn of the twentieth century, when Colorado ranked as one of the top apple-producing states. To support the project, community members share the location and photos of Boulder apple trees through an app, and the information is cataloged in an online database, complemented by an interactive map.
Within a year of launching, students and researchers identified more than 200 types of apples in Boulder, and each species was sequenced using the trees’ DNA.
Today, the project has grown. “We have sequenced another 75 apple specimens, with a big push this summer to add 200 more,” said Katherine Suding, CU Boulder ecology professor. “I am also proud that we have tagged over 1,200 trees from the area in our database.”
This effort provides training for CU Boulder’s budding scientists. Over the past eight years, 160 students have contributed to the project, ranging from first-year science students to those completing honors theses and several graduate students.
Last spring, students inspired by the project obtained a $93,000 sustainability grant that has funded the Buffs Backyard Orchard at CU Boulder’s 30th Street greenhouse. The vision for the orchard, which was planted by volunteers, is to create a living lab combining history and sustainability by conserving heirloom trees and developing regenerative orchard systems. The orchard is home to 15 varieties of apples, according to Colorado Arts and Sciences Magazine, including Wolf River and Colorado Orange.
For Suding, the core of the project is the people.
“Having students and community members jointly doing research reflects a shared commitment to ecological stewardship,” she said. “It has been a lesson in the power of people working together.”
Photo courtesy Matt Talarico