Ōrin

Sources

1. The man who raised the king of apples: Tadanosuke Ōtsuki and his companions of the Ōrin association (in Japanese), Toshihiko Nishio, Japan Association for Techno-innovation in Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (JATAFF), reprinted from Nōgyō Kyōsai Shimbun, 1996-09-11. Supports: Ōrin raised by Ōtsuki (大槻只之助), a farmer of Kōri (桑折, こおり), Fukushima Prefecture, who had run a silkworm-egg business and took up apple breeding in the early Shōwa period, sowing the seeds of good apples in a seedling plot; "some say" a cross of Golden Delicious and Indo, but apparently selected from a chance seedling of Delicious; first fruit in 1943; noticed by the head of the nearby Date agricultural cooperative, who named it Ōrin as the king of apples in 1952, when it began to reach the Tokyo market; not a registered variety of the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, reportedly having failed the examination for its poor looks and conspicuous dots; the Ōrin association of 45 Kōri growers formed in 1961, where bag-free growing for Ōrin was worked out; 4.8 thousand ha of bearing orchard in 1994, 9 per cent of Japan's apple area, third after Fuji and Tsugaru; grown in Aomori, Nagano and other prefectures; the original tree still fruiting, with a granite memorial raised by the town and the cooperative; Ōtsuki died in 1972 aged 85.
2. February 20: in 1992 Kōri's committee to preserve the original Ōrin tree is founded (in Japanese), Fukushima Minpō, 2024-02-20. Supports: the Kōri committee to preserve the original Ōrin tree founded on 20 February 1992; Ōrin created in 1943 by Ōtsuki, who crossed Indo and Delicious and sowed the seeds of the fruit; the original tree, cared for by a relative, rotted and fell around 2005, and a second-generation tree grown from a shoot at its base has grown large enough to bear fruit.
3. Apple varieties (in Japanese), Aomori Prefecture Apple Council (Aomori-ken Ringo Taisaku Kyōgikai). Supports: Ōrin (王林): (mother) Golden Delicious × (father) Indo; raised by the late Ōtsuki of Fukushima Prefecture and named in 1952; picked from late October to early November and sold until August; about 300 g; greenish-yellow skin; fairly firm, fine-textured flesh, very juicy, with almost no acidity, sweet with a distinctive pleasant aroma; a pioneer among yellow apples.
4. Apple area by variety, 2018 (in Japanese), National Agriculture and Food Research Organization (NARO), Institute of Fruit Tree and Tea Science, from the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries' survey of the 2018 crop. Supports: Ōrin on 2,641.7 ha, 7.4 per cent of Japan's apple area, third after Fuji and Tsugaru (2018).
5. Current status of several Japanese apple cultivars, R. A. Norton, R. L. Stebbins and Y. Yoshida, Fruit Varieties Journal 41(1):22–28, American Pomological Society, 1987. Supports: Table 1: Orin, from Fukushima (T. Otsuki), Golden Delicious × Indo; 250–300 g by Japanese nursery catalogues, oblong, yellow-green with prominent russeted lenticels; firm, aromatic, sweet and juicy flesh; excellent storage; productive.
6. Using whole-genome SNP data to reconstruct a large multi-generation pedigree in apple germplasm, Hélène Muranty and others, BMC Plant Biology 20:2, Additional files 1 and 3, 2020. Supports: Table S3: Golden Delicious and Indo found from SNP data as the parents of Orin, both confirming the documented parents; Table S1: the National Fruit Collection's accession 1981-117 (Orin) diploid (2n), dated "before 1942".
7. Orin (accession 1981-117), National Fruit Collection, Brogdale, Kent (Defra). Supports: "Triploid. Originated before 1942 by T. Otsuki, an apple grower in Fukushima Prefecture, Japan"; firm, juicy flesh with a sweet, aromatic flavour; picked in late October at Brogdale.