The World of Apples

Apple varieties, United States

Stark's Earliest

The record of the National Fruit Collection, at Brogdale in Kent, describes it1:

Discovered by Douglas Bonner at Orofino, Idaho, USA in 1938. Introduced in 1944. Fruits have crisp, fine-textured, white, fairly juicy flesh with a little sweet and fair flavour.

Family tree

Parents, grandparents and great-grandparents, as the entries in the atlas record them.

  • Stark's Earliest United States, 1938
    • Parent Jefferis United States, about 1830
    • Parent Red Astrachan Russia, before 1816
      • Parent Passe Pomme Rouge
      • Parent Saint Germain
Jefferis Stark's Earliest
Where Stark's Earliest came from. The lines lead to its parents: Jefferis (United States).

Sources

  1. Stark's Earliest (accession 1979 - 186), National Fruit Collection, Brogdale, Kent (Defra). Supports: the description quoted; the use; the fruit's size, shape and colours and the flesh, from the collection's characterisation; the picking time at Brogdale (early august); the other names.
  2. Using whole-genome SNP data to reconstruct a large multi-generation pedigree in apple germplasm, Hélène Muranty and others, BMC Plant Biology 20:2, 2020. Supports: its parents, Jefferis and Red Astrachan, found from SNP data (supplementary table S3); its ploidy, diploid (supplementary table S1).

All 235 varieties from United States