The Quabbin Reservoir’s Legacy of Forgotten Apple Trees
Lost Apples of the Quabbin is a presentation by Al Sax and Matt Kaminsky documenting their 2016 research and quest for mapping out the apple trees in this historical reservoir region.
The Quabbin Reservoir was created to supply water to eastern Massachusetts. This construction required moving out the residents and un-incorporating 4 towns Dana, Prescott, Enfiled, and Greenwich. Needless to say, this was an extreme hardship for the residents as people, homes and the entire landscape was changed to create the massive reservoir.
How big is the Quabbin Reservoir?
- unlike what I said in the podcast (10,000 acres) it is 120,000 acres
Al and Matt are looking for unknown apple varieties that might still be left on the hillsides and mountain tops that were left untouched so many years later.
Al and Matt’s main research tools
- Binoculars
- Tick gators, as ticks carry an auto immune ideas call Lyme
- An apple picker, which is a long pole with a cup at the end used to reach for fruit high up on the tree.
List of Apples that were grown at the Quabbin
- Alexander
- Baldwin*
- Bellflower
- Bethel
- Ben Davis
- Blue Parmain
- Canada Red
- Duchess
- Fall Pippin
- Golden Russet*
- Gravenstein*
- Grimes Golden
- Jonathan*
- McIntosh*
- Northern Spy*
- Porter
- Pound Sweet
- Red Astrachan
- Rhode Island Greening
- St. Lawerence
- Seek-No-Further (Westfield S-N-F?)
- Sheep-Nose*
- Smoke House
- Snow Apple
- Spitzenburg*
- Strawberry
- Summer Rambo
- Tetofsky
- Twenty-ounce
- Tolman Sweet
- Tompkins King
- Wagner
- Wealthy*
- Winesap*
- Winter Banana
- Wolf River*
- Yellow Transparent
- York Imperial
Identifying apple trees in the wild
- What is its form?
- Leaf pattern
- Leaf color
- Trunk ( do you see a graft line)
Identifying apples in the wild
- Color of skin
- Taste
- Refractometer for testing the level of sugar in the juice
– check out Matt’s books via his website https://gnarlypippins.com/2016/11/16/what-is-gnarly-pippins/
Contact info for our Apple Explorers Al Sax and Matt Kaminsky
- Al Sax alancsax@gmail.com
- Matt Kaminsky matt.s.kaminsky@gmail.com
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