New apple variety discovered by Wiltshire jogger

[Oligonicella]

Apples don't breed true. You can't take a Red Delicious or the one he found and grow the pips to the same fruit. Apple trees growing wild aren't all that big and tasty either.

Big reason there are few varieties available for purchase.

 

[Wayne Mack]

there are few varieties available for purchase.

Huh? I can't keep track of all the varieties in the stores.

 

[Montero]

In the UK, the varieties in the stores are a small fraction of the varieties that exist. You'll find some more as apple trees in garden centres. But I've never seen Lord Derby cookers (excellent flavour and keepers still got several trays from last October), Ashmead Kernel, Sunset or Scilly Pearl eaters in the shops. Heck it can be hard to get hold of Russets - they used to be in the shops, now I mail order 10kg every winter because even with our own tasty apples I really like some russets each year. In fact, I'm eyeing up what I've got left and contemplating another 10kg before they're all gone. It's surprising how well they stand up to being stuffed in a box and delivered, a few get bruised but I've had them about three weeks now and most are in good nick.
An awful lot of store apples are Cox's variants, or big overly juicy, red shiny flavourless bits of fruit bowl bling.

 

[KGeo777]

I regret that I always took apples for granted since they grow in my area and were so commonplace as a fruit I would prefer something else. Now that they are so expensive to buy, I don't take them for granted!
I may get some apples today anyway.

 

[Dave]

Apples don't breed true. You can't take a Red Delicious or the one he found and grow the pips to the same fruit. Apple trees growing wild aren't all that big and tasty either.

Big reason there are few varieties available for purchase.

Are you talking about Rootstocks and hybrids? Modern fruit tree hybrid varieties are grafted onto different rootstocks. Rootstocks improve disease resistance and control the vigour of the plant (allowing their cultivation in a smaller space than if they were grown on their own roots. (Dwarf trees are easier to harvest without ladders or a cherry picker.)

The rootstock itself won't produce good fruit, and the variety grafted onto it will be some hybrid that, like you say, won't breed true. But if you find a very old apple (or pear) from the 19th Century (still quite possible in some rural village in England) that won't have been grown on a rootstock, or a modern hybrid variety, then that's a totally different story. I'm assuming this is what happened here. It won't be a wild apple tree, it's probably from an old abandoned orchard from some Lord's estate or dissolved monastic garden. I'd also take the Royal Horticultural Societies word on this since they investigated it.

 

[Parson]

Decades ago, before my rural region had much in the way of groceries (mostly Mom and Pop), your choices in apples were usually Red Delicious and maybe a McIntosh. Over time more varieties showed up, and one day my Uncle uttered this memorable line. "I don't like those apples that are Delicious."

 

[Montero]

I've always thought that Golden Delicious and Red Delicious should be reported to advertising standards for false claims.