Today’s Maine Sunday Telegram includes a very interesting article about an heirloom apple research project.
Since 2019, Bunker has been working with College of the Atlantic history professor Todd Little-Siebold, Laura Sieger, orchard manager for the Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association and MOFGA intern Lydia Pendergast to collect samples from hundreds of Maine’s unidentified apple trees. They send the samples clear across the country to their partner in the project, Cameron Peace, a horticulture scientist at the University of Washington who runs tests to reveal the DNA.
“It’s almost like 23andMe, but for apples,” Sieger said, referring to the popular human genetic testing web service, 23andMe.com.