Step aside, Olga Red Gravenstein! The next generation of unique Orcas Island apples is ready for takeoff!

Novel Apples for Orcas!

||| FROM RUSSELL BARSH for KWIAHT |||

For the past five years, Kwiaht botanist Madrona Murphy has been relocating, mapping, and sampling fruits and (for genetic analysis) leaves from orchards planted more than a century ago, with financial support from the Orcas Island Community Foundation and island donors.

Over a hundred trees have been identified thus far to dozens of heirloom varieties that were popular when San Juan County was the hub of the Northwest apple industry, shipping crates of fruits to Seattle by steamboat and the East Coast by rail. Many of the most flavorful and useful varieties, still fruiting in Orcas Island orchards, have names that are scarcely remembered today, such as Westfield Seek-No-Further, Monmouth, Northern Spy, and Golden Russet.

Locally-grown apples ripen from midsummer to mid-December, and many store well until Easter.

Most exciting have been the number of delicious “seedlings” that Kwiaht has discovered. These are unique trees that grew from natural cross-pollination of orchard trees and wild native crabapples. Many grow in roadside ditches, barnyards and pastures—wherever birds or raccoons dropped half-eaten fruits and their seeds—and they thrived with little or no human attention. As such they are not only novel genetically, but also tough survivors,
exceptionally well-adapted to island conditions, and therefore excellent candidates for climate-resilient new apple varieties.

Kwiaht plans to develop, share and protect this unique island genetic resource by grafting the best seedlings into new rootstock, and growing them out so that there is enough scionwood to make grafts freely available to island farmers and gardeners. Kwiaht will also trademark names for these new apple varieties, and hold the registered varietal names in trust for the community, so that any future financial returns will be wholly re-invested in island food-security projects.

New seedling varieties such as Cayou Peach, Eastsound Rose, and Rosalie Red will begin to be available at Kwiaht’s annual grafting workshop at the Orcas Island Historical Museum in the spring; and to appear in selected farm stands by autumn 2026.

Apples for Orcas is one of the projects in this year’s Orcas Island Community Foundation Holiday Catalog, which can be found at: https://oicf.fcsuite.com/erp/donate/list/grant.