Washington State nurseries who are members of the International New- Varieties Network are preparing for the release of Rubens in North America. The Gala-Elstar cross was developed in Italy.  When C&O Nursery started in business a century ago, it offered more than 20 different varieties of apples, from Arkansas Black to Yellow Transparent, along with many other types of fruits. Washington’s tree fruit industry was then in its infancy, shipping 50,000 boxes of fruit in 1906. As it matured, the range of varieties was whittled down to a handful, with Red Delicious accounting for 72 percent of the state’s 50-million-box […]