Do Apples Really Come in That Many Colors?
Ask a child to draw an apple and there is a good chance the crayon will be red.
But walk through a large orchard or an old-fashioned apple display and suddenly things become much more complicated.
Apples can be bright red, deep burgundy, pink, yellow, golden, green, yellow-green, striped, blushed, speckled-or several of those things at once.
So what is happening in all those apple skins?
An Apple Has More Than One Pigment
Apple color comes from different plant pigments, and the final appearance depends partly on which pigments are present and how strongly they are expressed.
Chlorophyll contributes green.
Carotenoids contribute yellow and golden tones.
Anthocyanins can produce red and reddish-purple coloring.
An apple's appearance can change as it ripens because the balance of those pigments changes too.
That means the color we see isn't simply paint on the outside of the fruit. It is evidence of chemistry taking place in living plant tissue.
Variety Matters
There are thousands of named apple cultivars around the world.
A cultivar is a cultivated plant variety that people have selected and maintained because it has particular characteristics.
Those characteristics might include flavor, texture, color, size, harvest time, storage ability, disease resistance, or how well an apple works for eating, baking, cider making, or another purpose.
That is why a Granny Smith doesn't simply look different from a Golden Delicious. They have different inherited characteristics.
Even two apples growing in similar conditions can look and taste very different because they belong to different cultivars.
Sunshine Can Matter Too
Genetics aren't the entire story.
Growing conditions can affect color development.
In red apples, for example, light exposure can influence anthocyanin production. Parts of an apple receiving more sunlight may develop stronger red coloration than shaded portions of the same fruit.
Temperature, maturity, and other environmental factors can influence pigment development as well.
So an apple's appearance reflects an interaction between what the plant inherited and what happened while the fruit was growing.
Look Again
This is one reason I enjoy introducing children to the science hidden inside familiar foods.
You don't need an exotic plant from the other side of the world to discover something fascinating.
Sometimes you just need to look more closely at an apple.
The next time you see several varieties together, compare them.
Look for tiny speckles. Notice where one color fades into another. Look at the side that received the most sun. Compare a green apple with a yellow one and a deeply red one.
There is an entire palette of plant chemistry sitting in the produce section.
And once you know that, an apple never looks quite as ordinary again.
Quinn's apple story coming soon!
