Montague’s red-fleshed apple delivers on expectations

The first Australian trees of a new apple variety that has been decades in the making in France has delivered its first crop of fruit.

Coming soon: Rowan Little with new Kissabel apples, which will be available to consumers in the autumn of 2021. Picture: Zoe Phillips

THE search for an apple with inner beauty began in France more than 20 years ago.

After the first cross of a wild red-fleshed apple from Kazakhstan with traditional eating varieties, two decades of research and four generations of breeding, Australia will get its first taste of the distinctively coloured apple later this year.

Montague Fresh is one of 14 shareholders globally in the Ifored breeding program, and the only Australian licence holder. Their first Kissabel trees were imported from France and, after two years in quarantine, 2000 trees of eight different Kissabel varieties were planted in Victoria, Tasmania and South Australia in 2017.

There are 17 different cultivars that can be called a Kissabel apple with flesh colour ranging from pink to a deep red, and the skin from orange to crimson.

Finally, the first Australian trees have produced fruit. Montague Fresh general manager Rowan Little said the response to the crop had been so positive the company would plant a commercial volume of 5000 more trees next year.

“So by 2025 you’ll start to see them in the supermarket,” he said. “This is the first year we’re had any fruit and the reaction has been as positive as we could imagine, so it has given us encouragement to speed that up.”

Before then, the apples will be available to consumers in autumn next year from Montague’s pick-your-own orchard and farm shop.

Mr Little said the origin of the red flesh remained a mystery, but stressed there had been no genetic modification involved.

“The original plant material is from a wild crab- apple which has been crossed with a conventional apple; which variety exactly is a mystery the breeder will never divulge. There’s no doubt in my mind they have a Honeycrisp (US apple cultivar) quality to them, but it’s a well-kept secret,” Mr Little said.

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