Cultivar 64: Wecota

Wecota is a wild crabapple from a cross involving Northwestern Greening, recorded by N. E. Hansen in 1929.[S1] [S2] Hansen presented it as a winter crab for the far North, part of his effort to improve the American wild crabapple for severe prairie and northern conditions.[S1]

Sources give the parentage as Nevis wild crab x Northwestern Greening apple, while a later prairie apple reference gives it as Nels x Northwest Greening.[S1] [S2] The meaning is the same: Wecota was selected from a wild crabapple x cultivated apple cross for hardiness and usable fruit quality.[S1] [S2]

The fruit is described as about 2 inches, or up to 5 cm, across, cylindrical to round truncated, yellow green, and covered with an oily or unctuous skin.[S1] [S2] The flavor is acid but not sharply astringent.[S1] Hansen wrote that it cooks softer than related wild crab selections and has less of the harsh wild crab character.[S1]

Wecota is best known as a cooking and winter use crabapple.[S1] Fruit kept frozen outdoors until February 4, 1939, reportedly lost much of its acerbity when cooked, with flesh like baked apple in color and consistency and a mildly acid, quite edible result.[S1] That trial is the clearest hardiness evidence in the record and supports Hansen's description of it as a fruit that can stand severe freezing.[S1]

Its broader importance is in early northern breeding work that tried to get useful winter fruit from native or wild crabapple material without losing all culinary value.[S1] [S2] Wecota is remembered less as a dessert apple than as a hardy far northern crab with practical kitchen use and unusual value after freezing.[S1]

Summary source basis

• S1: New Hardy Fruits for the Northwest
• S2: Edible Apples in Prairie Canada
• S3: Plant Introductions

This summary currently draws chiefly from New Hardy Fruits for the Northwest, with 2 additional supporting sources linked below.

Featured source descriptions

“Fruit is described as cylindrical to round truncated, with yellow-green skin that is unctuous.”
— ^[1]

“Listed in the table of contents under "TAMING THE AMERICAN WILD CRABAPPLE" with entry page 18.”
— ^[1]

“Fruit kept frozen solid outdoors until February 4, 1939, lost acerbity when cooked and became mildly acid and quite edible.”
— ^[1]

“Flavor is described as acid and not very acerb.”
— ^[1]

Direct parent cultivars

• No direct linked parent cultivars promoted yet.

Parentage claim text

• Wecota is described as a Nevis wild crab x Northwestern Greening apple cross.
• Listed as "Nels X Northwest Greening."
• Pedigree: Lady Washington x Beta.

Derived or downstream cultivar links

• No derived or downstream lineage links yet.

Source-story quotations

• Fruits of Wecota kept frozen solid outdoors until February 4, 1939, lost their acerbity when cooked; the flesh was of the consistency and color of baked apples and was mildly acid and quite edibleNew Hardy Fruits for the Northwest, p19
• Fruit two inches in diameter; cylindrical to round truncated, yellow green; skin unctuous; flavor acid; not very acerbNew Hardy Fruits for the Northwest, p19
• Wecota (Nev's Northwest Greening) Hansen (1929) CREdible Apples in Prairie Canada, p73
• Wecota (Nev's Northwest Greening) Hansen (1929) CREdible Apples in Prairie Canada, p73

Taxonomy context: No family-tree context surfaced yet.

Related cultivars mentioned in source context