6 • 2018 Experience Montana
Apples to Apples MSU Extension team works against clock to bring Montana heritage apples to modern gardens By Evelyn Boswell Beyond the log home of Chief Plenty Coups, past the cottonwood that overlooks the sacred spring are five tough apple trees. Gnarled and bowed but still producing enough apples to make a batch of pies, they are the sole survivors of an orchard that Chief Plenty Coups planted near Pryor in 1903. Some say the legendary Crow planted several hundred fruit trees because he was impressed by the orchards he saw on his many trips to Washington, D.C. Others say the U.S. government ordered him to plant the trees and he obeyed. Whatever the reason, Chief Plenty Coups planted an apple orchard that fed his family and the customers who frequented his store. But most of the trees eventually died, falling victim to drought, blight or insects. Some may have succumbed to black bears, deer antlers rubbing against bark or the terrific winds that blow through the area. The hardy handful that have overcome those challenges stand together in Chief Plenty Coups State Park, 35 miles south of Billings and a mile west of Pryor. "I love telling people about the apples and that they are eating something the chief planted 100 years ago," said Aaron Kind, manager of Chief Plenty Coups State Park and an MSU alum in anthropology. Now a Montana State University team is doing what it can to identify and preserve those trees and others like them while creating opportunities for Montana entrepreneurs.
The fact that the trees are alive and producing apples after 100 years is important for a variety of reasons, say Toby Day and Brent Sarchet, founders of the Montana Heritage Orchard Program and both with MSU Extension. Day is the Extension horticulture specialist. Sarchet is the Extension agent for Lewis and Clark County. The duo says that the Plenty Coups trees are historically and culturally significant because of their age and ties to the visionary Indian chief. They also are scientifically valuable because they may offer insights about survival and resistance that could improve the quality of modern apple trees. The fact that the heritage trees have lived for more than a century indicates that they may harbor special qualities, such as resistance to disease, drought and pests that could be introduced into modern apple trees to make them more resilient. The trees are economically significant because pieces of the original trees have already been grafted onto new rootstock. When the new trees become available to the public, they will create opportunities for Montana nurseries interested in marketing trees and apples descended from Plenty Coups' orchard. Such are the goals of the Montana Heritage Orchard Program that Day and Sarchet started about five years ago after conversations with master grafter Roger Joy of Corvallis. A three-year $128,000 Specialty Crop Block Grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture kicked off the plan to develop a selfsupporting program where the profits and orchard DNA will be
