EPHRATA, Wash. — Ricardo Santacruz stoops over a small rootstock tree and slices a notch in its trunk a few inches above the ground so fast that if you blink you’ll miss it.
With equal speed he slices a bud from a short chunk of Cosmic Crisp apple limb from a bundle of them on his hip, places the bud in the notch and moves onto the next tree.
Cosmic Crisp is the new Washington State University variety the Washington apple industry believes will become more popular than Honeycrisp and hopes is the state apple of the future.
Article by Dan Wheat, Capital Press
