YAKIMA, Wash. – Washington State University’s newest apple, WA 64, has an official brand name: Sunflare.
Announced by WSU apple breeder Kate Evans on Dec. 10, 2024, at the Northwest Horticulture Expo at Yakima, Washington, the new name resulted from a public contest that drew more than 15,000 responses.
“Our breeding program exists to give consumers better apples to eat, and Sunflare™ checks all our boxes,” Evans said.
A tart, crunchy, juicy cross of Honeycrisp and Cripps Pink—better known under the trademark name Pink Lady®—Sunflare™ apples will reach grocery stores in 2029.
Thousands of name entries were winnowed down by WSU faculty and staff as well as public focus groups of apple lovers. The university sought a creative, distinctive name that consumers will remember and link positively with the apple. Sunflare™ won in part by best reflecting the apple’s physical qualities.
“This name hits all those marks,” said Jeremy Tamsen, director of the WSU Office of Commercialization. “These pinks, oranges, and yellows stand out against all the red apples on the shelf.”
Winning contestant Ryan Escarcega, a 49-year-old food service salesperson and chef from Centralia, Washington, was inspired by the variety’s bright hues as well as the powerful solar storms that sparked northern lights visible across North America this spring.
“I looked at the picture of the apple for a long time, fantasizing what it was going to taste like,” he said. “It was a real eye-catcher. I saw a nice relationship between the colors and the name. And the sun has everything to do with the growth of the product.”
Sunflare™ is the third apple to emerge from the WSU breeding program, which launched Cosmic Crisp® in 2019. Bicolored, with a pink blush over a yellow background when ripe, Sunflare™ is a crunchy, firm, juicy apple with a sweet and tart balance and complex flavor.
Scientists first bred Sunflare™ in 1998 when they hand-pollinated a Honeycrisp flower with pollen from a Cripps Pink tree at WSU’s Columbia View Research Orchard.
“We do what the bees do,” said retired apple breeder Bruce Barritt, who launched the breeding program in 1994. “Sunflare™ resulted from pollination. It’s not engineered or modified in any way.”
There’s an element of chance to every cross combination. Each pollinated ovule in an apple flower develops into a genetically distinct seed that, when grown, will bear fruit that can vary widely from its parents. Apple breeders like Barritt and Evans test thousands of trees in the search for one outstanding variety.
Apple consumers are the focus of the WSU apple breeding program: breeders seek outstanding eating quality and excellent long-term storage. For the Sunflare™ apple, Honeycrisp traits delivered the crispness and juiciness while Cripps Pink traits provided outstanding firmness and flavor in storage.
WSU holds a patent on WA 64 and has filed trademark applications for the Sunflare™ brand name. The university selected International New-Varieties Network LLC to manage sales of licensed WA 64 trees and budwood to growers and has organized an advisory committee of marketing company representatives to license and market the variety to grocers. This committee will help develop a trademarked logo, color palette, and brand look and feel.
WSU scientists continue to study and share recommendations on the best ways to grow WA 64. Royalties from sales of the trees, budwood, and, eventually, the fruit itself, will help support research and future apple varieties at WSU. Support for WA 64 breeding and development was provided by the Washington Tree Fruit Research Commission, the Washington State Department of Agriculture’s Specialty Crop Block Grant Program, and the Washington Research Foundation, as well as from WSU apple royalties.
Sunflare™ is not Escarcega’s first apple naming experience. As a student at the Seattle Culinary Academy more than a decade ago, he was part of a focus group that helped name the Envy apple. Escarcega recalled the experience recently with school friends, mentioning that he won the new WSU apple-naming contest.
“Of course, everybody wants to know the name!” he said. “Now, I can finally tell them.”
Escarcega received a box of Sunflare™ apples and will get other WSU-themed prizes, including a can of Cougar Gold cheese, a charcuterie board engraved with the winning name, WSU spice rubs, and a branded coffee cup and water bottle.
A former executive chef and one-time Coug—he attended WSU his first year of college—Escarcega looks forward to eating his prize apples fresh and making apple butter, apple sauce, pie filling, apple chips, or cider with them.
“I am so excited to be part of this, and even happier that the only apple I will ever eat, as of 2029, will be the best tasting apple I have yet had the pleasure of eating,” said Escarcega, who tasted his first Sunflare™ just before the name was announced. “I love it and its culinary possibilities.”