It may seem rather ironic that a brand new variety of apple was named after the Grammy winner for the song “What's Your Fantasy,” but millennials are a unique group.
“I come from a family of farmers,” J.P. Pacello, owner of Pacello Orchards in upstate New York, tells TODAY.com, adding that his grandfather first grew corn, beans and wheat on the land where Pacello, 37, now grows apples.
“I started planting trees and fell in love with them, started expanding the garden, and now we have about 200 acres of orchard planted with several fresh varieties,” says Pacello. “We don’t do any processing or juicing, everything is fresh: Galas, Honeycrisp, Evercrisp and Ludacrisp.”
The last apple variety he mentioned is relatively new to consumers, having been offered to orchards in 2021 and at Sprouts farmers' markets starting last year. And, of course, his name is prominently displayed on the apple stand.
While artist Ludacris is known for his platinum records and blockbusters like the Fast and the Furious franchise, his Apple counterpart has also earned himself a name for himself. All over social The media, people who saw the apple in passing, established a connection between the seed and the performer.
“Move over Honeycrisp… there's a new apple in town,” Kat Curds said in October TikTok with millions of views to the “Number One Spot” soundtrack. Annoyed users flooded the comments with Ludacris texts like: “Will they be available in different area codes?“, “They said “EQUAL”” And “Move clear, get out of the way“
Paciello came up with the name for the apple variety as part of his membership in the Association. Midwest Apple Improvement Association (MAIA), a 1,200-member organization founded and managed by growers to produce apple varieties available for orchards in the United States and Canada.
“We grew up in the era of DMX, Ja Rule, Lil Wayne, Lil Jon, those are the popular rappers, especially Ludacris, and so I was just trying to come up with a name that would appeal to my age group,” he explains.
According to MAIA, which produces other apple varieties such as Red Zeppelin and Evercrisp, the Ludacrisp apple comes from open pollination varieties of Sweet 16 apples. According to MAIA President and CEO Bill Dodd, Ludacrisp is harvested in mid-to-late October and has a flavor similar to Juicy Fruit bubblegum, which was almost its name.
“Apple breeding is not an incredibly complex process, but it is incredibly labor intensive,” says Dodd. “We have about nine apples that we've released. So Ludacrisp is one of them, and it started about 25-27 years ago.”
MAIA is actively developing new varieties of apples with the intention of patenting them, naming them and introducing them to the public.
“If you take a seed from any apple and plant it, it will look like a child,” Dodd says, adding that any apple seed is a mixture of two parent trees: the tree that produced the apple and the tree that provided the pollen.
“So when you sow a seed, it will be something new, and that’s what we do,” he says. “You plant those seeds, the trees grow, they start producing apples. 98% of them are terrible and you throw them away, but some of them are exceptional and have those good characteristics that you want.”
Dodd says these varieties are then grafted onto new apples and then onto other trees, which are then ready to be offered to growers. One of the last parts is the name; MAIA members gather to make proposals. And the name “Ludacrisp” turned out to be very controversial.
At the meeting, which was attended by about 20 people, “the room was completely divided,” Dodd says. “There was no one who was indifferent to it. They either thought it was the greatest achievement in the world or they hated it.”
“I was like, 'Boom, this is what we want,'” he says—the apple that talks. After deciding on the name, MAIA went through the trademark process, and “bada bing, bada boom,” he says.
With the help of the eponymous fruit, Ludacris joins the elite group of people who have apples named after them. Apple Macintosh is named after farmer John McIntoshwho discovered this variety in Ontario, Canada, back in 1811; granny smith apple named after Mary Ann Smith in 1868; and the Pink Lady apple was named after Australian Maud “Lady” Williams. in the 80s. There are also Early Joe, Jonathan, King David And Kaiser Wilhelmamong others, but not many people from this century have this distinction.
Unfortunately, we don't know what Ludacris himself thinks about this: representatives for the rapper did not immediately respond to TODAY.com's request for comment.
However, given the rapper's penchant for surrealism – comic book hands in his iconic “Come back” video and giant objects all over “Get up” video – People photoshops his face onto apples fits just right.
Our farmers continue to hope that this apple will last as long as its namesake variety, and perhaps even longer.
“Here I give you my ultimate goal in life,” says Dodd. “People who were in Ludacris' time frame are getting old, and so I'm waiting for my grandchildren or somebody's grandchildren to come to me and say, 'Did you know there's a rapper named after an apple?'
