Mark Christensen was elected as recipient of our annual prize for contribution to Tree Cropping, the Dr Don McKenzie Award. For 2006, this honours Mark's outstanding recent research relating apples and cancer prevention.
Contents:
- Nomination citation by Mark's Branch of NZTCA
- Links to Mark's Apple research
Mark Christensen - Citation from Central Districts Branch
Mark has been a member for 14 years, served as Central Districts Branch Treasurer for 12 of those years, and Chairman for 6 years. Mark convened the National Tree Crops Conference in 1992 at Wanganui.
He has been contributing Apple (anti-cancer) articles to the Tree Cropper for over 6 years. His articles printed in national magazines, and attracted international scientific cooperation, gives a high profile to NZTCA. Mark's work was contributed at an international conference on the apple last year.
Mark has organised visits, conduction a Wanganui Heritage Tree search that resulted in the selection of about 30 high health apple and plum varieties. Central Districts grafted all these at Mark's Springvale property in 2001 and sold the first 200 trees in 2002 to several branches. Since then his collection and the nursery has grown.
Mark's search for “apples against cancer” on the internet threw up the Finnish study that established a link between flavonoid compounds, mostly found in apples, and the reduced incidence of major human diseases. Finns who eat an apple a day have the lowest cancer incidence in the world. Dr Lieu at Cornell University, USA, was investigating procyanidins to fight cancer. He achieved 49% kill of cancer cells in bowel cancer in mice.
In cooperation with Hort Research at Massey Mark supplied 59 varieties to be tested on their HPLC (High Performance Liquid Chromatogram). The heritage apples had up to 4 times as much flavonoids and procyanidins as commercial apples. At this stage Central Districts Branch bulked up Monty's Surprise - our top seedling apple, and supplied it to 5 other branches. Wanganui Public Health have put funding into a project to supply 5000 Monty's Surprise apples to Wanganui households. Central Districts will have grown 800 for this year.
The latest analysis of 125 apples from apple collectors all over the country, has shown up Fuero Rous, a French cider apple, with an even higher proportion of procyanidins, flavonoids, anthrocyanins. The French medical research team at Straussbourg University are concentrating on anthrocyanins (the red colour pigments). Mark has supplied Monty's Surprise apples to Cornell University, to Straussbourg University and to the Finns.
An unexpected outcome from the original research was identifying a unique substance in Russet apples which slows the body's absorption of sugar. This makes them suitable for diabetics. We supplied samples to Massey University for the Diabetic Unit to follow up.
There are many apple collectors in Tree Crops. Mark's contribution is to have tested the old heritage apples using science's most modern analytical tool. No apple industry group did this, no medical research science units did this, Tree Crops did this, and set the whole scientific community ablaze. No two apple varieties are the same - all test with different levels of compounds. There is huge diversity of apple cultivars in New Zealand, over 700 varieties. New Zealand apple growers have been persuaded over many years to remove old varieties and replace them with supposedly superior modern varieties, but inbreeding for cosmetic, commercial and longkeeping qualities have dumbed down the health compounds in commercial apples, resulting in the need to spray pesticides and fungicides.
Mark's budget this year to organise funding for research is $54,000.00. We have another 500 apple varieties to test. Thanks to Mark's enthusiasm, members all over the country are keen to grow the heritage apples we have identified so far.
Read Mark's research in our Apple index