Empire (apple)

Malus domestica 'Empire'
Empire apples
Hybrid parentage	'McIntosh' × 'Red Delicious'
Cultivar	'Empire'
Origin	Geneva, New York, 1945

Empire is the name of a clonally-propagated cultivar of apple derived from a seed grown in 1945 by Lester C. Anderson, a Cornell University fruit nutritionist who conducted open pollination research on his various orchards. In 1945, under the direction of A. J. Heinicke, scientists from the New York State Agricultural Experiment Station of Cornell University in Geneva, New York, harvested the Empire seed, together with thousands of its siblings. The Geneva teams grew and tested ever dwindling sub-populations of the sibling group until 1966, when the final selection, the Empire, was released to the public at the New York Fruit Testing Association meetings in Geneva. According to the US Apple Association website it is one of the fifteen most popular apple cultivars in the United States.

Empire apples are red, juicy, firm, crunchy and sweet. They ripen during September and October, and will keep until January.

The original seed was a cross between the varieties McIntosh and Red Delicious. Empire apples are excellent for eating and salads, and good for sauce, baking, pies and freezing. It is an ideal lunch-box apple, not least because it does not bruise easily.

By the year 2001, three mutant cultivars (sports) of Empire had received US plant patents. None of them were mutants of mutants:

...
Wikipedia