Ó:IASE
The Ó:IASE (pronounced O-yi-assé), also notated as Óiase, is a cultivar of apple developed in the Canadian province of Quebec.
The Ó:IASE was developed by Roland Joannin and the apple-breeding collective La Pomme de Demain.[1] It is a hybrid of the Honeycrisp and Pitchounette varieties of apple: in 2007, Pitchounette pollen was inserted into a Honeycrisp flower with a brush,[2] and the first Ó:IASEs became commercially available 17 years later.[1]
Name
[edit]Because their test orchard was in Saint-Joseph-du-Lac, which is close to Kanesatake, Joannin decided that the new variety should have a Mohawk name. In 2018, he asked Hilda Nicholas, of the Mohawk Language Custodians Association, for a suggestion; she devised "Ó:IASE", where the "Ó" indicates that the item is a natural object, the colon is a pause, "IA" means 'apple', and "SE" means 'new'.[2] This spelling caused Joannin significant difficulties when he registered the Ó:IASE with the Canadian Food Inspection Agency's Plant Breeders' Rights Office, as their system was unable to accept acute accents or punctuation; consequently, it is registered as QS250[3]: 11 (the serial number with which the initial Honeycrisp/Pitchounette hybrid was tracked).[3]: 10
References
[edit]- 1 2 Introducing "Óiase": a new apple variety honoring Canada's agricultural and cultural heritage, at the Canadian Food Inspection Agency; retrieved May 12, 2025
- 1 2 Ó:IASE Une nouvelle pomme qui rend hommage à la langue mohawk, by Daphné Cameron; in La Presse; published October 21, 2023; retrieved October 15, 2025
- 1 2 Les Semeurs (transcription) - Episode 16: ROLAND JOANNIN, at Seed Security; transcript of SeedHeads podcast, posted December 22, 2023; "Ó:IASE, ça s'écrit Ó:I-A-S-E et ça se prononce Oyiassé. C'est un nom Mohawk. Quand j'ai déposé ça à l'organisme pour les brevets, ils m'ont dit : « L'article machin, tu n'as pas droit aux accents, tu n'as pas droit à la ponctuation. Les deux points, on ne peut pas. » Eux autres ne comprenaient pas. Je n'allais pas raconter toute l'histoire, alors j'ai dit : « Je suis un peu embêté. C'est un nom Mohawk. Je veux bien changer l'orthographe. » Là, on a déposé sous le nom de code QS250."