Birkenfelder Rotäpfelchen

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Birkenfelder Rotäpfelchen
Synonyms Birch fields red apple
Art Cultivated apple ( Malus domestica )
origin Birkenfeld district
List of apple varieties

The 'Birkenfelder Rotäpfelchen' , also called 'Birkenfelder Rotapfel' , is a cultivar of the cultivated apple ( Malus domestica ). This commercial apple can be stored well and is particularly suitable for further processing as a jelly. The 'Birkenfeld Rotäpfelchen' is grown in the Birkenfeld district in Rhineland-Palatinate . The apples are dark red to almost black and have a sour taste.

The firm “pulp” of the small apple is also red-veined. The calyx is tomentose and hairy. Harvest time for apples in the Hunsrück is at the end of October. The trees are small.

Originally the 'Birkenfeld Rotäpfelchen' was mainly used for self-sufficiency on the Hunsrück. The strikingly colored and easily storable apple was mainly processed but also used as a Christmas decoration. Until 2010 only a single occurrence of the 'Birkenfeld Rotäpfelchen' was known on a meadow orchard in Mackenrodt . Other owners contacted the local newspaper through calls, so that in 2010 three more locations could be identified. Also in 2010, the 'Birkenfeld Rotäpfelchen' received its own description of the variety from the pomologist Richard Dahlem for the first time .

The 'Birkenfeld Rotäpfelchen' became known through the planned EU seed regulation . This would have made the trade and commercial cultivation of old types of fruit much more difficult. The 'Birkenfeld Rotäpfelchen' was one of the varieties that played a role in the campaign against the ordinance and thus kept the Bundestag busy several times. Julia Klöckner , then State Secretary for the Federal Ministry for Food, Agriculture and Consumer Protection, praised the little red apple as an “essential part of the cultural landscape”, while Steffi Lemke brought fruit back to the Bundestag from a trip to the Hunsrück. As a result of the campaign, interest in the variety increased in the district itself, so that in 2014 150 branches of the 'Birkenfeld Rotäpfelchen' could be distributed again.

The Birkenfeld landscape care association, which has been making a jelly from red apples for several years, is responsible for maintaining the 'Birkenfelder Rotäpfelchen' variety and the PR for the variety .

In 2014, Slow Food added the little red apple to the Ark of Taste .

Remarks

  1. ↑ Two new candidates for the Ark of Taste , Slow Food Germany May 7, 2014
  2. ↑ a b Birkenfelder Rotäpfelchen can be propagated , Rhein-Zeitung October 18, 2010
  3. ↑ a b Slow Food Germany: Birkenfelder Rotapfel , accessed October 1, 2015
  4. ↑ Julia Klöckner: Old fruit varieties and orchards must be preserved! ( Memento of October 3, 2015 in the Internet Archive ), March 30, 2010
  5. ↑ German Bundestag: Stenographic report 32nd session - Berlin, Wednesday, May 7, 2014 (PDF; 1.7 MB) p. 2673 , accessed on October 21, 2019 .
  6. ↑ a b c Kurt Knaudt: Birkenfelder Rotäpfelchen is increasingly becoming a top brand , Rhein-Zeitung September 10, 2014