Red Delicious
| Red Delicious | |
|---|---|
|
|
| Art | Cultivated apple ( Malus domestica ) |
| origin | Peru, Iowa , USA |
| Breeding year | 1872 |
| Launch | 1895 |
| ancestry | |
|
Chance seedling , possibly Yellow Bellflower seedling |
|
| List of apple varieties | |
Red Delicious (German: Roter Köstlicher), originally Delicious , is a variety of apples . The apple was the world's most popular apple variety from the mid-20th century to the beginning of the 21st century and dominated the table apple market in the United States for decades.
Red Delicious is the best researched of all apples. Due to its widespread use and its memorable appearance, Red Delicious has long stood for the typical apple and its presentation in the USA. The apple is prone to mutations . Due to its widespread distribution and the tendency to mutate, there are no other varieties in the trade as many different varieties as Red Delicious . So also was Red Delicious originally only a particularly red version of Delicious.
Red Delicious is one of the most popular varieties on the world market for apples. Of the currently other dominant varieties, Fuji is a direct descendant, Gala is a second generation descendant.
description
fruit
The apple has a firm and juicy flesh. The taste is very sweet with little acidity. It is sometimes perceived as extremely tasty, but also as "perfume-like". For decades, delicious apples have been selected for their appearance and shelf life, with aroma only playing a secondary role. Delicious tends to become floury, but remains firm to the bite.
The apple belongs to color group A (red varieties) with a smooth skin of dark red (wine red) color with a striped surface. The base color of the shell is green, but is almost completely covered by the red cover color. In the shops today, there are mainly shapes that are solid, dark red. The original shape is said to have been strawberry red with dark red stripes. The shell is completely rustproof, thick and durable. The flesh is cream-colored.
The original shape is slightly elongated with a flat bottom. However, the numerous mutations in the trade mean that the fruits are heterogeneous. The fruits are large to very large and have the pronounced five bumps around the calyx, which are typical for this variety.
The market value of Red Delicious is mainly determined by the color and shape of the fruit, with the market always giving preference to tall red apples. The highest prices are achieved by apples with a fruit shape index (height / width) of 1.08 and a red color of over 90% of the area. Red Delicious must have a minimum size of 70 mm in Class Extra and 65 mm in Class I and II. In Class Extra, at least three-quarters, in Class I at least half and in Class II at least a quarter of the fruit must be red.
tree
The tree grows moderately strong, the branches point upwards. The tree grows up to 7.5 meters high as a high trunk . The crown width is also up to 7.5 meters in diameter; correspondingly smaller volumes are built up on weaker substrates .
The leaves are 5 to 10 centimeters long, dark green, with a serrated edge and coarsely veined. They are arranged alternately on the branch. In autumn the tree quickly sheds its leaves. Flowering time in Europe is in early to mid spring. The flowers are pinkish white. The ripening takes place in Europe from mid-September, just before Golden Delicious. Harvest is around 140 to 160 days after flowering in a single pass. Some sub-types are already fully red in August, but physiologically still immature.
In terms of vulnerabilities and productivity, the tree is average compared to other apples. In contrast to many other varieties, it shows little alternation .
Mutants
_jm33430.jpg)
The original variety produced many and now very different mutations that were selected and further propagated through grafting . For example, selection was made for a stronger red color, then to accept the red color before full maturity, or to survive the CA camp particularly well . There are several hundred sub-types on the market today, but only a few are more common. These include: Oregon, Otago, Red Chief, Red King, Red Spur, Richared, Starking, Starkrimson, Starkspur.
Sandidge (brand name: Super Chief ) is an evolution of the Red Chief . The apple has an opaque color of 100% and is washed out with stripes. The shape of the fruit is regular with the five cusps typical of Red Delicious. Evasni (brand name: Scarlet Spur ) is a mutation of the Oregon Spur mutation . The apple is also completely red in color, but has a washed-out color impression. The fruit is a little flatter. With Jeromine, on the other hand, there are hardly any weaker colored fruits. Another very strongly colored variant is Erovan .
Origin and Distribution
origin
The variety originated from a random seedling that the Peruvian farmer Jesse Hiatt found in Iowa around 1872. The mother of the seedling might be a Yellow Bellflower that was standing nearby. The tree did not grow in a row, so Hiatt reportedly tried to cut it down twice. Since the seedling withstood attempts to get rid of it, Hiatt eventually continued to cultivate it, naming the new variety Hawkeye after the nickname of the state of Iowa in which it was.
Hiatt tried several times to spread the apple to growers. At that time, however, the preferred shape of the apple was round, and breeders disdained the heart-shaped apple with the pronounced ribs. In the 1880s, mail order nursery nurse Clarence Stark held a competition to find an apple that could replace the Ben Davis variety that was popular at the time . He became aware of Hiatt's strain, which had won first prize at a fruit show in Louisiana . He bought the rights to it from Hiatt and renamed the apple variety Delicious . (According to legend, he bit into an apple and said, “My, that's delicious!”) Stark introduced the Delicious commercially in 1895.
Stark himself discovered a mutation in Delicious, the red of which was more extensive and darker than that of Delicious , which he called "Red Delicious". Although less flavorful than the Delicious , Red Delicious sold better in the supermarket.
The first Red Delicious tree survived until the 1940s. The tree was destroyed during the Armistice Day Blizzard , which raged across the American Midwest on November 11, 1940, which destroyed many thousands of apple trees, among other things. However, two new trees grew from the roots of the extremely resilient tree, one of which will live until 2013.
In the first half of the 20th century, saplings grown from Red Delicious seeds were widely used as a rootstock . Red Delicious has been shown to bear well in a wide variety of climates and soil conditions. Together with the widespread use of Red Delicious s in cultivation, the practice arose of using the Red Delicious seedling rootstocks for processing with rice from other apple varieties as well. While in commercial cultivation the Red Delicious variety has disappeared as a base in favor of special bases selected for special growth characteristics , the apple is still used in less developed areas as a producer of seedlings.
Market importance
Red Delicious was the most common apple in the world in the second half of the 20th century. This began to change at the end of the 20th century. New varieties such as Gala or Fuji - both Delicious descendants - gained in importance. Even in the USA , Delicious itself is only grown on a small part of the area compared to earlier times.
For decades there were only two or three apple varieties in supermarkets in the USA or Australia: “red”, “green” and “mixed”, with “red” always being Red Delicious , and the best-selling of these varieties. The wholesalers chose it for its good looks, cheap storage and transport capabilities and the comparatively undemanding tree that could be grown relatively easily with high yields in a variety of soils and climates. For a long time, the largest growing area was Washington State in the north-west of the USA, which, with lots of rain, hot days and cold nights, offers ideal conditions for the red color and the characteristic conical shape.
The selection of the varieties that the farmers planted obeyed the grading system of the supermarkets. The supermarkets had discovered that, regardless of taste, consumers chose the apple that was the most red in color. The supermarket chains therefore paid for apples by color and size, while taste was irrelevant. The Red Delicious apples got bigger and redder over the decades, with thicker skins. They developed from pale strawberry pink to fire engine red to a very dark red that was sold in stores as "midnight red". However, they lost their aromatic intensity.
Today the share of Red Delicious in world production is declining. In the last few decades since the 1960s, consumers began to ask about older apple varieties, and breeders are once again relying more on taste as a breeding criterion. New varieties such as Fuji , Gala , Cripps Pink or Braeburn also began to overtake Red Delicious in its home market. Large growing nations are Argentina, China, Chile, France, Italy and Canada. In Central and Northern Europe, the summers are often too cool, so that the tree only produces small fruits.
In the USA in particular, the loss of importance of Red Delicious caused upheavals. After large parts of the apple producers had shifted to the sole production of Red Delicious , the loss of importance hit them from the 1990s. In 2000, with a volume of 138 million dollars, the government decided the largest rescue operation in the history of apple production to date , in which every apple grower was promised up to 30,000 dollars. In long-term apple production, it took a decade for American producers to cultivate other varieties such as Gala or Fuji ; by then, numerous producers had left the business.
In South Tyrol , Red Delicious took third place in terms of cultivation area in 2008.
use
Red Delicious is mainly used as a table apple. While it retains its aroma when juicing, it loses its shape and aroma considerably when it is boiled or dried and is hardly used for this.
Cultivation
Red Delicious grows best in regions where long periods of sunshine combine with warm daytime and cold nighttime temperatures. It is moderately to very hardy.
The trees are fast growing. They need at least six to eight hours of sunshine a day and acidic, moist, well-drained soil. If they get enough water, they can tolerate hot summers too. The trees are diploid but not self-pollinating, so a pollen donor is required for fertilization . The trees are resistant to fire blight infection and apple scab . The bark is valued by rabbits and other rodents, which can lead to the destruction of the trees by debarking the trunk. In humid areas, Red Delicious trees are prone to apple scab. Red Delicious requires relatively little maintenance. The branches carry the fruits, which are relatively far apart, well, so that only a little has to be cut. The apples themselves stick to the tree, so a single harvest is sufficient.
storage
Red Delicious must be stored in a cool, dry place, with low humidity , but not below 3 ° C. It can be kept in the cold store until the end of November and in the CA warehouse for 230 days, i.e. until the next early summer. When stored for a long time, the fruits are susceptible to fruit rot . Many of the commercially available Red Delicious have a moldy core, but the pulp is rarely affected.
Cultivars
The descendants of Red Delicious are Fuji , Gloster , Kidds Orange Red (the mother variety of Gala), Empire and Caudle (trade name "Cameo").
Remarks
- ↑ a b c Thomas Burford: Apples in: Andrew F. Smith (ed.): The Oxford Companion to American Food and Drink Oxford University Press 2007 ISBN 978-0-19-530796-2 pp. 21-22
- ↑ a b c d e f g h Cheryl R. Hampson and Henk Kemp: Characteristics of Important Commercial Apple Cultivars in: DC Ferree and IJ Warrington (eds.): Apples. Botany, Production and Uses. "CABI Publishing 2003, ISBN 0-85199-592-6 . P. 62
- ↑ a b c d e f g Red Delicious , orangepippin.com
- ↑ a b c d Cheryl R. Hampson and Henk Kemp: Characteristics of Important Commercial Apple Cultivars in: DC Ferree and IJ Warrington (eds.): Apples. Botany, Production and Uses. "CABI Publishing 2003, ISBN 0-85199-592-6 . P. 63
- ↑ a b c d J. E. Jackson: The Biology of Apples and Pears Cambridge University Press ISBN 1-139-43705-4 p. 38
- ↑ a b c Josef Österreicher: Red Delicious Clones - our recommendations , Obstbau Weinbau 4/2009 p. 137–140
- ↑ a b c d e f g h Delicious , orangepippin.com
- ↑ Susan Dolan: Fruitful legacy: a historic context of orchards in the United States, with technical information for registering orchards in the National Register of Historic Places United States Government Printing Office ISBN 0-16-082127-4 p. 99
- ^ A b Rowan Jacobsen: American Terroir: Savoring the Flavors of Our Woods, Waters, and Fields Bloomsbury Publishing USA, 2010 ISBN 1-60819-459-0
- ^ A b Timothy Egan: "Perfect" Apple Pushed Growers Into Debt , New York Times November 4, 2000
