Gravensteiner
| Gravensteiner | |
|---|---|
| Synonyms | Gråsten æble (Danish), flower calvill, harvest apple, Sabine of the Flemmings, summer king |
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| Art | Cultivated apple ( Malus domestica ) |
| origin | Gravenstein , Danish: Gråsten (South Jutland / North Schleswig, Denmark) |
| known since | 1669 |
| ancestry | |
| List of apple varieties | |
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The Gravensteiner (also Grafensteiner , Grafenapfel ; Danish Gråsten æble ) is a variety of the cultivated apple ( Malus domestica ). The variety has been known in Denmark and Northern Germany since at least 1669. The Gravensteiner is a summer apple that can be harvested from late August to mid-September. Once distributed around the world, with a focus on Europe from South Tyrol to Norway, in California and in Nova Scotia , Canada , its commercial importance has declined sharply in recent decades and it is primarily a popular variety.
Its widely vaunted taste, the early harvest time and its good suitability for further processing contributed to its spread. Gravensteiner has been displaced by newer varieties, as it cannot be stored well, is demanding to grow and is sensitive to shock. The Gravensteiner was named Denmark's national fruit in 2005 . In the same year the " Sebastopol Gravenstein Apple" was included in the Ark of Taste by Slow Food USA. In the Ark of Good Taste by Slow Food Canada, on the other hand, the "Nova Scotia Gravenstein" has been located since 2007.
description
Fruit: shape and color
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The apples are large to very large in comparison. They are usually rough-edged and not very round, often also crooked. The apples are medium-bellied to tall. The width averages 74 millimeters, the height 64 millimeters. The mean fruit weight is 189 grams.
The "Color Atlas of Fruit Types" describes the apples as "structurally coarse and unappealing." The skin is waxy and soft. This effect increases with prolonged storage, writes one author, after a few weeks it feels like it is bathed in fat.
The skin is pale waxy yellow with crimson dots and lines, the sunny side is often crimson-flamed to marbled. Fresh from the tree, the skin is yellowish green and turns deep yellow when fully ripe. The lenticels are barely visible. The pulp itself is greenish-white to cream-colored.
The stem is very short and thick. Most of the time it doesn't even reach the stem pit. The stem pit itself is medium-wide and narrowed in a funnel shape. The chalice is half-open to closed. The leaflets in the calyx are remarkably large and long with wool. The calyx pit is not very wide, but comparatively deep. Stem pit and calyx pit are usually rusted in a radial pattern .
The middle-sized core house is large and spacious. The nuclei themselves are few and often poorly developed, but large.
Fruit: texture and taste
The Gravensteiner has been praised for its taste for centuries. It is one of the tastiest European apple varieties with a typical, aromatic taste and strongly fragrant fruits. It is significantly sweeter than most other summer apples. The fruit varieties color atlas comes to the conclusion: “Fine fruity, spicy, unique aroma, accentuated apple scent, excellent quality.” The coarse-celled flesh is very juicy and crispy in the bite , which is also atypical for a summer apple . If stored for a long time, the pulp becomes tender. However, the apple is very susceptible to bumps, the pulp becomes slightly detached in these areas.
In Swiss organic farming, the Gravensteiner, together with Cox Orange, is one of the two archetypes for the “strong-spicy” taste classification, which, in addition to the “mild to sweet” (e.g. Golden Delicious ) and “sour-aromatic” (e.g. . Boskoop ) exists.
blossom
The flower is large and snow-white. The petals are large, nailed short and opaque. The number of primary leaves is 6.7, with 5 to 9 primary leaves. These are unequal in size, broadly oval and downy. There are also many minor leaflets. The sepals are almost triangular and massive. The styles are close and wide upwards. The styles are longer than the also close and upright stamens . The flowering period in Europe is between late April and mid-May. The flowering time is long, the flowering time is staggered.
Wood and leaves
The tree is striking because of its strong growth. This continues into old age. The main branches, however, start flat. Slight scaling can occur inside the crown. The crowns of high trunks are broad and large. Without further care, the tree almost exclusively has long shoots ; short shoots can also be produced through maintenance measures such as summer pruning and binding. The bark of the tree is strikingly greenish-brown in color. The tree can live up to 100 years; individual specimens up to 200 years old were found.
The leaves are dense, dark green, shiny and have a long oval shape. They have an attached tip and a sharply toothed edge. The leaves are hardly larger than the individual apples.
The fruits grow on annual short shoots, annual long shoots that are more than 25 centimeters long and on two-year long shoots. About half of the fruits grow on the two-year long shoots.
history
The Gravensteiner has been known in Denmark and Schleswig since 1669 . It is a chance seedling, the exact origin of which has been lost in history. Common versions of its origin are the creation in the garden of Augustenburg Castle in North Schleswig , the origin from South Tyrol, the apple was then brought to Schleswig under the name "Ville Blanc" or the origin from Italy and the introduction in Denmark by Count Christian Ahlefeldt at the castle Gravenstein or finally the direct creation in the castle garden of Gravenstein .
Distribution in Europe
The Gravensteiner quickly gained popularity in Germany, Sweden and Denmark. The decisive factor was, on the one hand, that it is suitable for processing into apple sauce, dried apples, apple juice and fruit brandy, and on the other hand, its praised taste. For example, in 1940 the Danish pomologist Anton Pedersen gave only two apples the highest number of points in his book Danmarks Frugtsorter in the taste category: Signe Tillisch and the Gravensteiner.
The popularity that the Gravensteiner possessed is also reflected in the fact that other apple varieties were named after him. The jewel from Kirchwerder is also known as "Martens Gravensteiner". There is also the " Gravensteiner von Arreskov ", the " Winter-Gravensteiner ", the "Thuringian Gravensteiner" , the "Gravensteiner Rouge" and several varieties under the name " Falscher Gravensteiner " such as the "Flamed Cardinal" and the "False Red Gravensteiner" " And the" Belumer Falscher Gravensteiner ". There are also Gravensteiner Platz and streets all over Germany that are named after the apple, such as Gravensteiner Platz in the Frankfurter Bogen . In German-speaking Switzerland, Gravenstein has almost become a generic term for a summer apple.
In Europe, the Gravensteiner is mainly grown in Scandinavia today. In the 1990s, the largest growing countries were Italy (5,000 tons to 20,000 tons), Switzerland (4,000 tons to 8,000 tons), Germany (3,000 tons to 7,000 tons, about half each in the Lake Constance area and half on the Lower Elbe) and Denmark (2,000 tons up to 3,000 tons). It was the main cultivar in Norway and one of the most important in Sweden. Since then, however, the numbers have been falling.
In the meantime, the Gravensteiner apple in Norway has been replaced as the most important apple by the Gravensteiner derivative "Aroma" . Together with Aroma and " Summerred ", however, it is still one of the top 3 cultivars. In 2006, Gravensteiner was still one of the ten most important apple varieties cultivated in Switzerland. However, the area was in decline.
In 2005 Denmark recognized the apple as a national apple.
Overall, however, the cultivation area in all cultivation areas has been declining for decades. The reasons for this are, on the one hand, the difficult cultivation and, on the other hand, the limited shelf life of the apple.
Distribution in the USA
The apple came to the United States at the end of the 18th century. There it was praised as the tastiest of the summer apples. The apple was common in New England from 1800 to 1933. The hard winter there in 1933 destroyed a large part of the holdings, from which the Gravensteiner in New England could no longer recover. The apple was more successful in California: the apple came there from Russia and the Pacific at the beginning of the 19th century. Presumably he came to Sebastopol, California , in 1812 with immigrants from Sevastopol . The first planting can no longer be traced with certainty. Presumably, however, the first Gravensteiners in California were in the Russian trading post in Fort Ross in today's Sonoma County.
It is unclear whether it was really the apples from Fort Ross or apples that immigrated via Denmark and the east coast that ultimately caused the further spread. The first commercial Gravensteiner grower in Sonoma County was Nathaniel Griffith, who planted California's first commercial Gravensteiner plantation in 1883 with the support of Luther Burbank . From there it spread particularly in Sonoma County, California . The producers benefited from the fact that the Gravensteiner was the first apple that could be harvested in one season. It ripened in California about two weeks before the apples on the east coast, so that the growers could charge almost any price for the first fresh apples of the year during these two weeks.
In the course of the expansion, its taste was particularly praised. The book The Fruits and Fruit Trees of America from 1845 described it as "one of the best apples from Northern Europe" and Charles Mason Howey's The Fruits of America from 1856 praised it as the best of all European apples in the USA with a beautiful fruit, the popular one Taste and that at a time when there would otherwise be hardly any apples. The Apples of New York , published in 1905, praised the Gravensteiner as “probably not surpassed by any other apple of the season.” Californian pomologist and breeder Luther Burbank stated that if the Gravensteiner were only available all year round, no other apples would be needed and the usually reticent English pomologist Edward Bunyard declared in 1929: " Cox himself is no more unique, so full of juice and smelling of the essence of an apple ... he is reminiscent of the autumn orchard at sunset."
Before wine played a dominant role in Sonoma County since the 1980s / 1999, Gravensteiner was one of the most important agricultural products there. During the Second World War, the area under cultivation was around 3,240 hectares . During the Second World War, applesauce and dried apples were produced for the US troops from California Gravensteiners. Several schools in Sonoma County are named after the Gravensteiner, a highway and a shopping mall. In 2011, the apple area was still 310 hectares. This is the smallest acreage in many decades. There are only six commercial producers of the apples left in the county. Cultivation is declining primarily because the same areas can now be used to grow wine in the Green Valley of Russian River Valley AVA , which has grown to 25,500 hectares in the same year in Sonoma County. Other US areas where the Gravensteiner is still grown commercially on a smaller scale are the Pacific Northwest and New England.
Gravenstein Apple Fair and Slow Food
The popularity of the Gravensteiner in California was great enough that every year at the beginning of the harvest there was a festival for the apple. At the first peak of its popularity, the Sonoma County's local growers association founded the Gravenstein Apple Show in 1910 . In addition to the usual sales and amusement stands, there were also numerous, sometimes life-size, sculptures made from apples such as locomotives, airships or windmills, local formative buildings, miniature apple farms or, in 1912, a sinking Titanic made from apples with an iceberg. From 1915, the event paused to be revived in 1928. From 1932 it was no longer a separate event, but part of the Sonoma County Fair. In 1973, the event was revived as the Gravenstein Apple Fair , which has been held since mid-August at the start of the harvest.
After being forgotten for a few years, a return to traditional foods and locally produced foods began to develop in the 2000s. Local activists began working to save the apple. They started public relations and promotion for the apple. Another result of these efforts is that Slow Food USA added the apple to its Ark of Taste in 2005.
Distribution in Canada
In Canada, the apples are mainly grown in the Annapolis Valley in the Atlantic province of Nova Scotia . They came there around 1800 through Charles Prescott. He was a farmer who had retired from Halifax to his Acacia Grove estate in rural Nova Scotia. There he tested numerous fruits and vegetables from around the world to see if they would prove themselves in Nova Scotia. In total, he imported around 100 apple varieties, various of which are still grown locally today. So considerable was the success of the Gravensteiner that legend has it that by the time Prescott died in 1859, every farm in Nova Scotia had at least one Gravenstein tree. In 2007 Slow Food Canada added the "Nova Scotia Gravenstein" to its Ark of Taste.
Apple name and logo
According to legend, the Gravensteiner Steve Jobs inspired the creation of the Apple name. According to tradition, the idea came to him when Steve Wozniak picked Jobs up from the airport and they were looking for a common name for their company. Jobs was on his way back from his friend Robert Friedland's farm / commune . What is certain is that Jobs spent some time of his life cutting the Gravenstein trees on his friend Friedland's farm near Portland, Oregon. Friedland produced cider on his commune. Steve Jobs temporarily led the fruit growing and instructed the helpers when and how to cut the trees. Another version explains this origin from the McIntosh apple variety, which is also the name of the Apple operating system.
Cultivation
The variety is triploid and therefore not a good pollen donor and cannot fertilize itself. Widespread possible pollinators are Cox Orange, Bell Apple , Goldparmäne , Idared , Ingrid Marie , James Grieve , Jonathan , Klarapfel and privy councilor Dr. Oldenburg .
Climate and soil
The Gravensteiner grows in a wide range of warm zones. In Europe, the growing area lies between the Alps and Norway. However, it is sensitive to frost, so that in the north it is mainly grown in coastal locations. Likewise, the Gravensteiner needs an extremely moist soil to thrive, which does not dry out even in summer, but is still not waterlogged . A high level of humidity helps the tree, as does a location close to watercourses. In addition, a good supply of nutrients and a balanced climate in a location protected from the wind are necessary. The required growth period is comparatively short, so that the Gravensteiner can also be grown at 60 degrees north latitude in Norway.
Diseases and Resistance
It is susceptible to scab and powdery mildew , the flowers are sensitive to frost. If the curtains are weak, the apples tend to sticks . The apple is less susceptible to fruit tree cancer . The variety is contaminated with viruses or phytoplasms , so that when choosing a tree, choosing a virus-tested plant for cultivation plays a major role.
maintenance
The Gravensteiner suffers from strong alternation and the quality of the fruit can decrease significantly if the tree is hung too heavily. As a measure against both, a strong thinning is operated. To counteract the strong growth of the tree, Gravensteiner is often grown on particularly weak bases such as M9 or M27. In addition, there are growth-inhibiting measures such as tying horizontally or cutting off steep shoots, refining or not cutting off shoots. Problems are caused by the premature fall of the apples from the tree, triggered by short stems that cause the still unripe fruit to push itself off the tree.
Harvest and storage
Young trees are not yet bearing, the yield is irregular and low to medium. Due to the short stems, the apples often fall to the ground before they are fully ripe, so that in commercial cultivation around 40% of apples are not harvested from the tree, but rather picked from the ground. A further complicating factor for commercial cultivation is that the ripening occurs irregularly, so that several picking passes are necessary. It is ready for picking from the end of August to mid-September. The apple is eaten from picking until November. From October the apple will be delivered from the cold store. The apple lasts six months in the CA warehouse . In general, like all summer apples, the Gravensteiner has rather poor storage properties.
Mutants
The variety known as Roter Gravensteiner is a "bud mutation". It was first described in 1873. The blood-red Gravensteiner is even more strongly colored . The red variants are popular in stores, but less flavorful than the yellow-skinned or red-cheeked variants. Other more common mutants are Crimson (Canada, around 1945), Vierlanden (Germany), Sabygard (Hungary), Nordstrand (Germany), Hessen (Hungary), Oratia Beauty (New Zealand), Toggenburg (Switzerland), Zanetti (probably Italy), Rellstab (Switzerland), Roter Schleibnitzer, Red Australian (Australia), Henzens (probably Germany), Roter Wintergravensteiner (Baltic States, from 1920), Ropers and Graasten. There are also numerous mutants that are common in Norway.
use
The Gravensteiner is a universally used apple that is used both as a table apple and for baking, for making apple sauce and for making cider and apple wine. Compared to the summer apple James Grieve , which is also widespread , the Gravensteiner is in better demand in German-speaking countries. When making must, it produces large quantities of juice, which are also valued for their taste. There are several high-priced fruit brandies that are made and marketed from Gravensteiner.
Varieties derived from the Gravensteiner
The Gravensteiner is the father of the Filippa and Dülmener Rosenapfel varieties and the mother of the James Lawson and Adersleber Kalvill varieties . A descendant of Filipa, on the other hand, is the Swedish variety Aroma, which is now the main variety in Norway.
Dülmen autumn rose apple
Calvary liver liver
Filippa
Aroma
literature
- Manfred Fischer (Ed.): Color Atlas of Fruit Types. 2nd Edition. Ulmer, Stuttgart 2003, ISBN 3-8001-5547-8 , p. 60.
- Walter Hartmann (Ed.): Color Atlas of Old Fruit Types. 2nd Edition. Ulmer, Stuttgart 2003, ISBN 3-8001-4394-1 , p. 83.
- Western Sonoma County Historical Society: Sebastopol's Gravenstein Apple Industry. Arcadia Publishing, 2011, ISBN 0-7385-8173-9 .
Web links
- Gravensteiner (PDF file; 2.9 MB) Variety sheet at Noah's Ark
- Fruit growing advice Baden-Württemberg: Gravensteiner
- Fruit variety database Bund Lemgo: Gravensteiner
Remarks
- ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t Robert Silbereisen, Gerhard Götz and Walter Hartmann: Fruit varieties atlas: pome fruit, stone fruit, berry fruit, shell fruit . 2nd Edition. Ulmer, Stuttgart 1996, ISBN 3-8001-5537-0 , p. 65-68 .
- ↑ græsten slot: Gråsten æbletræets historie . ( Memento of the original from March 6, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved October 12, 2015.
- ↑ a b Nicole Spiridakis: Gravenstein Apples: The End Of Summer In A Fruit. In: NPR.org. September 25, 2013, accessed March 14, 2016 .
- ↑ a b c haran: Gravenstein. In: National Fruit Collection. Retrieved March 15, 2016 .
- ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k Rowan Jacobson: Apples of Uncommon Character . Bloomsbury, New York 2014, ISBN 978-1-62040-227-6 , pp. 22-23 .
- ↑ a b c d e f Arche Noah.at (Ed.): Gravensteiner . ( arche-noah.at [PDF; accessed on March 15, 2016]).
- ↑ Market and development of organic products in Europe 2004. (No longer available online.) In: www.oekolandbau.rlp.de. Archived from the original on March 14, 2016 ; accessed on March 14, 2016 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Orange Pippin: Apple - Gravenstein - tasting notes, identification, reviews. In: Orange Pippin - all about apples and orchards. Retrieved March 15, 2016 .
- ↑ a b c The famous. (No longer available online.) In: die tageszeitung. October 5, 2013, archived from the original on March 16, 2016 ; accessed on March 15, 2016 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ a b Red List of Endangered Native Crops in Germany. (PDF; 1.4 MB) Federal Office for Agriculture and Food, accessed on March 15, 2016 .
- ↑ Markus Kobelt: Apple Gravensteiner. In: Fruchtzeit.ch. August 18, 2008, accessed March 15, 2016 .
- ^ A b John W. Palmer, Jean P. Price and D. Stuart Tustin: Temperature . In: DC Ferree and IJ Warrington (Eds.): Apples. Botany, Production and Uses . CABI Publishing, 2003, ISBN 0-85199-592-6 , pp. 228 .
- ↑ Markus Leumann and Esther Brevin: Fruit growing: The basis for decision-making when choosing a variety . In: AGRICULTURAL RESEARCH . tape 5 , no. 15 , 2008, p. 215 .
- ↑ Ralph Kradolfer ,: The first Swiss apples this year are being picked. In: www.delikatessenschweiz.ch. August 23, 2008, accessed March 14, 2016 .
- ↑ a b Emily Luchetti: A guide to Gravensteins and summer apple season. In: Inside Scoop SF. August 25, 2010. Retrieved March 14, 2016 (American English).
- ^ A b c Western Sonoma County Historical Society: Sebastopol's Gravenstein Apple Industry . Arcadia Publishing, 2011, ISBN 978-0-7385-8173-6 .
- ↑ Charles Mason Hovey: The fruits of America: containing richly colored figures, and full descriptions of all the choicest varieties cultivated in the United States . tape 2 . Hovey & co, 1856, pp. 15 .
- ↑ a b c d e Jesse Mckinley: Gravenstein Apples Struggle to Survive in Sonoma County . In: The New York Times . September 1, 2011, ISSN 0362-4331 ( nytimes.com [accessed March 14, 2016]).
- ↑ Slow Food USA: Ark of Taste: Sebastopol Gravenstein Apple. In: www.slowfoodusa.org. Retrieved March 14, 2016 .
- ↑ Slow Food Canada: Nova Scotia Gravenstein Apple. In: arkoftaste.slowfood.ca. Retrieved March 15, 2016 .
- ^ The Gazette (Montreal): History grows on our trees . In: Canada.com . ( canada.com [accessed March 15, 2016]). History grows on our trees ( Memento of the original from March 20, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ^ Walter Isaacson: Steve Jobs: The Exclusive Biography . Little, Brown Book Group, 2011, ISBN 978-0-7481-3132-7 ( limited preview in Google Book Search).
- ↑ Kathy Keatley Garvey: Cherish the Gravenstein. In: ANR Blogs. August 28, 2012, accessed March 15, 2016 .
- ^ BS Luh, B. Feinberg, JI Chung and JG Woodruf: Freezing Fruits . In: Jasper Woodroof (Ed.): Commercial Fruit Processing . Springer Science & Business Media, 2012, ISBN 978-94-011-7385-8 , pp. 267 .
- ↑ Russell Powell: The cult of Gravenstein. In: New England Apples. August 20, 2015, accessed March 15, 2016 .
