Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
State, resistant to apple mildew and fire blight so that control is only needed
under high disease pressure, and very resistant to cedar apple rust. It is fairly
susceptible to winter injury.
'Golden Delicious' originated from a chance seedling found in West
Virginia, USA in
. It is a dominant cultivar in France, Italy, Spain and
the Netherlands and is important in the USA, South Africa and many other
countries. The fruits are of medium size (
mm diameter), have a greenish-
yellow ground cover, becoming golden-yellow at maturity although they are
sold as pale green fruits on some markets. The flesh is crisp, fine-textured, juicy
and sweet with a little acid and a good flavour. A major problem (for some
markets only) is a tendency to russeting of the skin. The bulk of the European
productionisonvigour-controllingrootstocks,especially'M.
)so
there is relatively less production on spur-type compact clones than is the case
with 'Delicious'. Clonal selection has emphasized a reduced tendency to rus-
set, e.g. 'Smoothee', a whole-tree mutant discovered in
'(seepp.
-
and 'Goldenir'
('Lysgolden') which is a radiation mutant of 'Golden Delicious' introduced in
France in
. 'Goldenir' shows little or no russet, has a tougher, smoother
and waxier skin than 'Golden Delicious', very similar flesh and flavour char-
acteristics but better resistance to bruising. It is harvested
-
days after
'Golden Delicious' and has a longer storage life (ASHS,
). Some clones of
'Golden Delicious' with a lower chilling requirement than the standard type
have been identified. 'Golden Delicious' can be stored for about
months
but has poorer storage characteristics than 'Granny Smith'. It is susceptible
to apple scab, fire blight and powdery mildew and very susceptible to cedar
apple rust.
'Fuji' was bred in Japan, being a selection made in
from fruit-bearing
hybrids of 'Ralls Janet'
×
'Delicious' and registered in
(Yoshida
et al
.,
). 'Fuji' fruits are medium to large in size, firm, crisp and very sweet with
a sugar content of about
% (Brix
) when grown in China (Shou-Chun,
) and very juicy. The original strain was not highly red-coloured but many
red colour sports have been identified and introduced. The trees are large,
spreading, vigorous and productive. 'Fuji' is the leading cultivar in Japan and
in China. It is increasingly planted in Washington State and California in the
USA, in Brazil and in South Africa. In Brazil (Bernardi,
) it flowers about
a week earlier than 'Starkrimson Delicious', 'Golden Delicious' and 'Granny
Smith', which probably indicates a rather lower chilling requirement ( Jackson
and Bepete,
), but ripens three weeks later than 'Golden Delicious' and
five days later than 'Starkrimson', but almost a month earlier than 'Granny
Smith'. A bud-mutation of 'Fuji', 'Fuji Frey', needs only about
chilling
units(HauaggeandCummins,
).InJapan,inthenorthMainIslandwhere
'Delicious'isharvestedbetween
and
October,'Fuji'isharvestedbetween
and
November (Fukuda,
). It therefore requires a longer growing
