Description and characteristics, pros and cons of the Quinti apple varieties and cultivation features
The unpretentious, not requiring special attention of the gardener, the Quinti apple tree generously endows with fruits with high nutritional, biological and chemical value. In terms of taste, apples of a self-fertile variety are assigned to the category of table apples, not dessert ones. The variety was bred by Canadian breeders by crossing Crimson Beauty and Red Melba. In 1986, the plant was included in the state register of fruit trees for the Central Black Earth Region, the Caucasus, and the Lower Volga Region.
Variety overview
The Quinti apple variety is summer, does not differ in high keeping rates of fruits. Has a high level of resistance to powdery mildew. It is not afraid of heat and drought, but the Quinti variety is not resistant to severe frosts.
Tree morphology
The tall trunk of the Quinti apple tree is practically hidden by dense foliage. The branches of a tree of this variety tend upward, and the skeletal branches depart from the trunk almost at right angles. The crown is wide, oval, not prone to thickening, which allows the rays of the sun to caress each fruit, no matter what tier of ringlets it is on.
The bark of the trunk and branches is brown with a greenish tint. Apple-tree flowers are large white, do not have other shades.
With abundant fruiting, the fruits do not exceed 125 g in weight, a small yield suggests that the weight of each apple can be 175 g. The size and color of the fruits on one tree is the same. The apple has two types of color - green side and ruddy.
Advantages and disadvantages
Pros:
- early maturity;
- resistance to heat and drought;
- high level of transportability.
Minuses:
- low winter hardiness;
- weak immunity to scab.
Subspecies
The difference between the subspecies of apple trees of the Quinti variety lies in the size of the fruits, the main characteristics of the variety remain practically unchanged.
Earley Queen
Winter variety of Quinti, bred in Holland. The technical ripeness of the fruits occurs in the second decade of October.Conical-rounded fruits reach a mass of 250 g. The green-yellow skin is evenly covered with a blurred blush of bright red color. The excellent presentation and high taste of the juicy sweet-sour pulp are the distinctive features of Earley Queen, which has high frost resistance. Like its prototype, the variety is self-fertile. He needs self-fertile neighbors-pollinators: Gala, Champion, Everest.
Early ripe apple tree Quinti
The list of regions in which the harvest of the Quinti apple tree ripens earlier than in central Russia:
- Astrakhan;
- Vologda;
- Krasnodar region;
- Kursk;
- Lipetsk;
- Volga region;
- Rostov;
- North Ossetia.
Apple tree characteristics
For growing the Quinti variety in warm regions, undersized apple trees are mainly used on a dwarf rootstock. It is more convenient to harvest them from them, and their fruiting begins already the next season after planting in a permanent place.
Mature tree parameters
On a seed stock, the Quinti apple tree reaches 5 meters in height, on a dwarf rootstock, the top of its crown does not reach the 2-meter mark.
Pollination and flowering
The apple tree is pollinated with self-fertile apple trees with the same flowering periods as that of the Quinti variety. This explains the alternation of rows of the Quinti variety and other apple trees in large orchards. Without a neighborhood with pollinating varieties, large white flowers will never give an ovary. Pollinators, like Quinti himself, should enter the flowering phase from early to mid-May.
Annual growth
On medium-sized apple trees of the Quinti variety, the skeletal branches lengthen by 5-6 cm during the season. On the dwarf rootstock, the tree a priori does not have a skeletal frame, they are columnar - the ringlets extend directly from the trunk. By the age of 5, the undersized Quinti apple tree reaches its maximum height, the growth of annelids largely depends on the amount of rain and sunny color. Shoot length is adjusted in autumn during pruning.
When fruiting comes
For the first time, the harvest from a medium-sized Quinti apple tree (on a seed stock) is removed in the 5-6th season. From low-growing apple trees for the second year. Fruiting is regular, regardless of natural disasters. In warm climates, 2 crops can be harvested from one tree per season. Typically, the fruits ripen by the end of July.
Cold resistance
The winter hardiness of the Quinti apple tree is average with proper care. The lack of measures to insulate the trunk and soil for winter reduces the plant's resistance to frostbite.
Protection from diseases and pests
The main enemy of the Quinti apple trees is scab, the disease is caused by excessive waterlogging of the soil. If the gardener is not able to prevent rains and floods, then everyone can create high-quality drainage at the time of planting a seedling.
The mandatory steps in measures to prevent fungal, bacterial and tree damage caused by insect pests are:
- timely spraying of the tree with preventive doses of means for scab, powdery mildew;
- high-quality soil mulching;
- loosening the soil within a radius of 1.5-2 meters from the trunk;
- making foliar and root balanced dressings;
- whitewashing the trunk with lime with the addition of copper-containing substances;
- systematic pruning of old shoots and damaged branches.
If the disease does occur, then the prophylactic doses of funds are replaced with stronger solutions, and treatments are carried out at intervals of 7-10 days.
Taste qualities of apples
Summer apples grown in sunny areas are juicy and sweet. The pleasant sourness gives the fruit a unique charm. The tasting assessment of the Quinti variety specialists is 4.6 points out of 5 possible.
The content of useful and nutrients in an apple
The fruits of the Quinti variety per 100 g contain:
- Ascorbic acid - 8.4-11.2 mg.
- Fiber (dry matter) - 15.9-16.8%.
- Acids - 0.53-0.6%.
- Fruit sugars - 10.3-11.2%.
The benefits and possible harms of eating Quinty apples
Like all apple fruits, Quinti is rich in vitamins and minerals. Nothing like apples replenishes the iron in the body, which is necessary for the normalization of hemoglobin in the blood. Fiber improves metabolism, absorbs and removes toxins.
Sweet apples can be harmful for people prone to diabetes mellitus and for allergy sufferers who are not allowed to eat red fruits.
Planting seedlings
The health of the plant and the quality of the harvest depend on the time of planting, the correct selection of a seedling grafted on a stock of a certain type, high-quality enrichment and preparation of the soil.
Preparing the soil for planting seedlings
The soil is dug up in the fall, weeds and rhizomes are selected from the turf, but the comas of the earth are not broken so that during the period of little snowy winter the earth does not turn into dust. Only part of the soil, which will go to partially fill the planting hole, is thoroughly loosened. This land will be mixed with nutrients - humus, manure, peat, ash and complex root dressing, used to improve soil fertility in the region where seedlings are planted.
Landing site marking map
Between seedlings with a skeletal tree structure, it is necessary to maintain an interval of 5 meters both in the row between the Quinti seedlings and in the rows with neighboring pollinating apple trees.
Preparing the soil
The soil for planting a medium-sized tree should be dense, but permeable to water and air. On sandy loam, where clay prevails, and not sand, the soil should be loosened by adding sand and ash to the site. The same procedure is for gardeners if it is necessary to reduce the acidity of the soil.
It is extremely difficult to strengthen sandy loose soils in order to grow good yields on them, you have to prepare for the systematic replenishment of the soil with minerals, nitrogen and other useful substances.
Sapling pit dimensions
For a medium-sized plant, the width and depth of the planting hole for Quinti apple trees is 1.5 m, the width is 2 m. depth.
Nuances when choosing seedlings
When choosing seedlings, you need to pay attention to the presence of a grafting stem. His absence suggests that there is a wild game in front of the gardener. The rhizome should not have any damage, if this is not the case, then the tree will hurt, and more seasons will pass before the first harvest than indicated in the description of the variety.
When to plant
In regions with a favorable, mild climate, Quinti can be planted in spring when warm weather sets in, when the ground has moved away from freezing. The tree will root well on properly prepared soil. For areas of the middle zone - Moscow, North-West, Leningrad Region, an autumn planting is recommended after the snow melts and the establishment of positive average daily temperatures.
Landing technology
A pit with a drainage, nutrient and normal soil layer is prepared in the fall, regardless of the expected planting time. On an impromptu mound, where the topsoil is normal, not enriched, a seedling is installed, its roots are evenly distributed throughout the hole. For a seedling of a low-growing tree, a support will be required, before lowering it onto a prepared earth cushion, a stake must be driven into the middle of the hole. A seedling will be tied to it.
Agrotechnics
The complex of tree care - agricultural technology, consists in the methodical nature of all stages of measures aimed at obtaining a healthy tree and a large harvest.
Taking care of the apple tree
Apple tree care begins even before planting.To strengthen the root system, to provoke the rapid growth of the plant in the first season, the root system is immersed in a solution of a growth stimulator for a day.
Cut and shape the crown
Shoots that have lengthened by more than 60 cm over the summer must be shortened. Considering that the crown of the Quinti variety is round in shape, it must be adhered to when trimming skeletal branches, the lower ones should be slightly longer than each subsequent tier.
What to do during flowering
To strengthen the flowers on the branches, to increase their strength for the formation of ovaries, it is necessary to saturate the soil with nitrogen. The leafworm, tick and other insects will want to feast on fresh foliage, which means that at the stage of bud formation, it is necessary to spray from pests.
Watering trees
The need for additional watering depends entirely on the climatic and geographic characteristics of the area. Apple trees growing in sunny, dry regions should be watered once a week at the rate of 10 liters of water per meter of tree height. In areas with periodic rains, irrigation is carried out with prolonged soil dehydration.
Disease and pest control measures
Insecticides are used against insects, spraying with them for preventive purposes is carried out before the buds open and the onset of the flowering phase. They will help from:
- color beetle;
- moths;
- Californian scale insects;
- sawfly;
- red fruit mite;
- green apple aphid;
- five types of leaf rollers;
- American white butterfly;
- apple moth.
If the damage to the tree by insects or diseases nevertheless occurs, then the damaged areas of the tree must be cut off and burned, the cut sites must be treated with garden varnish, and the tree must be treated with a strong solution of Bordeaux mixture and fungicides. For the prevention of relapse, spraying with prophylactic doses of the compositions is carried out at intervals of 7-10 days.
Make-up
When carrying out soil enrichment, it is extremely necessary to use manure and guano, organic matter is a favorable environment for the wintering of insect pests and the reproduction of pathogenic microflora, which causes bacterial damage to bark, wood, fruits.
Pollinating varieties
There are no special recommendations for pollinating varieties, the main thing is that the variety planted in the neighborhood is self-fertile, and the timing of its flowering coincides as much as possible with Quinti.
What you need to pay attention to when ripening and fruiting
Green-brown spots that appear on the leaves are a sign of scab, to which the Quinti apple trees have extremely weak immunity. The scab develops quite quickly, affecting the foliage and fruits, so it is necessary to act without delay - to thin the crown, remove and destroy the affected branches, carry out medical spraying, add potash to the soil.
Features of growing on sandy soils
To preserve the nitrogen introduced into the soil with irrigation, strengthen the soil, the near-trunk space is sown with grass, mainly sow thistle. Its long roots will bind the sandy soil. To saturate the soil with substances useful for the development of the Quinti apple tree, humus mixed with sand and humus is introduced into the planting hole under the roots.
What you need to know about the harvest
Up to 120 kg of apples can be harvested from one tree, they ripen at the same time, but it will not be possible to store them for more than 3 weeks, even when harvested at the stage of technical and not consumer maturity. Fruit transportability is low.
Fruit picking
It is necessary to pick apples directly from the branches; fallen apples will not last even three days.
Storage tips
The optimum temperature range for storing Quinti apples is from 0 to +10 ° C. Each fruit should be isolated from the neighboring ones, but at the same time the air flow should be open to it; this condition gives it wrapping in newspaper, tracing paper, and tissue paper.
It is better to store wrapped apples not in wooden, but in plastic boxes, they do not contain rot pathogens or other pathogenic microflora.
The use of apples in cooking and farming
Sweet apples are an excellent raw material for making jams, preserves, compotes with minimal added sugar. Dried apples are an excellent raw material for making compotes. Considering that they can only be stored in canvas bags, they will also add a summer scent to the room.
Regional cultivation
The climatic features of the region depend on the timing of flowering, fruiting and the quality of the crop - the balance of sugars and acids.
Moscow suburbs
For the Moscow region, the timing of planting apple trees of the Quinti variety is characteristic in mid-October - a month before the onset of the first frost. Given the moisture content of the soil, the possibility of close occurrence of aquifers, the drainage layer in the planting hole should occupy at least 60 cm.
Krasnodar region
A region with fertile soils does not require a large amount of fertilizing for apple trees of the variety and all subspecies of Quinti in the spring months, but if the apple tree fructifies twice in the season, it will need a large amount of nitrogen, it should be applied as a foliar dressing after the first harvest.
