Cripps Pink apples: characteristics and agricultural technology

Cripps Pink or Pink Lady apple trees are a commercial variety that is becoming popular and in demand worldwide. The fruits of apple trees can be stored for a long time, and also have good taste, which is why many gardeners love this variety.

Apple fruits ripen late, so trees must be grown in a warm climate. The best conditions for proper plant growth are in England, Western Europe and Australia. Warm and long autumn allows the trees to properly develop and delight gardeners with delicious fruits.

For this variety, Golden Delicious and Lady Williams were bred. The trees are short, the crown is extremely wide, oval-shaped and dense. Gardeners can easily shape it.

The tree grows at an average rate. Plants are well grown on dwarf rootstocks. In such cases, it is necessary to plant trees, leaving a distance of 50 cm between them.

Apples weigh 180–200 grams. The skin is hard, shiny, greenish-yellow, sometimes covered with a light pink or red blush, which occupies most of the surface of the fruit. There is a small wax coating through which you can see the dots in yellow. The flesh is creamy, extremely juicy and dense. The taste is sweet and sour, pleasant, there are fruits with a taste of wild berries and vanilla. In 100 grams of the fruit - 55 kcal.

Fruits finish singing at the end of October or mid-November, then the period of their removal begins. They are stored well, transported without any problems. It is necessary to store fruit in a cellar, a refrigerator or other place where it will be cool. Fruits may lie in a special place for up to ten months. They are able to maintain their taste until the end of spring. Apple trees are not too cold resistant. The following exporters are bringing apples to Russia and other countries of the world: Acorbio, Bahcemis Co, Dewan s. r. o. and many others.

In order for apple trees to grow healthy, strong and beautiful, natural conditions should be taken into account. It is important to choose a place near which there is no groundwater. If they are closer than two meters, the site should be drained or the plant grown on dwarf rootstocks.

It is important to choose a plot that contains neutral or weak acid soil. If it is acidic, five hundred grams of dolomite flour, ash or lime should be added to it. The pit for planting is prepared two weeks before planting the seedling. If the process occurs in the spring, the seat should be prepared in the fall. If planting is done in the fall, the hole is dug in the summer.

Soil should be given time so that it can settle (a few weeks). If you ignore this advice, the earth will settle and the root neck will be under it, and small roots will be torn off. Depth place - 1 meter. Humus and peat (two buckets of each fertilizer) are placed in the removed soil. If the soil is heavy, you need to add some sand to it, if it is sandy - clay is added to it, which will allow the earth to retain water. At the bottom of the pit is poured a little earth (ten centimeters).

The distance between plants depends on how large the size of the crown will be with them at the time of maximum fruiting. If an apple has an average growth power, it will be quite high (three meters), and its crown will be wide (two meters). These trees begin to bear fruit very early (in the third year after planting), and harvesting with him is quite convenient. But there are drawbacks. Such plants are short-lived.

It is worth paying attention to a few tips.

• It is necessary to take care of apple trees on dwarf rootstocks. They are grown in places where underwater is fairly close to the surface of the earth. Plant roots are located in the upper layer of the soil, and in dwarf trees it is incredibly weak.That is why this type of culture should be grown using trellis.
• The root system of a vigorous tree is able to withstand a drop in air temperature to -18 degrees, medium-to -15 degrees. If the winter is snowless, the cultures may freeze, it is important to monitor this.
• In the southern regions should be planted in early fall. The roots will have time to settle down before winter, so the trees will not be afraid of frost and cold. If plants are planted in March or April, they will lack moisture, so they will become poorly acclimatized.
• In the central region, it is necessary to plant a variety in the spring, before the sap flow begins and the buds open, otherwise the trees will freeze in the cold. If the root system of plants is closed, planting can be made even in the summer.

In the prepared soil it is necessary to dig a hole, the size of which will be larger than the roots of the seedling. A support in the form of a peg is placed in the bottom, after which the plant should be tied so that it does not roll. The seedling is set on an earthen mound, the root system is carefully straightened. The fossa is filled with earth, extremely carefully filling the space between the roots with it.

Apple trees are planted in such a way that the root neck is above the ground. During the process, it should be located a few centimeters above the ground. If you place the root collar deeper, the plant will grow more slowly. It will be affected by various diseases. If, on the contrary, it is too high, the upper parts of the root system will die.

You will learn more about how to plant an apple tree in spring from the following video.

A small amount of earth should be poured around the plant (ten centimeters), which will help retain moisture after watering. Then water the tree with four buckets of water and mulch the earth with sawdust, peat, mowed grass or compost. A layer of mulch should be seven centimeters.

Trees should timely watering The weather conditions and the thickness of the mulch determine how much plants need watering. If the mulch is absent, the earth needs to be loosened, get rid of weeds, to prevent cracking. All this is done after each watering. Mulching can stop only if the plant begins to bear fruit.

If there is not too much rain, you need to water the apple tree once a week. In the second year, the plant is watered only if there is a strong drought. It is extremely important to water when flowers are laid, after the flowers have bloomed, when apples are poured, and also during the ripening period of the fruit. If in the autumn the ground is dry, you need to hold a watering irrigation (ten buckets per 1 square meter). This will allow the apple to be more resistant to frost.

It is necessary to adhere to the advice of experts for fertilizer varieties of apple Cripps Pink.

• If the land is poor, it is necessary to use mineral fertilizers, putting them into the holes that can be made with scrap around the perimeter of tree trunks. The depth of the holes should be twenty centimeters. In them granules of means are placed, and then are filled in with water. Such feeding will last four years.
• It is not necessary to water the soil, which is under the trees, with solutions of mineral fertilizers. They are unlikely to reach the root system, so they are used by herbs and weeds. It is better to pull out special grooves and place them there. Between them and the trunk should be a distance of one and a half meters. When the liquid is fully absorbed, the grooves are filled with soil.