Spartan

SPARTAN

Origin	Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, British Columbia, 1936.
Parentage	McIntosh x Yellow Newton Pippin.
Availability	Mid October to April or later.
Source	Most commercial nurseries, especially from British Columbia.
Quality	Rather distinctively aromatic, firm, crisp and fairly juicy.

Fruit:

Size	Medium, variable. Within the cluster the king fruit is best size and laterals progressively smaller.
Surface	Smooth to slightly ribbed. Takes a high polish.
Ground Colour	Greenish becoming yellowish green with maturity to yellowish on ripening.
Over Colour	Usually nearly full blush red becoming purplish red on the exposed cheek.
Flesh Colour	Creamy white.
Pressure	16.5 - 17.5 lbs.
Harvest Season	Late September to early October. Subject to sudden onset of pre-harvest drop if delayed. Somewhat subject to stem punctures.
Storage	Cold storage to December, Controlled Atmosphere storage January to June.
Strains	None identified to date.

Tree:

Vigour	Vigourous.
Habit	Upright spreading, limbs stiffer than McIntosh. Moderately spurry - may become over spurred in older trees and on dwarfing rootstocks.
Precocity	Fairly precocious though may have some blind wood problem.
Fruit Placement	On two and three year wood and on spurs.
Bloom Period	Later mid season just before Red Delicious.
Pollination	Will set and be set by other diploids which overlap in bloom.
Nutrition	May be fed a little more heavily than McIntosh but excessive Nitrogen and/or low fruit Calcium may induce late storage 'Spartan' breakdown, especially in large fruits. Foliar Calcium sprays may be advisable.
Crop	Productive but spray thinning is a must if biennial bearing is to be avoided. Best practice is to make an application at petal fall and follow up with a second if necessary. Not as productive as McIntosh.
Synchrony	With high colour and fairly uniform fruit maturity, a single picking suffices unless increased growth of the smaller fruits is needed.
Adaptation	Similar to McIntosh but slightly warmer in the growing season. Quite hardy.
Disease Reaction	Moderately susceptible to scab and canker. Resistant to cedar apple rust. Powdery mildew, juniper rust and fire blight are seldom problems. In the occasional season, the pysiological breakdown mentioned above has been a problem.
Insect Reaction	Slightly prone to stinging bug injury.
Rootstock	Appears to do well on a wide range of stocks. Those that induce larger fruit size are preferred.

Comments:

Spartan is an excellent cultivar - good yields of high quality and high packouts as long as fruit size is adequate. It particularly thrives in British Columbia where there is a resurgence of planting now that the Spartan breakdown problem has been solved. Spartan, on average, has been somewhat less successful in Nova Scotia where the cooler shorter summers make it imperative that management is first class if the full potential of the variety is to be realized.

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