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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