Strawberry variety Nightingale
Nightingale is a mid-season, non-repairable variety of garden strawberries (strawberries) for universal use. It was bred at the Kokinsky strong point of the All-Russian Selection and Technological Institute of Horticulture and Nursery. The author is S. D. Aitzhanova. The variety is valued for its good yield, excellent taste, excellent immunity to diseases, unpretentious care and undemanding to soil and climate. It can be successfully grown in almost all regions of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus, which is confirmed by numerous reviews of gardeners.
The plant is powerful, vigorous (up to 40 cm in height and up to 60 cm in diameter), abundantly leafy, has a spherical shape. Solovushka has abundant education, especially in the first year of the life of the bush, then gradually declines. Strawberry leaves are light green, with sharp denticles at the edges, medium wrinkled, with clear venation. The flowers of the variety are bisexual, white, collected in spreading multi-flowered inflorescences. Peduncles are numerous, thin, drooping, spreading, multi-flowered, located below the level of the leaves, under the weight of the fruit they are laid on the ground. On the first-year bushes, about 7-9 peduncles are formed, on two-year-olds - about 15-20 pieces. 8-15 berries are formed on one peduncle.
The fruits of the Nightingale are large and very large, of the correct rounded-conical shape; at the first collection, the largest specimens can be truncated-conical and slightly comb-shaped. The peel is dark red, at the stage of full ripeness it acquires a beautiful dark purple hue. The number of achenes is average, they are yellow in color, depressed to an average depth. Strawberry pulp is bright red, medium-dense, often with voids inside, juicy, fleshy, with an intense strawberry aroma.
The taste of the variety is very pleasant, balanced, sweet with a graceful, useful sourness. Berries are versatile in use, excellent for fresh consumption, excellent for any processing, especially good in jams, also suitable for freezing. The transportability of the fruits is average, transportation over short distances in a low-volume container is possible, the harvest may not survive long-distance travel. During rainy seasons, transportation can be problematic - during such periods, the fruits become softer.
The average weight of berries in the season is 25-30 grams; during the first harvest, specimens weighing more than 50 grams can be observed. Fruiting of Nightingale is quite stable, the fruits are not much shallower by the end of the season, although there is still such a tendency, but this is typical for many varieties, especially non-repaired ones. Gardeners celebrate amicable ripening, which begins around the end of the second decade of June.
The strawberry yield is very decent, from a one-year-old bush you can collect about 500-600 grams of fruits, from two-year-olds and more adults - 700-900 grams and more than 1 kg, subject to intensive agricultural technology. The industrial yield is very impressive - 19 t / ha. Gardeners confirm that it is quite possible to get 1 kg of berries from one plant, moreover, for this you do not need to "stuff" the bushes with a cocktail of fertilizers and growth stimulants, as many foreign popular varieties of intensive type with great productivity potential require.
The nightingale has excellent immunity, it is resistant to a complex of various diseases and confidently resists the strawberry mite, powdery mildew and brown spot bypass this strawberry. But, of course, not without a fly in the ointment. In unfavorable seasons, plants can be affected by gray rot, late blight and red root rot, but timely prevention will help avoid these problems. This strawberry can boast of excellent winter hardiness and frost resistance, according to research by VNIISPK, our heroine can be called one of the most winter-hardy among domestic and foreign varieties - the degree of freezing during the tests was no more than 1 point.
Also Nightingale has excellent heat resistance and drought resistance, can be successfully grown in the southern regions, as well as in the northern ones. In general, this strawberry is quite undemanding to the climatic conditions of growth, it adapts very well to a new unusual environment and bears fruit with high quality stably. It is only in unfavorable periods (excessively rainy or hellishly hot seasons) that it may not please with the harvest, but this nuance is perhaps characteristic of many varieties. Our heroine is also undemanding to soils, which again expands the potential area of her distribution.
In agricultural technology, strawberries are standard, very unpretentious, you can even attribute them to the symbolic group “planted and forgot”. However, it should be understood that with insufficient care, you will not get good yields. By the way, Nightingale responds very well to intensive agricultural technology. From the nuances of growing, only a couple of points should be highlighted. Firstly, when planting, you need to take into account the size of the plants - it is advisable to leave at least 40 cm, if possible 50 cm between the bushes, no more than four plants are planted per square meter. Secondly, do not forget about top dressing, they have a great impact on the yield and taste of berries. By the way, since our heroine ties a large number of fruits, gardeners resort to one simple technique - they remove some ovaries so that the remaining berries are larger.
Nightingale is a wonderful domestic variety, very reliable and stable, high-yielding, and also very tasty. It really deserves attention, especially attractive to gardeners and farmers growing strawberries in small quantities. This variety has many positive qualities, in which it often surpasses many of the popular favorites in the strawberry market. Of the minuses - the insufficient density of the pulp, which is why our heroine is not particularly suitable for commercial cultivation, as well as a tendency to fungal diseases in rainy periods, but this problem is solved quite simply.
