Apple variety Carpet
Carpet is an autumn apple variety bred through free pollination of seedlings of the old German variety Vydubetskaya weeping (aka Eliza Ratke). Received at the South Ural Research Institute of Fruit and Vegetable and Potato (former Chelyabinsk Fruit and Vegetable Breeding Station). The authorship is assigned to a group of domestic breeders: M.A. Mazunin, N.F. Mazunina and V.I. Putyanin. This variety is widespread and zoned in the regions of the Ural and West Siberian regions of Russia.
By their nature, trees are dwarf, the crown has a flat-horizontal, drooping shape. On a seed stock, the height of an apple tree does not exceed 1.5 - 2 meters, and when using vegetatively propagated clonal rootstocks, the trees grow even lower - up to 1.2 - 1.5 meters. The bark on the trunk and main branches is brown in color. Apple trees bear fruit on all types of fruit wood, quite often on last year's increments.
Shoots of small thickness, colored brownish. The leaves are large in size, oblong-rounded, pubescent, with small-town edges, rich dark green color.
The size of apples exceeds the average, the weight of one fruit is on average 150 - 170 g, but can reach 200 g or more. The fruit is flat-round in shape. The peel of apples is quite tender, smooth to the touch, without roughness, slightly oily. The main color of apples is greenish-yellow, the integumentary color occupies more than half of the surface of the fruit in the form of a rich dark red blush. Peduncles of medium thickness and length, set at an angle. The pulp is creamy, coarse-grained, slightly juicy, of excellent sweet and sour taste, moderately aromatic.
In terms of chemical composition, apple fruits Carpet contains: soluble solids (16%), the amount of sugars (11.9%), ascorbic acid (14.8 mg / 100 g), titratable acids (0.6%), pectin substances ( 2.1% wet weight). Apples of this variety are intended for fresh consumption and industrial processing. In storage conditions, the fruits retain their properties for two months.
The best apple pollinators are the following varieties: Snowdrop, Prizemlennoye, Sokolovskoye.
The early maturity of the variety is high, the fruiting of trees begins 3-4 years after grafting. Moreover, at first, apple trees bear fruit regularly, but then - not sharply periodically. The yield indicator reaches 60 kg of fruits per tree. Winter hardiness is high enough. In epiphytotic years, scab damage does not exceed 1 point.
The main advantages of the Kovrovoe apple tree are: compact size of trees (natural dwarfs), good yield, high appreciation of the taste and marketability of apples.
Regarding the shortcomings of the variety, it is worth noting that with prolonged hot summers and during dry periods, the quality of the fruits deteriorates.
It was also noticed that, despite the high winter hardiness, undersized trees may suffer from breaking of the lower branches in winter, because part of the trunk and skeletal branches are under snow, but by the end of winter - early spring the snow begins to melt. To avoid damage to the branches, it is recommended to free them from the snow cover by this period.
