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There are not many varieties of apples that, having a good taste of fruit, would be stored until the end of spring, practically without losing their consumer qualities. One of them is Bogatyr.
History of the appearance of the variety
In 1926, the Ukrainian breeder Sergei Fedorovich Chernenko was invited to work in the nursery, which was headed by Ivan Vladimirovich Michurin. There he began work on filling out the “Apple Calendar of S.F. Chernenko,” designed to become a set of apple tree varieties that would allow one to consume healthy fruits throughout the year.
One of the first on the “calendar” was the late winter variety Bogatyr. The following were chosen as its parents: Antonovka, from which the new variety received winter hardiness and unpretentiousness, and Renet landsberg, which gave it good taste and large fruit size. The variety turned out to be successful, spread widely and still lives. To increase its winter hardiness, the daughter of Sergei Fedorovich, who also became a breeder, crossed Bogatyr with Red Chinese. The result was a wonderful variety called Memory Budagovsky, which in many ways surpassed its parent.
Why do gardeners love this old variety of apple tree so much? To understand this, let’s create a detailed description of apple variety Bogatyr, reviews of which are most often positive, let’s look at the photo.
Description of the variety
Apple tree varieties Bogatyr is distinguished by its great growth vigor and reaches a height of 4.5 m if it is grafted onto a seed rootstock. The crown is up to 6 m wide. The tree is powerful with strong branches, the lower branches are located almost parallel to the ground. If you graft an apple tree Bogatyr on dwarf rootstock, the size of the tree will be much smaller, but the crown will still be spreading.
The shoots are red-brown in color. Large leaves are dark green, leathery with a crenate edge, slightly curved at the ends.
This apple tree variety blooms late. The flowers are smaller than average in size, almost flat, and their color is white-pink.
The Bogatyr apple tree begins to bear fruit 6 years after grafting; specimens grown on dwarf rootstocks are somewhat earlier. Usually 3-4 year old shoots bear fruit, but sometimes there are apples on 2 year old wood. The main fruits are concentrated on the ringlets.
The central apple has a long stalk, while the lateral apples have a thick and short stalk, with a thickening at the point of attachment to the fruit.
The productivity of the Bogatyr apple tree is not only constant, without periodicity, but also high. Already from a 10-year-old tree you can remove up to 60 kg of apples, and 17-year-old trees will produce up to 80 kg of fruit. But this is not the limit. Experienced gardeners, with good care, remove up to 120 kg of apples from a mature tree.
The Bogatyr apples shown in the photo deserve a detailed description.
The size of the fruit is impressive and fully justifies the name of the variety. Even the average weight of apples ranges from 150 to 200 g. The largest specimens grow up to 400 g.
The shape of the apples is typical of Calvilles. They are flat-rounded, have a wide base and apex, and ribbing is clearly visible on them.The rustiness not only occupies the entire funnel, but often extends beyond it.
The color of the fruits at ripeness is light green; during storage they turn yellow. In some years, Bogatyr apples are decorated with a red integumentary blush, usually on the side more illuminated by the sun.
Apples have a pleasant sweet and sour taste; a good combination of acid and sugars makes it harmonious. The apple is crispy with fairly juicy snow-white flesh. This indicator largely depends on compliance with the deadlines for picking apples, which needs to be discussed separately.
Typically, apples of late winter varieties are picked at the very end of September, but without allowing them to freeze. For the Bogatyr variety, it is very important that the fruits reach full ripeness. During storage, apples that have not received juice become wrinkled and lose their taste. Such fruits will never be able to last the entire required period, but for the Bogatyr variety it lasts until the end of May, and sometimes even until June.
You shouldn't try them before - they will be tough and tasteless.
The winter hardiness of this variety is assessed as average, so Bogatyr realizes its highest potential for yield and fruit quality when grown in the Central Black Earth region, although it is zoned in both the North-West and the Central region. The apple tree of this variety is affected by scab to a small extent.
Composition of apples
Bogatyr apples are low in calories - only 43 kcal/100g.They contain a lot of pectin substances, contain P active substances - about 135 mg and vitamin C - about 13 mg for every 100 g of pulp, which is quite a lot for a winter variety of apples.
Maximum benefit and quality of fruits can be achieved only with proper care and planting.
Selecting a location and landing dates
If an apple tree is grown on a seed rootstock, it needs room to grow. Taking into account the spreading crown, the distance between neighboring trees should not be less than 6 m. The roots of the apple tree penetrate deeply into the soil and are therefore sensitive to increased humidity in the lower layers of the soil, which means that groundwater should not be high. Water should not accumulate at the planting site in the spring when the snow melts. The Bogatyr apple tree is very flexible and can adapt to any growing conditions, but it will do best when planted in fertile loams in a sunny place.
The timing of planting an apple tree largely depends on the growing region. In the south, autumn is long and the time between the end of the growing season and the onset of frost will be quite enough for the seedling to take root. In the middle zone and the North-West, spring planting is preferable.
Preparing the seedling and planting hole
Prepare the hole at least two weeks in advance for autumn planting and in the fall for spring planting. The soil in the hole should be compacted so that there are no air bubbles left in the soil in which the roots of the seedling cannot develop. For the same purpose, you will need to lightly shake the apple tree seedling when planting, covering its roots with soil.It is very important that by the time of spring planting, fertilizers can already be well absorbed by plants. Some of them, especially phosphorus, dissolve slowly. Therefore, it is better to prepare nutritious soil for filling the hole in advance.
The depth and diameter of the pit on loam is 0.8 m. Sandy loam soils are poorer, so the hole should be dug longer. If the soil is completely clayey, you cannot plant an apple tree on a seed rootstock. It is possible to plant the graft on a dwarf rootstock, but in a mound.
If you purchased an apple tree seedling with bare roots, its root system should be placed in a container of water a day before planting. After this, the roots are inspected and damaged ones are cut off. To disinfect the cuts, they must be covered with crushed coal. It is very good to dip the roots of the apple tree in a clay mixture to which a root formation stimulator has been added.
Apple tree planting
An apple tree seedling with bare roots is placed on a pre-filled mound of fertile soil from the top layer of soil mixed with humus. Water with a bucket of water, cover with the same soil, in the top layer of which phosphorus and potassium fertilizers are placed - 150 g per seedling. They form a “saucer” by making a side out of soil, into which another bucket of water is poured. The soil is covered with mulch.
A young Bogatyr apple tree seedling needs weekly watering, at least for the first 2 months. Then this can be done less often. During the first growing season, a young apple tree does not need fertilizing.But it is necessary to protect it from rodents in the fall.
Bogatyr apples can ensure the consumption of these healthy fruits throughout the winter. Productivity and unpretentiousness, quite early entry into fruiting allow this apple tree to take its rightful place in every garden.
