Apple tree Spartan: description and best recommendations for growing

Apple tree - Perhaps the most common tree in garden plots. You always want to get a good harvest with minimal cost and maintenance. In 1926, Canadian breeders, having set the task of growing apple trees on an industrial scale, bred the high-yielding and disease-resistant variety Spartan

Content:

• Description of fruit and tree
• Growing conditions
• Preparing a place for a seedling
• Planting a seedling
• Care
• Pruning
• Diseases and pests

Description of fruit and tree

The Spartan apple tree is a tree with a rounded crown of medium height, the central conductor of the trunk (part of the trunk above the first branches) often grows at an angle. The branches are maroon in color, the fruits usually ripen on ringlets (a type of fruiting shoots in apple trees). Small dark green leaves are round, shiny, with a relief surface.

Fruits are not very large, with a bright burgundy blush and a waxy bloom, which can give apples a dark lilac hue.

The pulp of the fruit is sweet, juicy, crispy, white. The apples are covered with dense skin.

The Spartan variety is distinguished by abundant flowering. The apple tree begins to bear fruit that fourth or fifth year, it happens in the third. The harvest ripens at the end of September, almost 80% of the apples are characterized as premium fruits. One apple can weigh up to 150 grams. It is possible to pick up to 30 kilograms of apples from one tree, and at the age of ten and older, the Spartan variety gives from 50 to 100 kilograms of fruit.

Advantages of the Spartan variety:

• High yield
• Excellent taste
• High content of nutrients (the highest amount of ascorbic acid)
• Good transportability
• Shelf life up to 5 months, in the refrigerator - 7 months
• Good resistance to diseases

Disadvantages of the Spartan variety:

• Weak winter hardiness (when growing in the middle lane, you need to take care of protection from frost)
• With age and with insufficient pruning, the fruits become smaller

Growing conditions

For cultivation For the Spartan apple tree, select a well-lit area. With a lack of lighting, the yield may decrease and the sugar content of the fruits may decrease.

Like all apple trees, the Spartan variety is good to grow in loamy soil. If the land on the site is clay, add to it:

• Compost
• Sand
• Peat

When seedlings are planted in the soil with a high level of groundwater, they die. In such overly humid areas, plant trees on mounds and be sure to make ditches to drain water. Until the Spartan apple trees reach the age of five, vegetables can be planted between the rows.

Preparing a place for a seedling

To plant the Spartan apple tree in the soil, you need to prepare pits at least 60 centimeters deep and 1 meter in diameter according to the 4x4m scheme. Prepare seven days before disembarkation. Fold the infertile (lower) and humus (fertile) layers of soil separately. The bottom layer will not be needed. The bottom of the hole must be carefully loosened to a depth of about 30 centimeters.

Place a drain on the bottom to prevent stagnation of water, this can be stones, tree clippings or other improvised material.

Then fill the pit by a third with a layer of humus and add fertilizer as follows:

• Superphosphate - 240 grams
• Potassium sulfate - 80 grams
• Wood ash - 80 grams
• "Giant" berry - 2 packages
• Dung humus - 3 buckets.

Mix the soil with fertilizersby filling the hole halfway (adding soil). Top up the remaining soil without fertilizer. The result is a small hill about 20 centimeters high. Place a wooden peg half a meter high in the middle of the hole, it will serve as a support for the seedling.

Planting a seedling

Saplings of the Spartan apple tree are planted in spring (after April 20) or in autumn (from September 20 to October 15). When planting seedlings, place them so that the root collar is 5 centimeters above the soil. Carefully place the roots on the surface of the mound and sprinkle them with fertile soil.

The ground must be trampled down, well sealing the edges of the pit.

The seedling must be attached to the peg with a figure eight and watered abundantly until the moisture is free to go into the ground. Then, mulch the soil with a layer of about 5 centimeters. Repeat watering after seven days.

When planting, to speed up the formation of the crown, it is recommended to cut the branches of a young seedling by a third.

Care

In summer, caring for the Spartan apple tree consists in regular watering, feeding and prevention diseases... If there is a large amount of precipitation, loosen it, carefully, at a distance of 60 centimeters from the trunk, make punctures with a pitchfork or a crowbar about 30 centimeters in depth (the tool cannot be turned). Watering carried out in the evening, in dry, hot weather, it is recommended to do a shower for the apple tree. Water consumption per apple tree is 20-30 liters.

Top dressing:

The first - after April 25:

• Urea - 500 grams
• Or
• Dung humus - three buckets for young trees and up to ten for adults

The second is the beginning of flowering - take 200 liters of water:

• Potassium sulfate - 800 gr
• Superphosphate - 1 kg
• Urea - 500 gr or slurry - 20 liters.
• Solution consumption for 1 tree:
• Young trees - up to 15 liters
• Fruit trees - 50 liters.
• Before and after feeding around the apple tree, be sure to water the soil.

The third - during the fruiting period - for 200 liters of water:

• Nitrofoska - 1 kg
• Dry sodium humate - 20 gr.
• Solution consumption - 30 liters per 1 tree.

Fourth - after harvest - for each tree:

• Potassium sulfate 300 gr
• Superphosphate - 300 gr.

In wet weather, it is enough to add fertilizers around the apple tree, in dry it is recommended to dilute them with water. In the first summer after planting, it is recommended to remove 80 to 100% of the flowers so that the tree takes root better.

Pruning

Pruning - an important part of caring for the Spartan variety, since the fruits become smaller if pruned incorrectly. Pruning is recommended in the spring before the first buds open.

When growing the Spartan apple tree, provide for laying a trunk 55 centimeters high.

When pruning annual trees for the first time, leave six or seven buds above the stem and shorten the top 10 centimeters (or simply trim off the apical bud). It is necessary to remove competitors (shoots growing under the upper bud). On the shoots of the first order, two symmetrically located shoots of the second order should not be left: this weakens the growth of the main branch and contributes to the fragility of the lateral branches, which can break off under weight harvest.

When pruning, strive to keep the branches of the first order at a great distance from each other, then they will grow better and have a good connection with the conductor. The branches of the first order should be at a level below the central conductors, they are cut off to the outer kidney.

Diseases and pests

One of the advantages of the Spartan apple tree is the resistance of this variety to diseases and pests... The variety is almost not susceptible to such dangerous diseases, a real disaster for fruit trees, like scab and powdery mildew. Nevertheless, for various reasons, in particular, with improper care, the apple tree can get sick.

Major diseases:

• The scab appears as black dots on the fruit, making it unusable over time. To combat scab, special preparations are used: "Horus", "Skor", "Strobe".
• Powdery mildew quite rarely affects the "Spartan" variety, looks like a powdery white bloom on the leaves, which gradually becomes brown in color, coarsens. Against this disease, the most effective drug "Strobi", which is used in combination with other drugs.
• Fruit rot affects the pulp of the fruit, the apples become inedible. In the spring before flowering trees use the preparation "Skor", after flowering - "Horus".
• Cytosporosis - affects the bark of trees, forming dark spots on it. As a treatment, drugs "Hom" or "Fundazol" are used.

The most dangerous pest is the codling moth, which affects the fruits, gnawing the path to the seeds and back, after which it crawls to healthy fruits. Spraying with "Fastak" or "Tsimbush" preparations helps well against this pest. Apple flower beetle - small caterpillars - are destroyed by spraying with the "Cymbush" preparation.

More information can be found in the video.