Apple tree Bratchud

The apple orchard is the dream of many gardeners, regardless of the region. Delicate flowers, the smell and taste of garden apples, apple pie, homemade jam or compote - all this pleases the inhabitants of the middle lane, and Siberians, and the Far East. For cultivation in any of these regions, a relatively young variety of dwarf apple trees - Bratchud, which will be discussed below, is suitable. Let's talk about its features, the rules for caring for a plant, the pros and cons of a particular variety.

Variety Brother Chudny, and in short - Bratchud, was developed and bred in Chelyabinsk, in the South Ural Research Institute of Horticulture and Potato Growing by crossing a hybrid form (11-20-12 x Ural winter) with the Vydubetskaya Plakuchaya variety. The creators of the variety: M. A. Mazurin, N. F. Mazurina, V. I. Putyatin. Zoned Bratchud since 2002.

Bratchud is a natural dwarf, reaching 2.7 m on a seed rootstock, and when choosing in favor of vegetatively propagated clonal rootstocks, 1.5-2 m. The variety is not decorative, has a flat-round crown with a diameter of 2.5-3 m.

The bark is dark brown, the shoots are small (but not quite thin), greenish-brown in color. Large, oblong-rounded leaves, dark green in color with a slight pubescence and a coarse edge.

Let's go over the main pros and cons of the variety in question.

Pros:

• high productivity;

• high marketability, universal purpose of fruits;

• keeping quality of apples up to 140 days;

• the dwarf type of growth facilitates harvesting.

Minuses:

• susceptibility to scab (resistance by only 2 points);

• the quality of the fruit can be significantly reduced in dry, hot summers.

A fast-growing variety with winter ripening and regular fruiting frequency. Actually, Bratchud begins to bear fruit at 3-4 years old, and apples reach removable maturity in the 2nd decade of September.

Although the variety has spread at the moment almost throughout the entire territory of the Russian Federation, it was originally intended for Siberia, the Volga region, and the Urals.

The yield of Bratchud reaches 120 kg per tree, which is considered a high indicator. As mentioned above, apples of the variety have good transportability and keeping quality, they can be safely stored for up to 5 months, retaining their taste properties. By the way, it's time to talk about them.

Medium-sized (from 110-125 g to 160 g, in rare cases - up to 200-250 g), the fruits have an oblong-rounded shape and noticeable ribbing, and also have a characteristic feature - a noticeable seam-strip on the side. Apples are greenish-yellow with a blurred red blush. They are glossy, with a smooth, dry skin, sit on a thick, not very long stalk.

Ripe fruits have a white, coarse-grained pulp. Average juiciness, pleasant taste, sweet and sour. Bratchud apples contain 18.8 mg of ascorbic acid (per 100 g of weight), 14.1% of soluble solids, 10.2% of sugars, 1.5% of pectin substances (on dry weight) and 0.4% of titratable acids ...

The variety is versatile, apples are well suited both for consumption from the tree, and for various options for canning, making juice, and wine.

Before talking about how to grow the variety correctly, it is worth noting some of the subtleties that will come in handy when buying Brachuda seedlings.

Purchase seedlings only in proven places that have the necessary certificates for the plant.

The suitable age for the apple tree is 1-2 years. Such trees take root the fastest.

Inspect your future purchase.

The root system should be well developed, moisturized, elastic, and free from signs of damage. Between the root collar and the trunk, there should be a place of inoculation - an outgrowth.

On shoots of the second order, the bark should be smooth, and the resulting buds should be voluminous.

Carefully check the seedling for the presence of various traces of infection with diseases, fungi, pests, which the seller could have kept silent about.

So, we have a healthy seedling of the right variety. Now - landing and leaving.

• Time

The time for planting trees in the ground is early spring or late autumn, somewhere a couple of weeks before the arrival of the first frost.

• A place

It is better to choose a site for planting on a hill, in a sunny place, where the tree will be protected from the wind. The soil should have a slightly acidic or neutral pH, be rich in organic matter. A good option would be black soil or light loam.

• Site preparation

You need to prepare a hole (0.7-1 m) in advance, a couple of months before disembarkation. Dig up, weed, fertilize the site. Fill the hole with a mixture of earth, sand, humus, wood ash.

When planting several plants, keep a distance of at least 3 meters between them. When planting, the root collar should be somewhere 6 cm above the ground. A young tree should be tied to a support.

• Care

Young apple trees need to be watered at least 5 times per season, that is, for each year the plant should receive about 10 liters of warm water. After watering, it is worth removing the weeds, loosen the soil.

Every spring, you need to cut off damaged, weak branches, treating the cuts with copper sulfate.

The following varieties are called the most successful pollinators of Bratchud:

• Wonderful;

• Grounded;

• Sokolovskoe;

• Snowdrop.

Apple trees must be fed every year with mineral and organic fertilizers, starting from the moment when a year has passed since planting. The scheme is as follows:

• in the spring - urea, mullein, nitrogen-containing products;

• before flowering - potash fertilizers;

• at the end of summer - phosphates.

A variety with high frost resistance, tolerates –39 ° C without any problems. But this does not mean that the apple tree does not need to be taken care of in winter. Before frost, it is necessary to mulch the soil with humus, and wrap the bole with agrofibre, cover with spruce paws.

The variety is resistant to fungal diseases, but prone to scab, especially in epiphytotic years. To prevent infection, it is necessary in the spring to spray the plant with fungicides 3 times (interval - about 2 weeks).

Having dealt with all the intricacies of care and peculiarities of the variety, it is worth listening to those who have already grown it.

Gardeners note the productivity, winter hardiness of Bratchud, the taste of its fruits. Of the minuses, the sensitivity to hot, dry weather is often mentioned, which affects not only the taste of apples, but also the volume of the harvest. In a particularly hot summer, the fruits are poorly tied, there have been cases when a single ovary was formed at all.