Buying an apple tree for the garden, everyone wants to get a quick-growing tree, each year giving high yields of delicious fruits. It should be as resistant as possible to various kinds of diseases. This is exactly what the Imant apple tree is. She delights lovers of this fruit for a decade and a half. Appreciated for tasty fruits, frost resistance, disease resistance.
Apple requirements
There are hundreds of apple varieties. But breeders continue to work on creating new ones. What qualities do they want to achieve? What do their existing varieties not like?
In recent years, the climate has changed markedly. Various viral infections that have affected fruit trees before have now intensified significantly. Therefore, gardeners prefer varieties that are resistant to disease. This allows you not to spend extra effort to deal with them. After all, this is unnecessary material costs, chores. As a result of the frequent use of chemicals, which are usually used to fight diseases, we can’t talk about the environmental friendliness of products. Sometimes frequent treatments fail, and the trees or crops disappear.
When choosing a variety, great importance should be given to the keeping quality of the fruit. This is especially true for winter and late winter varieties.
Creating High Immune Varieties
The gardens of Belarus, the birthplace of the Imant apple tree, suffer greatly from scab. This is due to the climate: high humidity at relatively low temperatures. Therefore, scientists-breeders of BelNII pay great attention to the removal of high-immune specimens, not forgetting the keeping quality of the fruits.
They involved a large number of scab-resistant donors in the process of creating new varieties. For several decades, Belarusian scientists have hybridized two million seedlings. As a result, only those that were resistant to this disease were selected. Of these, hybrids with high yields were selected.
Grade description
Apple tree Imant (photo in the article) is a late winter variety. Successfully withstands frost in the middle lane. They are grown on a clone or on a seed stock. The variety is early. The first apples ripen on it in the second or third year after planting in a permanent place.
Apple tree Imant - a tree with a round, raised crown, medium height. Typically, an adult instance is 2 to 2.5 meters high. It can reach 3 meters. Crohn is compact.
Imant is an apple tree of mixed fruiting type. A quarter of the fruiting organs are fruit twigs and spear. She gives a crop every year. After entering the active period of fruiting per year, up to 25 kg of apples are collected from one tree. This is a high rate. You can collect 18 tons of fruits per hectare.
The variety is suitable for industrial cultivation. In many gardens engaged in the cultivation of a large number of products, the Imant apple tree took its place.
Fruit Description
The apples are large - about 180-200 g each. The shape of the fruit is round, slightly conical, ribbed. Imant is an apple tree whose main fruit color is green, and the integument is dark red with a violet hue. It covers almost the entire fruit. Therefore, at first glance, the apples appear dark red.
The pulp of the fetus is creamy, with a greenish tint. The consistency is dense, crispy, tastes sweet, slightly sour, but not very aromatic. Tasters rate its palatability at 4.2 points.
Each of the apples contains:
- dry matter - about 22 g;
- sugars - 20 g;
- ascorbic acid - 17 g.
Ripening time
Apple-tree variety Imant late ripening. The fruits are ready to eat in December. They retain their taste and are stored until April, and at low temperatures - until June.
Creators
Where is the Imant apple tree variety created? Originator - RUE Institute for Fruit Growing from Belarus. A team of scientists received it as a result of crossing varieties of Liberty and Antei. The name suggests that it is an immunized, i.e. disease-resistant variety. In 1999, it was transferred to the network of state testing of varieties, and in 2005 it was entered into the Register of varieties intended for cultivation.
How to buy Imant apple tree seedling ?
Nowadays, in all places intended for the sale of fruit trees, there is a huge number of seedlings. Equipped with a beautiful picture, they cause an irresistible desire to acquire a tree. It seems to you that you already feel the taste of this apple, you feel its aroma.
But often sellers do not have reliable information about varieties or sell obsolete, which do not have the necessary qualities. Not to mention those cases when, instead of one variety, a completely different one is sold.
Buyers, purchasing low-quality material from the "pirates", receive short-lived plants, soon dying from the disease. After all, no one will agree to spray his garden up to fifty times a season. And this is how some varieties have to be grown to get beautiful, clean apples.
Therefore, it is better to buy an Imant apple tree from trusted distributors. Surely everyone who is engaged in gardening has such. It can be ordered directly from the manufacturer.
Experts say that the bulk of the immune varieties are slightly inferior in taste to the non-immune ones. This is especially true with insufficient heat and light. Experienced gardeners recommend supplementing the natural environment with quality care.
Seedling Selection
When choosing seedlings of the Imant apple tree, you need to pay attention to such parameters:
- Growth - up to 1.4 m.
- The vaccination site is at a distance of 7 cm from the root.
- Crohn has at least 4 branches.
- Developed root system (if you buy a seedling with an open root system).
- Bark without damage.
Planting
When growing trees with an average crown size, to the representatives of which the Imant apple tree belongs, it is recommended to plant them at a distance of 4 m from each other in a row. In industrial cultivation, the distance between the rows is 5 m.
Seedlings are planted in a permanent place in the spring, in April, or in the fall, from late September to mid-August. Spruce did not have time before this time, seedlings should be dug up until spring.
The landing pit must be prepared in advance, no later than a week. Then the soil settling will not pick off the roots of the plant. After planting, the sapling will not sink deep into the pit. Its dimensions are 100 x 70 x 70 cm. The upper layer of soil is folded in one direction, the lower - in the other. Humus, charcoal, bone meal (a couple of handfuls) are added. Good to add sand, peat.
Gardeners advise putting tin cans or rusty iron, walnut shells at the bottom of the pit.
Soil mixed with fertilizers, fall asleep to half the pit. Then a mound of fertile soil is formed at the bottom. Its height is about 20 cm. A seedling is placed on it. The cut-off point should face south, and the slit should face north.
One or two pegs are installed next to the seedling, from the north and south. They will guard the seedling and serve as its support. Their height should be at least one and a half meters. Spread the roots, carefully sprinkle with soil, so as not to cut them off. Carefully tamp with a foot.
After the tree has been planted, at least 5 cm should remain from the ground to the place of grafting. If, after some time after planting, the soil has settled, you can add a little soil. But you can not allow the immersion of the root neck.
Abundantly watered, while water freely passes into the pit.
Trim the trunk no lower than the fourth kidney. This will contribute to the active growth of lateral shoots.
If they are already formed, then they are cut so that the conductor is higher. This process is called subordination to the central conductor.
When planting in the fall, leaves are torn off, a tree trunk is covered with spruce branches or other protection against hares and severe frosts. After all, the plant still does not have time to take root, so it will not be able to withstand low temperatures.
Care
When watering, use up to 35 liters of water per seedling. In this case, you can repeat the procedure after a week.
When the apple tree grows up, it needs constant feeding. This can be manure in a proportion of 1:10, bird droppings (1:15 or insist 1:10 and dilute in clean water 1: 8). Apple trees respond well to the introduction of trace elements (copper sulfate, boric acid). 2 g of substance are taken per liter of water.
It is not necessary to spray Imant apple tree from scab . But pests can significantly reduce the yield. Therefore, at least twice a season, they are treated from them by various means. Some prefer chemicals, others use organic. It must be remembered that you need to switch to them no less than two weeks after the use of chemicals.
The first treatment is carried out before flowering, after the buds begin to bloom. This will destroy the creeping pests. The second time sprayed after the formation of the ovary.
The presence of a large number of birds in the garden also contributes to the reduction of pests. They can be lured by installing feeders in the winter or birdhouses in the spring.
Crown formation
Imant is a high-yielding apple tree. But, in order to get the maximum fruit, you need to correctly form the crown of the tree.
Every year it requires corrective pruning. From the beginning of cultivation, you need to conduct it correctly. Then annual trimming can be done sparingly.
In the second year after planting, the central conductor is cut into several kidneys, its competitors are removed.
Lateral skeletal branches are shortened by a third, a kidney away from the trunk. Escape will continue to grow from it. In the future, they are shortened and subordinated to each year by branches.
A tree of the third year of life is pruned in the same way. Then the crown is adjusted by removing the thickened branches.
The fruits on the apple tree are formed on the branches of last year. They should remain after trimming about the same as older ones. Then the tree will bear fruit regularly.
Pruning is carried out in early spring, while the buds have not yet blossomed. By the beginning of sap flow, the wounds on the trees will almost heal, especially with proper processing of the cut site.
If the apple tree is more than 5 years old, all branches growing upwards are removed. They practically do not give a crop, obscure the fruits. Because of this, the color is not so intense. And the taste is worse than that of fruits that received the right amount of sunlight.
Then the broken, damaged branches are removed. Those annual shoots that grow vertically or to the trunk are also trimmed. After all, they will still have to be removed, only in a few years it will not be so easy to do. And wounds, the larger the cutoff area, the worse it drags on.
If there are branches pointing down, it is better to delete them too. These under the weight of apples often break off, damaging the trunk.
In summer, young shoots can be pruned, which will increase the size of the fruit and the formation of fruit buds for the next harvest.
Diseases and Pests
Imant is an apple tree resistant to scab disease. This is facilitated by the Vf gene introduced in the process of creating the variety. Almost not damaged by cracking and cancer.
Destination
Characteristics of the apple tree Imant suggests that the variety is very promising. This also confirmed its industrial use. Constant fruiting, reduced chemical processing costs make Imant apple cultivation profitable.
The variety can be cultivated in private gardens. Although there usually are different varieties, including those that need protection from scab, good taste, late ripening and excellent keeping quality make it interesting for any gardener.
Reviews
Gardeners involved in the industrial cultivation of apples have long appreciated the varieties of Belarusian selection, which include Imant (apple tree). Reviews indicate that caring for trees is convenient and easy. The low height makes it easy to cut and treat from pests. Harvesting is also easier than from tall trees.
Particularly pleasing to gardeners is the resistance of the Imant variety to scab.
And what do amateur gardeners who grow the Imant apple variety think? Reviews say that the fruits are stored for a long period, while becoming more tasty and juicy. They also like the beautiful appearance of apples.