Pinova apple – care instructions, taste & nutritional values

The Pinova apple initially needs the same basic care as any apple tree or woody plant:

• Water regularly and sufficiently until it grows
• Then, especially during flowering and fruit set, water artificially in the event of drought
• Fertilize according to the breeder / dealer recommendation and soil values ​​on site
• Cut the young tree into shape depending on the variety and growth pattern
• The older tree receives fruit, care and, at some point, rejuvenation pruning
• Watch carefully for any disease / fungus to which the variety is susceptible
• Find out in advance what measures should be taken immediately if there are signs of an infestation

In addition, each variety has its own requirements in terms of supply, here the special features of the care of the Pinova apple:

The flowering of the Pinova apple begins in mid-April and lasts a long time, almost until mid-May. Since, according to meteorologists, spring is getting drier due to global warming, the Pinova apple should be carefully observed during the flowering month. If the petals or leaves appear limp, the Pinova apple should be given a little water that same evening.

The Pinova apple is selected for a very strong fruit set. This promises the fulfillment of the old dream of endless harvest abundance in the advertising photos, but it has its disadvantages: From the point at which the fruit is set until the fruit is ripe, the Pinova apple must be kept thinning to prevent its branches from breaking off under too many apples. This work is due every year, Pinova knows no alternation (strong and weak harvests alternate).

Thinning is done chemically or mechanically in commercial apple growing, but the usual pesticide cocktail: werden.greenpeace.de/presse/presseerklaerungen/greenpeace-findet-pestizid-cocktails-deutschen-apfeln the home gardener certainly does not want to do to his potential organic apple (is for the home garden is also not permitted), and machines only work in uniform apple orchards.

So the home gardener only has the manual thinning, which works like this:

• Excessive fruit hanging must be removed so that the branches do not break
• Thinning out also benefits the remaining fruits, they are bigger and better cared for (nicer)
• The decisive, fundamental thinning of the Pinova apple is carried out at the end of June
• You can use long, thin scissors as a tool
• Use these scissors to cut out the fruit trimmings so that one apple is left for each fruit cluster
• In fruit clusters (several fruit stalks from one base) all fruits are never ripe
• The tree would also dispose of the surplus fruit automatically, but perhaps only after a fungal attack
• If the individual fruits are too close together, the less favorably hanging fruit must give way
• Optimal: Approximately 30 cm from fruit to fruit
• Fruit growers calculate differently: it should be 30 leaves per fruit
• A single apple needs this number to supply it
• The first thinning is followed by constant thinning as required (if a branch is hanging, but two apples are still ripening right next to each other)

The requirement of annual thinning includes the appropriate pruning for the annual pruning: Especially when a tree has to be thinned out constantly, the construction of a stable crown structure is important. Because when thinning you will hardly be able or want to calculate exactly which fruits a branch can still bear, a little “static reserve” is therefore recommended.

In the case of such richly bearing varieties as the Pinova apple, it is also advantageous to switch to short fruit wood from the outset for reasons of stability; this can also prevent some loss of branches. Long shoots with masses of fruits not only pose a risk of breakage, but can also shade the shoots growing underneath to such an extent that the quality of the fruit suffers.

Overall, a Pinova apple must be trimmed all around or kept at such a height that you can easily reach anywhere to thin it out. Where one can only thin out with difficulty, danger, contortions, the consequent thinning does not take place at some point, and the apple loses an overcrowded fruit branch through breakage …

There is one exception: The Pinova apple grows in a monoculture garden (in a settlement with other monoculture gardens around it), i.e. in an area in which there are few insects due to a lack of sufficient food. Then fertilization is usually so bad that you can do without thinning.

taste

Pinova carries small to medium-sized apples with a yellow base color and a bright orange-red covering color, which becomes stronger as the ripening process progresses. The meat has firm, juicy, rather coarse cells with a sweet and sour taste. Whether a Pinova apple develops its full taste depends on your care and the weather: Pinova is hardy up to USDA hardiness zone 5b (-26.1 ° C), it doesn’t get colder in Germany (on average). And yet the growing instructions for the Pinova apple emphasize that although it does not need a wine-growing climate, it does need consistently sunny, warm temperatures in order to produce apples with a high content of sweetness and aroma.

It is noticeable here that the Pinova apple is a descendant of the famous ‘Golden Delicious’. For apple growers who are still familiar with varieties outside the narrow trade quota, ‘Golden Delicious’ is “a kind of fall from grace in the history of modern apple culture” (quoted from: boomgarden.de/von-richtigen-und-falschen-aepfel.html) . Because of its fabulous fertility it has been crossed again and again, there are modern varieties with 5 ‘Golden Delicious’ in the family tree up to the generation of the great-grandparents; fascinated by the abundance of yields, the negative properties of the cultivar (high susceptibility to all conceivable diseases, high fertilizer consumption, high care needs, high heat demand) have been ignored for a long time.

For sustainable breeders, this is nothing more than forbidden inbreeding, and ignoring it does not make the strain any healthier. In fact, the legacy of the ‘Golden Delicious’ in Pinova apples is particularly noticeable in their susceptibility to powdery mildew and in the demands on the climate: Golden Delicious was bred in West Virginia US, is not frost-resistant in harsh winters and thrives best in here a warm climate with sunny, dry summers (even in the Altes Land with the “warm” winter hardiness zone 8a, the fruit growing test group recommends cultivation only in protected locations).

If the weather provides the necessary warmth, the correct harvest also plays an important role, and there is a surprising amount to consider:

• Ripe is not always ripe for an apple
• In the case of apples, a distinction is made between being ripe for picking and ripe for consumption
• Because apples seldom develop their full aroma immediately after harvest
• An apple is ripe for picking when it can be easily removed and more fruit is falling
• Recognize when it is ripe for picking: Lift the fruit on the tree and turn it gently, ripe apples come off easily
• The maturity for consumption can coincide with the maturity for picking, hence the term “dessert fruit”
• However, “after picking it on the board” is the exception
• Most varieties have to be stored for a longer or shorter period of time in order to achieve their full aroma and thus maturity

The Pinova apple is ripe for picking in early to mid-October and is ready to be enjoyed from November. In the trade it is stored refrigerated until March (in the CA warehouse until May), in airy stacking boxes you can store the apples in a cool room in private households for weeks.

If a Pinova apple has received enough warmth (and there were no diseases, about that in a moment), it should taste good. So good that it was voted Apple of the Year in the Rhineland in 1998 and 2001. Since this choice was made by a horticultural center together with the Rhineland Chamber of Agriculture, only the few commercial varieties were compared in this choice, which apple connoisseurs usually reject from the outset when comparing tastes … If you are looking for real apple taste, traditional apple enthusiasts should consider among the hundreds of old ones Select regional apple varieties that the Federal Research Institute for Cultivated Plants Julius Kühn Institute has collected in the German Fruit Genebank (Werden.deutsche-genbank-obst.jki.bund.de).

Nutritional values

In the “Horticultural Competence Center Fruit Growing” of the State Research Center for Agriculture and Fisheries Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, the current research results on the ingredients of apples have recently been summarized. These nutrients are contained in 100 g apple in roughly constant proportions on average:

• 85 g of water
• 11.4 grams of carbohydrates; 10.4 g sugar + 1 g fiber (for Pinova, changes with the variety + seasonal climate)
• 0.4 g fat
• 0.3 g raw protein
• 0.32 g of minerals
• 120 mg of potassium
• 12 mg ascorbic acid (vitamin C)
• 12 mg Phosphor
• 5 mg Calcium
• 2 mg Magnesium
• 0.17 mg iron
• 300 μg niacin (formerly also Vit. B3)
• 100 μg Zink
• 50 μg Kupfer
• 50 μg Mangan
• 35 μg Thiamin (Vit. B1)
• 30 μg Riboflavin (Vit. B2)
• 100 μg Vitamin B6
• 100 μg pantothenic acid (vitamin B5)

The calorific value in kcal results from carbohydrates, fat and protein: (11.4 * 4.1 = 46.74) + (0.4 * 9 = 3.6) + (0.3 * 4.1 = 1, 23) = 51.57 kcal.

The nutrient content differs from variety to variety and partly also with the seasonal climate, but you will also find the right vitamin bombs among the many (still just preserved) old apple varieties: Boskoop, for example, usually has over 15% sugar and about the same amount of flavor Acids; the “White Winter Calvill”, which used to be popular in France and Baden-Wuerttemberg, has an average of 31.8 mg of vitamin C. The secondary plant substances, which are largely responsible for the truthfulness of the saying “an apple a day keeps the doctor away” (one apple per Day keeps the doctor out of the house) should be responsible, it looks very similar …

Disease prevention

Like many commercial varieties, the Pinova apple is very susceptible to powdery mildew. You can prevent this by choosing the right location and taking the right care: trees on dry, shallow soils in a more enclosed area and trees that suffer from nutrient deficiencies or one-sided over-fertilization are particularly quickly attacked by apple powdery mildew.

Pinova must be carefully observed for approaches of apple powdery mildew, if necessary the powdery mildew fungus called Podosphaera leucotricha must be combated immediately. If the powdery mildew has come over the winter at mild temperatures (it freezes to death if the temperatures persist for a long time), the tree sprouts later in spring, with narrow wrinkled buds, the scales of which are not close together as usual, but narrow (isolated) and loose sit.

You have to intervene at this stage: As soon as the buds are sprouting, cut away all the tips of the shoots with infected buds and destroy them in such a way that they can no longer infect plants. After budding keep your eyes open, immediately cut off all “floured” (infected) buds and shoot tips; if you continue this regularly until around the end of July, the infection can usually be contained.

If, however, there is a pronounced infestation year coming up and you are “surrounded” by mildew-sensitive commercial varieties, you can hardly avoid using approved fungicides if you want to harvest healthy apples. 24 fungicides against Podosphaera leucotricha are approved for home and allotment gardens, with the active ingredients tebuconazole, tebuconazole + trifloxystrobin, difenoconazole or sulfur. Tebuconazole, trifloxystrobin and difenoconazole are harmful if swallowed and very toxic to aquatic organisms. Tebuconazole can presumably harm the unborn child, trifloxystrobin can cause allergic skin reactions, difenoconazole causes serious eye damage and is fatal if inhaled. Sulfur is approved for spraying as network sulfur (sulfur powder with added wetting agent). Together with moisture, Light and oxygen turn into sulfur dioxide on the leaf surfaces and kill the fungi (contact fungicide, you have to moisten each infected leaf). Sulfur dioxide is no fun for the environment or people, but poisonous, kills z. B. also all beneficial insects in the vicinity of the tree and is therefore viewed as quite critical by environmentally conscious people …

Conclusion : The Pinova apple grows very well and sets a lot of fruits. So good that it needs a special cut, so many fruits that they have to be thinned out; so the strain is quite a bit of work. The Pinova apple tastes good, but in the opinion of connoisseurs it is never as good as the many old German apple varieties that have not been subjected to “Golden Delicious inbreeding”.