Granny Smith

The Granny-Smith is a very popular Cultivar of Pomme appeared in Australia in 1868 following a " sowing chanceux" realized by an old woman, Marie Anna (Granny for Grandmother) Smith.

In France, it is the third apple most cultivated (after Golden delicious and Gala) with 10% of the national production.

Little story

Marie Anna Smith (1799-1870), born Sherwood, originating in Peasmarsh in the Sussex in England arrived in Australia in November 1838. Her husband, Thomas, bought in 1855 a ground with Eastwood in the suburbs of Sydney. The legend tells that Mrs Smith returned one day of the market of Sydney while transporting its races in an old case of gin at the bottom of which an old apple core trailed. It threw it in a corner of its ground. A Pommier pushed and in 1868, it obtained the first apples “Granny-Smith”.

Largely diffused in New Zealand, Granny-Smith is imported into England towards 1935 and with the the United States in 1972 by Grady Auvil.

It is thought that it is about a Hybride of crab-apple tree ( Malus sylvestris ) pollinated by a common apple tree Malus pumila .

Description

Granny-Smith are apples of intermediate size, of color " green pomme" , some have pink reflections.

They have acidulated an enough taste, are very firm, crunching, juicy, excellent to cook or crunch. With rather thick skin, they are also appreciated out of salad because the flesh does not brown as quickly as the other varieties.

Culture

This cultivar, although very vigorous, is not very rustic and has need of time to become ripe (generally about at the end of October even November). It is thus rather cultivated in areas with the soft climate with moderate. Because of the great strength of this cultivar, it is disadvised grafting it on dwarf Porte-greffe S (M7, M9, M26) under penalty of seeing the tree breaking at the point grafts under the influence of a strong wind.

“Granny-Smith” is often advised as one of best the Pollinisateur S but the variety is not Autofertile. To obtain fruits, one thus needs imperatively another pollinating apple tree such as the “Golden Delicious”.

Its wearing of type IV (whining) and the natural extinction of its branches makes that Granny-Smith requires only very little operation of size for bearing fruit each year well (without phenomenon of alternation).

The variety is particularly sensitive to the ashy Puceron of the apple tree.

Others

A Granny-Smith Festival takes place each year with Eastwood, in the suburbs of Sydney, where the variety was born.

Granny-Smith is the apple used on the label of the Beatles, Apple Records.

References

Ask Yahoo question one Granny-Smith
Cathy' S Apple one Page varieties off apples
" Granny-Smith and her apple" Ryde Council

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