Golden delicious clone b

Golden Delicious, clone Laimburg B, is a premium certified clonal selection of the famous American variety Golden Delicious, developed in 1981 at the prestigious Laimburg Research Centre for Agriculture and Forestry in South Tyrol, Italy. This clone was created primarily to eliminate the greatest commercial drawback of the variety: its tendency toward skin russeting. Today, it represents the gold standard and the most sought-after selection of Golden Delicious in intensive commercial orchards throughout Europe and Serbia.

Partially self-fertile, but pollinators recommended/mandatory for commercial crop. The best and field-proven pollinators for this variety are Granny Smith, Gala, Fuji, and Idared. It flowers medium-late, abundantly, and over a long period.

The tree is low to moderately vigorous, with a recognizable broad-rounded and well-branched canopy. It enters the fruiting stage extremely early, often as early as the second year after planting. Once it starts bearing, it produces regular, stable, and extremely abundant yields. It is prone to overcropping, which is why mandatory chemical and hand thinning of the fruit in early summer is required in order to prevent alternate bearing and fruit size reduction.

It belongs to the group of autumn apple varieties. In our region and under continental growing conditions, it ripens at the end of September and in early October.

Harvesting takes place during the second half of September and in early October, exclusively at technological maturity, when the ground color changes from dark green to light green or pale yellowish.

It has outstanding storage ability. In standard storage facilities, it can be kept until January, while in modern ULO cold storage with controlled atmosphere it successfully retains full freshness and firmness for up to 10 months, until June or even August of the following year, making it highly economically profitable. It tolerates picking, sorting, packing, and long-distance transport very well. It is primarily a premium table variety, but it is also widely used in industrial processing for baby food, juices, and purées.

The fruit is large, with an average weight of 170–230 g, uniform, and regularly roundish-conical to slightly elongated in shape. The skin is thin, smooth, and glossy. The main characteristic of clone B is its exceptional resistance to skin russeting: the fruit remains perfectly clean, glassy-smooth, and attractive, with a yellow-green color that at full maturity turns into a beautiful golden-yellow, with a delicate red blush on the sun-exposed side. The flesh is yellowish, exceptionally firm, compact, crisp, and very juicy. The taste is premium, dessert-quality, distinctly sweet, with mild fine acidity and a luxurious, recognizable Muscat aroma.

It is a moderately resistant variety. It shows excellent resistance of the wood and flower buds to low winter frosts. It is susceptible to apple scab on leaves and fruit, Venturia inaequalis, and to powdery mildew, so regular, professional, and intensive preventive chemical protection is required throughout the growing season, along with humidity control in cold storage in order to prevent skin shriveling.

Our apple fruit trees are produced on highly compatible and certified rootstocks: M9, M9 T337, ideal for high-density intensive orchards with a support system, M26, for medium-density orchards, and MM106, for more vigorous trees and home gardens, with which this variety achieves an excellent graft union and long tree life.