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Royal Delicious apple Photo: Yercaud-elango · CC BY-SA 4.0 · source ↗

Royal Delicious apple

Royal Delicious is the backbone commercial apple of Jammu & Kashmir and Himachal Pradesh. It is a colour mutant within the Red Delicious group, selected for deeper red striping and better fruit finish than the parent. In the Kashmir Valley (Shopian, Sopore, Pulwama, Baramulla, Kupwara) and the mid-hill belts of HP (Shimla, Kullu, Kinnaur), Royal Delicious occupies the bulk of standard-density orchards established between the 1970s and 1990s.

Key characteristics

  • Parentage: bud sport of Red Delicious (Malus domestica)
  • Tree: spur-type, vigorous on seedling rootstock; semi-dwarf on MM-106 / MM-111
  • Fruit shape: typical Delicious truncate-conic with five prominent calyx-end lobes
  • Fruit colour: bright red over yellow ground, striped to fully blushed at maturity
  • Flesh: crisp, juicy, sweet-mild with characteristic Delicious aroma
  • Maturity: late September to mid-October in Kashmir Valley
  • Storage life: 4-5 months in cold storage at 0-1 °C; 7-9 months in apple CA storage
  • Chilling requirement: ~1,000-1,200 chilling units (see chilling units)

Cultivation

Royal Delicious is propagated by tongue or whip-and-tongue grafting onto seedling or clonal rootstock. Conventional orchards use 6 x 6 m spacing on seedling rootstock; modern blocks shift to MM-106 / MM-111 with 4 x 5 m spacing, and high-density Italian-style plantings use M-9 / M-26 with 1 x 3.5 m spacing on trellis (HDP). The variety is self-incompatible — pollinisers such as Golden Delicious, Red Gold or crab apples are interplanted at a 1:9 ratio with honey-bee and bumble-bee colonies for pollination. Drip irrigation with fertigation is increasingly standard (drip-fertigation-orchard).

Pest and disease profile

The major problems are apple scab (Venturia inaequalis), Marssonina blotch and powdery mildew on the foliar side; codling moth (Cydia pomonella), San Jose scale and woolly aphid on the insect side. Premature fruit drop and bitter pit (calcium-deficiency disorder) are common physiological problems. Sanitation of fallen leaves, copper / dodine pre-bloom sprays, captan / mancozeb cover sprays and pheromone-based codling-moth mass-trapping form the core IPM programme recommended by ICAR-CITH and SKUAST-K.

Adoption and use

Royal Delicious dominates the Kashmir and HP apple economy — Kashmir alone produces over 1.8 million tonnes of apples annually, of which Delicious-group cultivars (Red, Royal, Royal Gala) make up the majority. The fruit is graded into A / B / C extra-large / large / small in CFB cartons, pre-cooled, and shipped to Azadpur, Mumbai, Bangalore and Chennai mandis via the Banihal-Jammu-Pathankot rail-and-road corridor. Increasing competition from imported Washington and Iranian apples and from colour-strain successors (Oregon Spur, Red Chief, Scarlet Spur) has driven gradual replanting in HP, but Royal Delicious remains the de-facto reference cultivar for Indian apple prices.

See also: Red Delicious, Ambri (traditional Kashmir), apple rootstocks, HDP system, apple scab, codling moth.

Sources

  1. Apple: Package of Practices. ICAR-Central Institute of Temperate Horticulture, Srinagar.
  2. Apple cultivation in India. National Horticulture Board.
  3. Apple varieties. SKUAST-Kashmir.