Amber

Early autumn variety from the Sverdlovsk Experimental Garden Station. Developed by P. A. Dibrov from a mixture of open-pollinated seeds from Michurinsk. Approved for the Volga-Vyatka, Ural, and West Siberian regions. Despite its small fruit size, the variety remains very popular within its area of cultivation, although the emergence of new high-quality autumn and winter varieties has led to a decline in its share of new plantings.

Medium-sized tree, winter-hardy, with a sparse, spreading, sturdy crown. Main branches are slightly curved, with gray bark, branching off the trunk at a right angle, while upper branches are tilted upward. One-year-old shoots in the nursery branch well.

Shoots are grayish-brown, thin, long, and curved. Leaves are dull green, oval, flat, matte, thin, with a rounded base and a pointed tip. Leaf margins are finely toothed. Petioles are long or medium, stipules are very small and sickle-shaped.

Flowers are medium-sized, cup-shaped, white, with stigmas positioned at the same level as or higher than the anthers. Buds are light cream-colored.

Fruits are small (40 g on podzolic soils, 70 g on fertilized plots and Chelyabinsk chernozems), blunt-ribbed, tapering toward the base, with maximum diameter above the middle. Surface is smooth. Color is amber-yellow, without a covering blush. The calyx is relatively small, often compressed on both sides, with weak, radial rusting, thin, long pedicels. The receptacle is flat with five bumps (pearls). The calyx is closed, and the subcalyx tube is sac-like. The core is onion-like, seed chambers are widely open, seeds are numerous, dark brown, small, round.

Flesh is creamy, fine-grained, juicy, firm, of a piercing type, with an excellent sour-sweet taste. Chemical composition: dry soluble solids — 14.0 (up to 18.2)%, total sugars — 10.8 (up to 14.0)%, titratable acids — 0.9 (up to 1.5)%, ascorbic acid — 9.18 (up to 16.0) mg/100g flesh, P-active substances (catechins) — 229.9 (up to 289) mg/100g.

Fruits remain firmly attached to the tree. For winter storage (until mid-January), they should be harvested slightly underripe, around late August. Later, they ripen further, becoming even more flavorful, but are best consumed in early autumn.

Fruits are eaten fresh and are used to produce excellent processed products — juices, compotes, jams, preserves, etc.

Requires cross-pollination.

Trees begin bearing fruit from the 7th year after budding, productive, yielding regular harvests. Affected by scab in wet years.

Advantages of the variety: good ecological adaptability, yield, excellent fruit quality and quality of processed products.

Disadvantages of the variety: susceptibility to scab.

Widely used in breeding for developing winter-hardy varieties with high fruit quality. Varieties developed with its participation include elite seedlings and winter varieties such as Ekrannoye, Isetskoye pozdnye, Sverdlovchani, Pepin Sverdlovskiy, Izumrudets, Papiryantrnoye, and others.