Spigold†

This new variety, developed in New York, is derived from the cross of Red Spy x Golden Delicious. It is described here as a potential replacement for Northern Spy which it closely resembles. It is large-fruited with exceptionally high fresh fruit quality, having the same fine texture, pleasant flavor, and flesh color as Northern Spy. It reaches picking maturity a week before Northern Spy and in the same season as Red Delicious. Spigold is a triploid needing a pollinizer. Consequently, it is of no value as a pollinizer. The trees are strong, vigorous, and upright growing. The major advantages of Spigold over Northern Spy are its bearing of fruit on younger trees and less susceptibility to bitter pit. Disadvantages are the large trees and large fruit size and biennial bearing.

— Quentin B. Zielinski, Apple Varieties for Oregon (1964)

Spigold

Origin. Spigold resulted from a cross made in 1943, Red Spy x Golden Delicious. The breeding record number was 43201, and the seedling number was N.Y. E6. It was selected on the basis of its chromosome count in 1944, just a few weeks after the seed had germinated.

Einset (69) found that the commercial acreage of apples in New York contained a higher proportion of triploid cultivars than occurs in nature. Thus, triploid types appeared to have special attributes especially suited for commercial production. For this reason, a search was made for triploid seedlings in populations resulting from controlled crosses. The tips of growing roots were sectioned and examined under the microscope to determine ploidy. Chromosomes were counted on 200 seedlings of this Red Spy x Golden Delicious population (68). Most were diploid, but the few that were triploid were specially grown and followed to maturity. N.Y. E6 was one of these triploids (74). It was selected even before it fruited (168). After examination of its fruits, in 1955 it was selected for further propagation, and in 1962 it was introduced (Table 2). Its name is a combined word to indicate its two parents.

The introductory description for Spigold was published in 1962 by Klein, Way, and Einset (131, 132). It was briefly described in the Register of New Fruit and Nut Varieties (39). It was also briefly described in 1963 by Brooks (30) and by Way (216). It was described before the annual sessions of the New York State Horticultural Society in 1964 (224) and again before the same Society 2 years later (214, 215).

Tree. The tree characteristics of Spigold are summarized in Table 5. Ten tree characteristics of Spigold have been listed by Way (217, 221). The tree is a very strong grower, possibly larger than any other cultivar. It is upright, tall, of medium density, and round-topped. Trees begin bearing at a later age than many cultivars. Trees are heavily productive (Table 5), but they tend to crop only in alternate years (21). The trunk is stocky. The bark is smooth and gray.

Spigold trees on EM VII rootstocks sometimes break at the bud union in the first few years after initial fruiting.

Pollination. Spigold trees bloom rather late in the spring, nearly a day later than Delicious (Table 6). It is a triploid (Table 4), and the pollen is not viable. Provision must be made for a nearby late blooming diploid cultivar to pollinate it. Then, a second diploid cultivar must be in the same planting to pollinate the pollinating cultivar.

Fruit. Spigold fruits are illustrated in Figure 30. They were also illustrated in previous publications (131, 132, 217). The fruit characteristics are summarized in Table 8. Ten fruit characteristics of Spigold have been listed by Way (217, 221). The average ripening date at Geneva is October 19, 9 days later than Delicious (Table 7). The average number of days between full bloom and harvest is 153, 8 more than Delicious. The fruits adhere fairly well on the tree after they have ripened.

Spigold fruits are very large, mostly more than 3 inches and often more than 4 inches in diameter. They are large even on heavily cropping trees. They are roundish, ribbed, somewhat irregular in shape, and tend to be five-sided. Their specific gravity (55 lb/bu) is higher than that of most cultivars (40 lb/bu). Stems are variable in length from long to short, and they are thick. The cavity is medium in depth, rather broad, somewhat obtuse to acute, and russeted. The cavity is nearly symmetrical but sometimes slightly compressed or lipped. On fully ripe fruits, the cavity sometimes has large, vertical skin cracks. The calyx is small and closed. The calyx lobes are short, narrow, and acuminate. The basin is deep, narrow, abrupt, rather smooth, sometimes symmetrical, and sometimes compressed. The skin is thin, tender, smooth, dull, and susceptible to limb-rub blemishes. The skin color is 70 per cent distinct stripe and attractive, similar to that of Northern Spy. Fruits are less than 70 per cent red when trees are heavily fertilized with nitrogen, and under these conditions, they are not sufficiently attractive for the fresh market. The dots are few, small, russet color or green, and they are obscure. The calyx tube is long to short (5 to 25 mm), narrow (4 mm), and funnel-shaped to conic. The stamens are basal. The core is small for such large fruits (18 mm wide), and it is open. The carpels are round and tufted. The seeds are few, Spigold being a triploid. They are long, flat, and acuminate. The flesh is yellowish cream, semifirm, medium grained, crisp, very juicy, subacid, aromatic, and sprightly. The eating quality is excellent, perhaps better than any other cultivar. Spigold is very good for applesauce, canned slices, and frozen slices (Table 9). The fruits store very well, about 140 days at 31°F (Table 10). The shelf life after storage is very good. It has less bitter pit than Northern Spy (213). However, bitter pit can be very severe on young trees bearing light crops.

Commercial Usefulness. Nursery trees of Spigold were sold by the New York State Fruit Testing Association for 11 years, 1958-68 (Table 2). It was sold for 4 years before it was introduced. In the 1960-68 period, it was sold by nine commercial nurseries (Table 3). This illustrates that it has been quickly accepted by commercial fruit growers.

In 1968 (184), Spigold was tested at experiment stations in Arkansas, Colorado, Kansas, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Vermont, and Washington.

Spigold has been listed by the author (218) as one of his 20 choicest apple cultivars.

In an evaluation by a commercial New York grower (141), Spigold was an excellent processor, poor yielder, late beginning to bear, biennial bearing, large fruited, hung well on the tree, had a higher specific gravity than most cultivars, and lacked good red color, making it useful only for processing markets.

Nitschke (167) tested many apple cultivars to determine which had the best eating quality. He stated, "Spigold is certainly one of the finest apples of all time. It is crisp, juicy, and its flavor is hard to describe. Its flavor is a delicate blend of the Northern Spy and Golden Delicious flavors that is like nothing else." He later said that Spigold has quality which is superior to the old standard of quality, Esopus Spitzenburg (169), and that its quality is superb (170).

Good eating quality, of course, will develop only under good growing conditions.

In summary: Spigold is a very high quality, very large apple. It probably is most useful for processing markets and is recommended for planting in areas where Northern Spy grows well.

Table 1 shows that in 1965 Spigold ranked 11th among the important cultivars newly planted in New York.

— Roger D. Way, Apple Cultivars Introduced by the New York State Agricultural Experiment Station, 1914–1968 (1971)

Spigold is a very large fruited Spy type, which some people say has the best eating quality of any apple variety. It is a cross between Spy and Golden Delicious and it combines the best of the flavors of its two parents. Spigold has some faults: fruits may be too large, trees can grow too big (too vigorous on seedling roots, they are unproductive), biennial bearing, bitter pit, fruit color not fully red. However, if Spigold is grown on M.7 roots and trees are kept annually cropping through the use of branch spreaders and chemical thinning, they bear heavy crops of beautiful fruit. Being triploid, its pollen is not useful to set fruit on other varieties or on itself.

— Roger D. Way, Apple Varieties Grown in New York State (1979)