The World of Apples

Apple varieties, Iran

Golab Kohanz

A native Iranian summer apple, sweet and fragrant but soft and quick to spoil; breeders cross it for earliness

History

Golab Kohanz (گلاب کهنز) is one of Iran’s native apples, an early variety of summer1,2. The sources consulted do not record where or when it arose. Golāb, the first word of its name, is Persian for rosewater6, and Faramarzi and colleagues see the Golab apples’ mild taste and pleasant flavour reflected in the name3.

Iranian horticulturists count it, with Shafi Abadi, among the native apples valuable to breeders for their earliness, aroma and flavour; but it keeps poorly, its flesh is soft, and it is very susceptible to powdery mildew and fire blight1. In 2004–05 a breeding programme at the University of Tehran’s horticultural research station began crossing it, as the pollen parent, with Red Spur and Golden Delicious, in search of early, good-quality apples for the summer market1. In 2007 the Seed and Plant Improvement Institute had it, with other native summer apples, in its collection at Kamalshahr, Karaj2, and breeders working near Karaj, at about 1,300 m, have since ranked the earliness of new seedlings against it5.

The fruit

It is a small apple: fruit picked at Karaj in 2009 averaged 64.22 g, 54.86 mm wide and 51.56 mm long4, and the Tehran breeders recorded 80 g1. The flesh is white3 and soft, with a firmness of 3.4 kg/cm², below the 4.5 kg/cm² under which, the breeders note, consumers usually reject apples; that softness harms both its sale and its carriage to distant markets1. It is sweet: in a 2007 storage trial at Karaj it had the highest soluble solids of seven native summer apples, over 12 °Brix at every stage2.

Growing

It flowers early and ripens early1. At Kamalshahr its fruit ripened 93 days after full bloom in 2006, and in 2007 it was picked in early July2; the Golab apples in general ripen in July and August3.

Uses

It is a summer apple for eating fresh1,2.

Where the sources disagree

  • Sweetness. Over 12 °Brix in a 2007 storage trial2 and 12.2 per cent in the Tehran breeders’ records1, but 8.75 per cent in fruit picked at Karaj in 20094.
  • Size. An average of 64.22 g in 20094, or 80 g1.

Sources

  1. Evaluation of some qualitative and quantitative characteristics of fruits in a number of apple genotypes obtained from crosses between Red Spur and Golab-e-Kohanz cultivars (in Persian), Ruhollah Ali, Zabihollah Zamani, Mohammad Reza Fatahi, Ali Gharaghani and Esmaeil Fallahi, Iranian Journal of Horticultural Science 46(2): 201–211, University of Tehran, 2015. Supports: the Persian name گلاب کهنز; Golab Kohanz and Shafi Abadi, Iranian apples with a special place as native genetic resources in breeding for their good aroma and flavour and their earliness (after Kalantari, 1992), but of low quality, keeping poorly, with soft flesh, and highly susceptible to powdery mildew and fire blight (p. 202); a University of Tehran breeding programme begun in 1383 (2004–05) by Zamani and colleagues at the research station of its horticulture department, using Golab Kohanz and Shafi Abadi as pollen parents and Red Spur and Golden Delicious as seed parents, to breed early, good-quality apples for the summer market; Golab Kohanz early-flowering, early-ripening, with good aroma and flavour (p. 208); its excessive softness harming marketability and transport to distant places (p. 209); firmness 3.4 kg/cm², against the 4.5 kg/cm² below which apples are usually not accepted by consumers (after Prange and others, 1993), fruit weight 80 g and 12.2% soluble solids (p. 210, Table 8).
  2. Changes in physical and biochemical traits in native summer-ripening apple cultivars during cold storage (in Persian), Mahdi Eshghi, Hassan Hajnajari, Siamak Kalantari, Sima Damyar and Valiollah Rasouli, Journal of Agricultural Engineering Research 12(1): 59–70 (the journal now named Irrigation and Drainage Structures Engineering Research), Agricultural Research, Education and Extension Organization, 2011. Supports: the Persian name گلاب کهنز; Golab Kohanz among seven early to mid-season native apple cultivars, on 16-year-old trees in the collection of the Seed and Plant Improvement Institute's horticultural research station at Kamalshahr, Karaj; Table 1: 93 days from full bloom to ripening in 1385 (2006), early class, harvested for fresh eating on 12 and 20 Tir 1386 (3 and 11 July 2007); the highest soluble solids of the seven cultivars at every stage of cold storage, over 12 °Brix.
  3. Comparison of phenolic compounds' content and antioxidant activity between some native Iranian apples and standard cultivar 'Gala', Sh. Faramarzi, A. Yadollahi, M. Barzegar, K. Sadraei, S. Pacifico and T. Jemrić, Journal of Agricultural Science and Technology 16(7): 1601–1611, 2014. Supports: Golab-e Kohanz a native Iranian, white-fleshed cultivar; the Golab cultivars early-ripening (July to August), of high fruit quality, mild taste and desirable flavour, "suggested in the name chosen for the cultivar".
  4. Post harvest physical and nutritional properties of two apple varieties, Abbas Gorji Chakespari, Ali Rajabipour and Hossein Mobli, Journal of Agricultural Science 2(3), Canadian Center of Science and Education, September 2010. Supports: Golab Kohanz, an early variety, from the University of Tehran's horticultural research orchard at Karaj in the summer of 2009; mean fruit mass 64.22 g, length 51.56 mm and width 54.86 mm; total soluble solids 8.75%.
  5. Production of a diverse range of early ripening apple progenies through scalar screening for pheno-morpho and yield traits, H. Sadri, H. Hajnajari, M. Zeinalabedini, N. Kazemi and R. Asgarpour, SABRAO Journal of Breeding and Genetics 56(4): 1459–1472, 2024. Supports: the "early native apple Golab Kohanz" used as the control against which the earliness of 246 half-sib progenies was ranked, at the Meshkin Dasht station of the Temperate-Cold Fruit Research Center, Karaj, at about 1,300 m.
  6. A Comprehensive Persian-English Dictionary, p. 1093: gulāb, Francis Joseph Steingass, Routledge & K. Paul, London; Digital Dictionaries of South Asia, University of Chicago, 1892. Supports: گلاب gulāb, "Rose-water".