Verde Doncella
An old Spanish apple from nineteenth-century nurseries: sweet, pale-skinned and able to keep through the winter
History
Verde Doncella is an old Spanish apple that came from the nurseries of the nineteenth century1; a 2020 genetic study dates it to the 1800s2. Spain’s inventory of traditional agricultural knowledge, published by the agriculture ministry in 2018, describes it as once very widespread but now in decline, and records its cultivation in Aragon, Castile and León, Madrid and Castile-La Mancha1.
It was named in the European Community’s market rules: for 1996/97 the basic and buying-in prices for apples applied to Class I fruit of Verde Doncella and Reine des Reinettes of 65 mm or more, and to six other varieties at 70 mm or more3. A study published in 2022 still counted it among the reference varieties widespread in Spain, beside Golden Delicious, Gala, Fuji and Granny Smith4. Samples collected under its name in villages of central Spain, at Canencia, Horcajuelo de la Sierra and Tielmes, clustered with the reference trees in a morphological analysis, and Verde Doncella itself grouped with Spain’s traditional apples rather than with the modern varieties, which the authors put down to its being native to Spain4.
In a 2020 study of SNP data from more than 1,400 genotypes, Verde Doncella and an apple listed as Appio (TN), a genotype distinct from Api, proved to be parent and offspring, though the data could not show which was which2. The variety is diploid2. The National Fruit Collection in Britain received it from Spain in 19575.
The fruit
The Spanish inventory describes a sweet apple with whitish-yellow skin1. At the National Fruit Collection, at Brogdale in Kent, it is large and rounded, about 78 mm wide and 62 mm high, with a whitish-yellow ground, at most a faint wash of orange and very little russet; the white flesh is hard and crisp to very crisp5. In Spain it ripens in September but can be kept all winter1; at Brogdale it reaches 10 per cent flowering around 9 May and is picked in mid-October5.
Sources
- Malus domestica Borkh. (apple), in the Spanish Inventory of Traditional Knowledge relating to Agricultural Biodiversity, vol. 1 (in Spanish), A. Arnal Olivares, A. Lázaro, L. Aceituno-Mata, M. Pardo de Santayana and J. Tardío; Ministerio de Agricultura, Pesca y Alimentación, pp. 227–240, 2018. Supports: Verde Doncella "una variedad antigua procedente de los viveros del siglo XIX", sweet, with whitish-yellow skin, ripening in September but keeping all winter; once very widespread and now in decline; its cultivation recorded in Aragon, Castile and León, Madrid and Castile-La Mancha.
- Using whole-genome SNP data to reconstruct a large multi-generation pedigree in apple germplasm, H. Muranty and others, BMC Plant Biology 20: 2, supplementary tables S1 and S6, 2020. Supports: a study of more than 1,400 genotypes; Verde Doncella (MUNQ 810) diploid (2n) and dated "1800s" (table S1); Verde Doncella and Appio (TN) (MUNQ 780) a parent–offspring pair (5 Mendelian errors) that could not be oriented (table S6); Api (MUNQ 10) a different genotype from Appio (TN) (table S1).
- Commission Regulation (EC) No 1515/96 of 29 July 1996 reducing the basic and buying-in prices for apples for the 1996/97 marketing year (in Spanish), European Commission, Official Journal of the European Communities L 189, pp. 97–98; Boletín Oficial del Estado database, 1996-07-29. Supports: the 1996/97 basic and buying-in prices for apples refer to Class I apples of the varieties Reine des reinettes and Verde Doncella of 65 mm or more, and to Class I apples of six other named varieties of 70 mm or more.
- Morphological characterization of 23 Malus domestica Borkh cultivars from central Spain, A.-R. Arnal, A. Lázaro and J. Tardío, Genetic Resources 3(6): 22–37, 2022-08-31. Supports: Verde Doncella among nine reference cultivars, with Fuji, Gala, Golden Delicious, Granny Smith and Reineta Blanca, chosen because they are widespread in Spain; old trees collected as Verde Doncella at Canencia, Horcajuelo de la Sierra and Tielmes, in rural central Spain, clustering together with the reference; Verde Doncella grouping with the old cultivars rather than the modern references, "congruent with its breeding history, as this cultivar is autochthonous to Spain".
- Verde Doncella (accession 1957-082), National Fruit Collection, Brogdale, Kent (Defra). Supports: received by the National Fruit Trials from Spain in 1957; "Fruits have hard white flesh"; a dessert apple; large and globose, height 62.05 mm and width 77.52 mm; whitish-yellow ground with a very low amount of washed-out orange flush; very low russet; crisp to very crisp; 10% flowering on 9 May and picking in mid-October at the collection.