The story of Antonovka is a kind of pomological detective story. As Adam Stanislavovich Grebnitsky wrote in the Atlas of Fruits of Russia, " the place-origin of Antonovka is not exactly known; it has been bred since very ancient times, and all pomologists who described it recognize it as a variety of Russian origin." At the Nizhny Novgorod Exhibition in 1896, S. V. Batov from Tula presented Antonovka Tula (dukhovaya). He believed that the common name Antonovka was named after the gardener Anton, who allegedly brought it back in time immemorial, and its own name-dukhovaya-from the “spirit”, the aroma that an apple has. These are varieties of antonovka that grow in different regions.
The Golden Monk. Received in the Kursk region. According to legend, the ancestor of the apple tree was planted by the son of Karamzin. Apples are yellowish in color and oblong in shape.
Antonovka-kamenichka. The fruit has a good flat-spherical shape, the taste is sour.
Antonovka Krupnina. Very frost-resistant. The greenish-yellow peel of the apples is strewn with white dots (a special sign of antonovka). They are stored for a long time, ripen in early October.
Antonovka autumn. Large-fruited. The smooth, thick, yellowish-green skin is marked with large white dots.
Antonovka stepnaya. From the Kursk region. Large fruits with pale yellow skin are dotted with white and black dots. Stored until January.
Antonovka is sweet. Clonal varieties of Antonovka vulgaris. The fruit is low in acid, so there is a fresh sweet taste. The apples are kept for long.
Antonivka polufuntovka (600-gramm). The average weight of the fruit is 280 grams. Harvest from an adult tree – up to a ton!
Antonovka white. It looks like a pound and a half, but the fruit is smaller, with very juicy flesh.
!!!..I was mistaken, no thorns, the branches just looked like thorns early on. … they are both growing…not the healthiest or most vigorous trees in my orchard. …but I look forward to trying them and possibly pulling a few suckers( if they produce) or starting seeds to graft onto.
@Ilya Found your list of Antonovka varieties – very interesting. I remember, growing up, we would buy buckets of Antonovka on train stations when passing through Belarus. Do you know which variety is most likely grown in Belarus? From your pictures, I am sure it’s not “Gold” or “Dessert” antonovka because those Belorussian ones were not golden nor had red color (just green with yellowish tint). Thanks!
We have some wild seedling Antonovka’s- the 1st generation bears good all yellow fruit tasting according to type, but the seedlings that grew from them are all bearing yellow fruit w/ pink to red blush on the sunny side, and are a real mixed bag quality wise. My guess is there’s a lot of genetic history in there, and all of its fighting to express itself. In my experience, any unknown rootstock has the '‘potential’ fo that sort of spiny growth.
I grew out an Antonovka rootstock from Fedco and was impressed enough with the fruit that I grafted a couple more off that tree. The fruit are large and yellow, sometimes with a slight blush on the sunny side (which I have been told is not indicative of “true” Antonovka). The flesh is white and quite crisp, with good flavor, but relatively tart. I brought a couple bushels to the farmers market last year and one lady from Eastern Europe was very excited to buy them, while another turned her nose up at them and told me they were not real Antonovkas as she remembered them. Which I suppose is the case, although I am happy with them. I have a friend who also grew out an Antonovka rootstock, but his apples while pure yellow were less crisp and he ended up top working over his.
Most Antonovka’s are ok large to very large cooking apples that might last 2 months tops. Some higher flavored types were bred 1890-1900’ish.
But they still pale compared to Yellow Transparent, Alexander, Red Astrachan and Duchess of Oldenberg.
Here we will have a seedling of a seedling of Antonovka with Belle Di Pontise. Which is a seedling of Alexander. Which is a seedling of one of the larger fruited Antonovka’s.
I have some ‘wild’ Antonovka’s- the best I can tell you is they have a LOT of different genetic potentials hiding in there. Some are very, very good, with only a few being awful- those are usually the ‘redder’ ones. They make excellent grafting stock.
There an apple tree on my neighbors farm that has about 20 apples on it this year. The apples are fairly large and he said other years they were good tasting apples (not too sweet but sweet enough was the way he described them). He said that he thinks it is the rootstock from a macintosh apple tree he bought about 20 years ago and the top part died. We were hit hard by a late freeze here in central Pa and hardly any apples produced. I am planning on trying to graft this on one of my trees. If it would be Antonovka would it take over the tree if I put more than one branch on a 3-year-old Jonagold tree that hasn’t produced yet.
I havent seen many taste tests of this apple… i am adding it as i think i ate these as a child from a neighbors tree. Sometimes words and pictures dont do things justice.
