Яблоко Брэмли: История и Особенности Сорта

Apple cultivar

Malus domestica (Bramley's Seedling, commonly known as the Bramley apple, or simply Bramley, Bramleys or Bramley's) is an English cultivar of apple that is usually eaten cooked due to its sourness. The variety comes from a pip planted by Mary Ann Brailsford. The Concise Household Encyclopedia states, "Some people eat this apple raw in order to cleanse the palate, but Bramley's seedling is essentially the fruit for tart, pie, or dumpling." Once cooked, however, it has a lighter flavour. A peculiarity of the variety is that when cooked it becomes golden and fluffy.

Bramley's Seedling apple trees are large, vigorous, spreading and long lived. They tolerate some shade. The apples are very large, two or three times the weight of a typical dessert apple. They are flat with a vivid green skin that becomes red on the side that receives direct sunlight. and currently holds the Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit (H4). Most of the stock of Bramley's Seedling commercially available is slightly different in its growth habit and other characteristics from the original tree, probably because of a chance mutation (or mutations) that occurred unnoticed over the years. Plants produced from the still surviving (then 180 year old) tree by tissue culture in 1990 have proved to be much more compact and free branching than the widely available commercial stock. The cloning work was done by scientists at the University of Nottingham, including Professor Edward Cocking, because the original tree was suffering from old age and was under attack by honey fungus. Twelve of the cloned trees now grow in the University grounds; one was also planted beside the old tree at Southwell, but was cut down when it was 10 years old.

The first Bramley's Seedling tree grew from pips planted by Mary Ann Brailsford in her garden when she was a young girl in Southwell, Nottinghamshire, UK in 1809. Mary left the house when she married and possibly never saw the apples that were produced. She died in 1852 never knowing that "her" seedling was to become famous. The tree she had planted in the garden was later included in the purchase of the cottage by a local butcher, Matthew Bramley, in 1846. In 1856, a local nurseryman, Henry Merryweather, asked if he could take cuttings from the tree and start to sell the apples. Bramley agreed but insisted that the apples should bear his name. On 31 October 1862, the first recorded sale of a Bramley was noted in Merryweather's accounts. He sold "three Bramley apples for 2/ to Mr Geo Cooper of Upton Hall". On 6 December 1876, the Bramley was highly commended at the Royal Horticultural Society's Fruit Committee exhibition. In 1900, the original tree was knocked over during violent storms; it survived, and is still bearing fruit two centuries after it was planted. However, it was reported in 2016 that the tree was suffering from a fungal infection and may be dying. The variety is now the most important cooking apple in England and Wales, with 13.5 square miles, 95% of total culinary apple orchards in 2007. The Bramley is almost exclusively a British variety; however, it is also grown in Ireland. Bramleys are produced by a few United States farms, and can be found in Canada, Australia and Japan. The town of Southwell hosts many celebrations of the Bramley Apple, including the Bramley Apple Festival launched in 2011. On the third Saturday in October, Southwell Minster hosts the Opening Ceremony and the Food & Drink Festival. The Bramley Apple Inn is located just a few doors away from the original apple tree, which is considered to be a town treasure. In 2018, 27 Church Street was bought by Nottingham Trent University to preserve the building and the tree for posterity. The tree can be visited by prior appointment. A blue plaque on the house in Southwell now commemorates the apple, and in 2009 a window commemorating the 200th anniversary of the planting of the tree was installed in Southwell Minster. As a young man Henry Merryweather worked as a gardener on the nearby Norwood Park Estate, and when John Ralph Starkey bought the hall, gardens and pasture in 1880, he turned to Henry Merryweather for advice about which apples and fruit he should be planting on his acreage. The Bramley Apple was suggested and the first commercial orchard of Bramley was established in 1910 at Maythorne Orchard, close to the Lower Kirklington Road on what is now a Golf course.

Bramley apples from County Armagh enjoy Protected Geographical Indication status within the European Union. The apples have a tarter taste than those grown in England, and over 40,000 tonnes are produced annually. Because the tree is a heavy cropper and liable to glut, it is a fine candidate for the domestic production of fruit wine, alone or with other fruits, and cider if mixed with a sweeter Cox or similar.