Do you know your apple varieties?
This photograph shows four of at least 2500 varieties of apples that are now available worldwide for commercial use and home garden plantings.
Of these several hundred are available in New Zealand.
Royal Gala and Braeburn, which are popular here and overseas are examples of apples that were developed by New Zealand apple growers.
Apples are members of the rose family and can range in size from a little larger than a cherry to the largest recorded so far which weighed 1.36 kg.
That would be about the size of a lawn bowls ball.
The old saying, ‘‘an apple a day keeps the doctor away,’’ has a good deal of merit as apples are known for their health giving properties.
They are low in calories and don’t contain saturated fats or cholesterol.
Apples are a good source of B-complex vitamins and also have beneficial quantities of minerals including potassium, phosphorus and calcium.
The combination of these properties in apples help the body to develop resistance against infectious diseases.
In the photograph the deep red apple on the left is called Eve.
These apples were first discovered in a New Zealand orchard .
They are crisp and sweet and are now widely grown.
In the centre is a Granny Smith, an older apple, first discovered in Australia and released worldwide in the 1930s. Great for cooking.
On the right is Ambrosia, originating from British Columbia, and it has the lowest acid content of any apple.
The small apple in the centre is actually fully grown and is advertised as a ‘‘bite-sized’’ apple.
It was recently developed in France and is disease resistant, is a good keeper and has a delicious taste.
It grows on dwarf stock and can produce loads of fruit on every branch. An ideal small garden apple.