Kandil Sinap Apple (Spring 2027)

This is our first year growing Kandil Sinap, so everything below is secondhand until we get more long-term data from our own mother trees.

Overview

Kandil Sinap is an old Crimean apple with a shape you won't mistake for anything else. The fruit is tall and narrow, and the tree grows the same way, upright and slim. Raintree says it looks more like a pear tree than an apple. The flesh is snow-white, sweet and perfumed.

Origin and History

The UK's National Fruit Collection says it's thought to have originated in Crimea in the early 1800s. A 1906 Russian fruit atlas (Atlas plodov) calls it native to Crimea and limited to Crimea, and says it compared in quality to the Sary Sinap, though its high price made it mostly a table fruit. Some American nurseries say it came from Turkey instead, and Cummins hedges with "Crimea or Turkey." The name is usually explained from the Crimean Tatar, where kandil means lamp.

Fruit and Uses

Medium sized and tall, with a pale whitish-yellow skin and an orange flush. The National Fruit Collection describes the flesh as "crisp, snow-white" with a "sweet, slightly vinous and perfumed flavour," and Cummins calls it sweet, perfumed, juicy and crisp. It's harvested around mid-October. Cummins says it keeps well, and a couple of growers put it at about four months in the fridge. It's mainly a fresh-eating apple, but it bakes well too. Albemarle CiderWorks notes that it bruises easily, so handle it gently.

Growth Habit and Spacing

Ours are on Bud 118 semi-dwarf rootstock. Plan on about 15 feet between trees, up to 18 feet for airflow. Cummins says it bears heavily every year, but a grower citing Russian sources says it tends to crop every two to three years. Raintree recommends thinning to keep it from going biennial.

Pollination

It needs a pollenizer and blooms mid-season. Haralson, Cortland, Macoun, Frostbite, Wolf River and Kerr all overlap.

Cold Hardiness

This is one to be careful with. Cummins rates it zones 6 to 9, and other nurseries put it at zone 5. A grower citing Russian sources says it was grown around Kiev, which is roughly zone 5, but not around Moscow. We haven't found any record of it surviving a real cold winter, so until we've wintered our own trees, plant it in your warmest spot and don't count on it much below -20F.

Illustration: Kandil Sinap, plate 62 of the Russian fruit atlas Atlas plodov (1906), edited by A.S. Grebnitsky, via Wikimedia Commons. Public domain.

Photos: “Kandil 1” by Kosun, via Wikimedia Commons, licensed CC0; “Kandil 2” by Kosun, via Wikimedia Commons, licensed CC0; “Канділь-Синап. Лютіж-сади, Київська область. 2015” by Ejensyd, via Wikimedia Commons, licensed CC BY-SA 3.0.