A variety with winter-ripening fruit, discovered in the province of Ontario (Canada) in 1796. In the southern part of European Russia, it ripens in autumn. It was included in the State Register for the North Caucasus and Lower Volga regions.
Medium-sized trees with spreading skeletal branches. The crown is broad and open. Fruit-bearing type is mixed.
Shoots of medium thickness. Leaves are medium-sized, ovate, with a smooth surface and very even margins, light green with a yellowish tint, moderately hairy, with a heart-shaped base — clearly visible indentation at the base of the leaf blade. Leaf margin is bluntly toothed or lobed. In nurseries, shoots are dark cherry-colored and slightly curved. Buds are small, separate, convex, with rounded tips. Small whitish stipules are clearly visible on one-year shoots.
Fruit is medium to above-medium size, flattened, slightly conical at the top, lobed at the bottom. Fruit surface is smooth. Main color is whitish-yellow or greenish, with a covering of dark-purple stripes on a lighter red background over most of the fruit.
Fruit are covered with a strong waxy bloom. Lenticels are large, light-colored, clearly visible. Skin is firm and easily separates from flesh. Calyx cup is small, wide, sometimes sunken. Pedicel is short and thin. Receptacle is medium depth and width, smooth or with barely noticeable folds. Calyx is narrow, pointed, protruding upwards, formed by tightly packed sepals. Seed chambers are small, widely open into the central cavity, usually close to the calyx. Seeds are large, sharp, brown.
Flesh is white, sometimes with red veins, very juicy, tender, with strong candy-like aroma, excellent sweet-tart flavor.
Chemical composition: total sugars — 10.7%, titratable acids — 0.57%, ascorbic acid — 3.8 mg/100g, P-active substances — 196 mg/100g, pectin substances — 10.8%.
Harvesting maturity occurs in the second half of September in the Orel region, consumer maturity is reached three weeks after harvest. In refrigeration, fruit typically remain good until the end of February.
Young trees begin to bear economic fruit yield on seedling grafts at 6-7 years (medium early fruiting). Characterized by annual, usually moderate fruiting, although in some years trees of McIntosh in the VNIISPK garden produced up to 390 kilograms of fruit.
This variety has moderate winter hardiness. Resistance to fruit and leaf scab is weak. In years of severe disease spread, fruit lose all commercial value.
It should be noted that true McIntosh is found in gardens much less frequently than its clone McIntosh Red (with solid dense fruit color). In plantations, it is often possible to notice trees with intermediate coloration: on the shaded side of the fruit, a striped blush is clearly visible.
Advantages of the variety: high commercial and taste qualities of fruit, high transportability and storability of fruit.
Disadvantages of the variety: insufficiently high winter hardiness of trees, strong susceptibility to fruit and leaf scab.
McIntosh proved to be a very valuable starting form in breeding, more than 60 new varieties were created using it, including more than 40 abroad. McIntosh was the starting form for such well-known Russian varieties as Melba (McIntosh — open pollination) from the Ottawa Experimental Station (Canada), Spartan (McIntosh x Yellow Newtown) from the Summerland Experimental Station (Canada), Izumitel'noe (Renet Simirenko x McIntosh) from the Rossoshanskaya Zonal Fruit and Berry Experimental Station, Orlik and Orlovskoye Ploskatoye (both McIntosh x Bessemianka Michurin) from VNIISPK, Olimpiyskoye (McIntosh — open pollination) from VNIISPK, Slava Pereymozhetsam (Papировка x McIntosh) from the Mleevskaya Experimental Station (Ukraine). When creating in the USA the scab-resistant (with Vf gene) variety Priscilla, McIntosh was also used as one of the starting forms.
