North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

["Jim Cooper" <jcooper@lewiston.k12.id.us>]

I have just finished picking the later apples. I did a test with the Gold 
Blush, only bagging about 2/3 of the apples. Last year I had more problems 
with this apple in the bag. Some were spotty and a few split in the bag, last 
year. Just an observation no real data.

This year the apples in the bags were 99% perfect, no stings or spots. I did 
see 2 of 200 apples that did have some sooty spots, fungal problem, only on 
the skin, not damaged. Of the non-bagged apples (84) 37 had small stings from 
something, these went into the flesh about 1/8"+. 14 apples had obvious 
codling moth damage, in the core and tunnels in & out. I did have 33 
good/perfect apples with out bags!

So I did get 99% protection and perfect apples for using cheap zip lock 
sandwich bags. With out the bags only 1/3 of them were perfect. This # would 
have been less if I had not sprayed a few times; just after pedal fall I 
sprayed the whole tree before thinning. 10-14 days later I sprayed again and 
then thinned and then bagged the ~ 1000 apples June 11.

The Fuji that I picked today, 2 of the 60 apples had splits and maybe sun 
scald was part of the cause on these. Almost all of these were bagged and had 
no bug damage.

Jim
Zone 6 Central Idaho