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Pollination Does crop load affect flavor? With most varieties, consumers couldn't taste a difference in apples from heavily and lightly cropped trees. by Geraldine Warner C ould limiting apple yields improve fruit quality and increase consumer satisfaction? Dr. Lothar Wurm, a scientist at the Research Institute for Viticulture and Fruit Growing in Klosterneuburg, Austria, has been doing research to find out. solids, acid levels, and firmness. However, in taste tests, people could only detect a difference in flavor in fruit from heavily or lightly cropped trees in one variety— Pinova. No relationship was found between flavor and fruit load for the other vari eties, even though the sugar content was statistically different, Wurm reported. • High Potency CYD-X® Only Pinova had a discernible improvement in flavor when trees were thinned to a light crop. Wurm noted that apples must be well- colored, firm, flawless, and within a cer- tain size range to be acceptable for the fresh market, but even fruit that meet these criteria don't always return a profit to the grower. He wondered if a better marketing strategy might be to reduce yields in order to increase soluble sugars, acids, and improve the flavor. In experiments on three-year-old trees, Wurm tested the quality differences in apples from trees that were thinned to three different crop levels. The fruit load depended on the leaf quality and poten- tial production volume of the variety concerned. In Gala, the intended crop loads were 30, 60, and 90 apples per tree. Braeburn and Golden Delicious were thinned to 25, 50, and 75 apples per tree. Rubinette and Pinova (sold as Piñata in the United States) were thinned to 20, 40, and 60 fruit per tree. Although fewer apples meant larger fruit, the size did not compensate for the loss of production due to the smaller number of apples. Fruit from trees with the lighter crop loads had higher soluble www.goodfruit.com [] ©2012 Certis USA www.CertisUSA.com GOOD FRUIT GROWER MARCH 15, 2012 19 The most potent codling moth virus...ever. HP