Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/769560
12 JANUARY 15, 2017 Good Fruit Grower www.goodfruit.com T he caller was beside himself. He thought he had done everything according to the book, but this longtime Michigan grower and packer had lost a whole roomful of Honeycrisp apples to chilling injuries. "He had never seen anything like it before," recalled Randolph "Randy" Beaudry, the professor in the Michigan State University Department of Horticulture who received the call. That is just one example of postharvest problems with this variety, said Beaudry, who last year saw about $1 million in Honeycrisp lost at a large shipping house in Yakima, Washington, and it came as a complete surprise to the storage manager. "Again, the storage operator was fit to be tied. He didn't understand what he'd done wrong," he said. Honeycrisp apples are prone to interior browning, surface irregularities and other damage at multiple stages after picking, but with care and some new rec- ommendations based on MSU research, even these especially finicky apples can run the postharvest gauntlet damage-free, Beaudry contends. He and his research group have been studying Honeycrisp storage in earnest since 2008, when the apple industry chipped in to help Beaudry's laboratory acquire a 32-chamber system that allows testing of various combinations of temperatures, gas concentrations and postharvest treatment options. Through continued experiments, including one earlier this year that repli- cated the presumed conditions in the Yakima shipper's facility, the research group is constantly fine-tuning its guidelines for Honeycrisp storage. Conditioning Based on the findings of those experiments, Beaudry said one of the first things growers must do after harvest is to desensitize the fruit to the low temperatures used in storage by conditioning them in a temporary holding area or in the storage room prior to cooling. "Because Honeycrisp is an unusual apple in that it doesn't seem to soften much at all in storage, we can hold them at an elevated temperature for several days, and they're not going to go soft," he said. A common method for conditioning, holding the fruit at 50 degrees Fahrenheit for between five and seven days, provides chilling desensitivity. The MSU experiments in Safeguarding Honeycrisp Postharvest Packers have options to help protect against Honeycrisp storage disorders. by Leslie Mertz 1-800-250-5024 • www.CertisUSA.com Recommendations: Cueva, Kocide Integrated copper solutions for season- long fire blight and summer disease control Double Nickel Broad spectrum foliar powdery mildew and fire blight disease control OSO FRAC 19 fungicide for summer diseases and post-harvest protection CYD-X HP, Madex HP Codling moth and Oriental fruit moth control PFR-97 Broad spectrum insecticide and miticide Neemix Insect growth regulator for psyllid control Deliver Bt for leafroller larvae control Screen Duo For sunburn protection and heat stress reduction Diseases and Pests: Fire blight Codling moth, Oriental fruit moth Powdery mildew Psyllids, aphids, mites, leafrollers Summer diseases and post-harvest rots Biopesticides. Short REIs and zero days to harvest. Resistance and residue management. Application flexibility. Better harvest management and timely shipping. Screen Duo is a registered trademark of Crop Microclimate Management Inc. Cueva is a registered trademark W. Neudorff GmbH KG. Kocide is a registered trademark of Kocide LLC. All others are registered trademarks of Certis USA LLC. ©2016 Certis USA De PFR CX Ma Nx DN O Cu K2 K3 SD