storage and Shelf life of Several 

 Promising Late-summer-maturing 

 Apple Varieties 



Duane W. Greene, Wesley R. Aiitio, and James Krupa 

 Department of Plant & Soil Sciences, University of Massachusetts 



Returns that growers in New England receive for 

 their fruit is diminishing, since the cost of production 

 is increasing faster than the price received for fruit. 

 Growers are attempting to improve profitability on 

 their farms in a variety of ways. One option that we 

 would like to explore here is to increase and expand the 

 sale of apples in the weeks prior to the start of the 

 Mcintosh season. New, high-quality varieties are 

 available that ripen in late 

 August and early Septem- 

 ber. These varieties ap- 

 pear to offer a real 

 possibility for expanded 

 sales. The purpose of this 

 article is to communicate 

 recent findings about the 

 quality, storage potential, 

 and shelf life of three of 

 the most promising early- 

 maturing new apple vari- 

 eties. Ginger Gold, Sansa, 

 and Sunrise. Paulared 

 ripens at a similar time, 

 thus it is included in this 

 discussion as an industry 

 standard. 



Belchertown. This experiment was conducted m 1996 

 and 1997. In 1996, Ginger Gold, Sansa, and Paulared 

 were evaluated, and in 1997, Sunrise was included 

 with Ginger Gold, Sansa, and Paulared. 



In each year, 100 fruit of each variety were 

 harvested on August 29 for evaluation. Varieties were 

 separated randomly into five bags of 20 fruit each. 

 Four of the bags of each variety were placed in air 



Materials & Methods 



All fruit used in this 

 investigation were har- 

 vested from 5- and 6-year- 

 old trees growing in the 

 variety evaluation block at 

 the University of Massa- 

 chusetts Horticultural Re- 

 search Center in 



V) 



c 

 E 



u. 



20 

 19 

 18 

 17 

 16 

 15 

 14 

 13 

 12 

 II 

 10 

 9 



Ginger Gold 



Starch 2.8 



X 



8/29 



9/12 



— \ r 



9/26 

 Date 



10/10 



— \ — 

 10/24 



Figure 1 . Flesh fiminess of Ginger Gold fruit immediately following (at harvest), 

 2, 4, 6, and 8 weeks of storage at 32°F (represented by the first point of each line) 

 and after 1 week at room temperature (represented by the second point of each 

 line). 



Fruit Notes, Volume 64 (Number 4), Fall, 1999 



