ally above 50°F between these dates. In Deli- 

 cious, there was almost no scald in 1988 even 

 though fruit were quite immature; this was a 

 very cool year, and 160 hours below 50°F had 

 been recorded by the first harvest date. Harvest 

 of Dehcious on similar dates in 1989 and 1990 

 resulted in much more scald development than 

 in 1988, and in these years fewer hours below 

 50°F had been recorded by the harvest dates 

 than in 1988. 



Clearly, maturity and light also played roles 

 in loss of scald susceptibility by the apples, since 

 ethephon treatment reduced scald and bagging 

 increased it. The results with ethephon (Table 

 2) are interesting in that in 1989, when some 



hours below 50°F had been recorded before har- 

 vest, ethephon reduced scald more than in 1990, 

 when no hours had been recorded. This suggests 

 that cool temperature increased the effect of 

 ripening (or vice versa) in reducing scald suscep- 

 tibility, that is, that temperature and ripening 

 worked together in reducing scaldsusceptibility. 

 Nevertheless, cool temperature clearly was the 

 more important factor in this relationship. 



How important light is in this relationship 

 cannot be measured by our results, since we 

 used nearly complete light exclusion by bagging 

 the fruit. Yet, it is likely that reducing scald 

 susceptibility is one more reason for encourag- 

 ing light penetration into the tree interior, for 



Fruit Notes, Summer, 1994 



