Patchen and Sainsbury had the following comments about the impor- 

 tance of air circulation: 



"Air circulation appeared to play the greatest part in tlie coo.l ing 

 rate of the apples stored in pallet boxes. 



When the cooling air units are overhead in the center of a storage, 

 the air circulates over the top of the fruit and out to the side wal.ls; 

 then downwards and back through stack row channels and pallet fork spares 

 The volume of air moving in the channels and pallet fork spaces is less 

 near the bottom of the stack than near the top. This causes a small rise 

 in temperature of the cooling air as it passes by successive stacks 

 (especially when the fruit is warm) in the rows. Therefore, the last 

 pallet boxes passed by the air, cool more slowly than the first pallet 

 boxes that are in contact with the colder air. 



l\/hen thermocouples were placed in apples at the outer edge, at bot- 

 tom, top, and middle positions, and in the air at the center of the pal- 

 let box, the sides and bottom were found to cool the fastest. The air 

 temperature beside the center apple was always slightly colder than the 

 adjoining apple. Warm air rises, and as the air was warmer for most of 

 the test at the top of the pallet box, this indicated a circulation of 

 air through the apples. This shows the necessity of having air circu- 

 lating above the pallet box to remove this warm air. The apples at the 

 top of the pallet box remained slightly warmer than the apples at the 

 center of the pallet box until near the stabilizing temperature, at 

 which time they were approximately the same. 



The apples at the bottom and sides of the pallet box cooled very 

 rapidly and stayed from 1° to 3 cooler than the center apple, until 

 near the stabilized temperature. The widest variation occurred near 

 the beginning of the test. 



From the data obtained in these tests, the cooling-rate variation 

 for apples of different size could not be determined, if any existed. 

 The variation of air circulation and location of the pallet box in the 

 stack had the largest effect upon the cooling rate." 



*************** 



NEW ENGLAND FRUIT TREE SURVEY-1965 



W. D. Weeks 

 Department of Plant and Soil Sciences 



The following tables were constructed from the data which appeared 

 in the recent publication of the New England Crop Reporting Service. 



In Table 1, the number of apple trees by age groups and the percent 

 of the total number of trees in each age group for each New England 

 state are presented. 



