3. Fruit-to-fruit impact. 



4. No decelerator strips. 



5. No padding in sizer. 



6. Hard surface on sizing cones (metal, rubber). 



7. Excessive recycling on the accumulation tables due to 

 fruit volume exceeding packing capacity. 



Sampling Point E : 



1. Fruit-to-fruit contact on the bagger feed-rolls. 



2. Fruit-to-fruit contact as apples drop into the bags. 



3. Excessive vertical drop height from the weight tray to 

 the bag. 



4. Excessive fruit size for the bagger. 



5. Dropping bagged fruit onto the conveyor. 



6. Top apples in bags getting hit at the bag closer ma- 

 chine. 



7. Bag tumbling at conveyor transfer corners and drops. 



These findings show that many surfaces impacted by 

 apples should be padded, that fruit velocity (primarily as 

 they roll down transfer ramps) should be slowed, and that 

 drop angles (especially in the sizers and baggers) should be 

 reduced. Knowing what to look for should help the 

 operators of packing lines identify and correct problems, 

 thereby substantially reducing fruit bruising during the 

 packing operations. 



In subsequent articles based on these Michigan State 

 studies, we shall describe other sources of fruit bruising 

 and some of its consequences. 



* * * 



An Assessment of CA Storage Operations 

 in Massachusetts 



Katrin Kaminsky and William J. Bramlage 



Department of Plant & Soil Sciences, University of Massachusetts 



Development of controlled atmosphere (CA) storage 

 in the 1940's and 1950's revolutionized the Mcintosh apple 

 industry. This apple has an inherently short life in air 

 storage that is made worse by its susceptibility to brown 

 core development at temperatures below 37°F. In air 

 storage, its quality cannot be maintained beyond 3 or 4 

 months. However, in CA, it can be kept at a temperature 

 high enough to avoid brown core and, under proper CA 

 conditions, retain good quality for up to 8 or 9 months. 

 Thus, when done properly, CA can triple the length of the 

 marketing season for Mcintosh. 



Current CA recommendations for Mcintosh in Mas- 

 sachusetts are 3% O^, 2 to 3% CO^ for the first month and 

 then 5% CO^, and 37°F. Some researchers have shown 

 that Mcintosh can be stored safely at much less than 3% O^ 

 if the COj is also kept very low, but we have never 

 succeeded with low Oj storage for our Mcintosh and do 

 not recommend low-Oj storage in Massachusetts. The risk 

 of injury to the fruit is too high. 



Every year we receive a number of samples of apples 

 showing symptoms after storage that strongly indicate that 



storage operation was not correct. These symptoms in- 

 clude soft and broken-down apples due to over-ripeness, 

 Oj or COj injury due to an incorrect atmosphere compo- 

 sition, and core browning or freeze damage due to too low 

 a temperature. 



To better understand why these problems occur, and 

 to help us in advising CA operators on how to do a better 

 job of managing their storages so as to maintain high 

 quality of fruit, we conducted a survey of CA operations for 

 Mcintosh during the 1986-87 season. A detailed question- 

 naire was sent to each of the 28 CA operators licensed by 

 the Massachusetts Department of Food and Agriculture, 

 and all of them responded to our request. From their 

 responses we can construct a reliable profile of CA opera- 

 tions for Mcintosh in Massachusetts. This information is 

 summarized and evaluated below. 



Survey Results 



Size of Facilities . The 28 CA facilities have a total of 

 83 CA rooms with a total capacity of about 590,000 bushels. 



17 



