picked before they have experienced about 75 

 hours below 50°, you can expect that close to 

 100% of the fruit will scald after long-term air 

 storage. However, if they have experienced 

 more than 75 hours below 50°, their suscepti- 

 bility to scald has fallen, and by 200 hours be- 

 low 50°, less than 20% of the fruit are likely to 

 scald. For Delicious, about 100 hours below 50° 

 are required for susceptibility to decline, but by 

 250 hours, less than 20% of the fruit should 

 develop scald without any scald-prevention 

 treatment. This pattern has been consistent 

 since we began collecting data in 1986. 



In 1994, late Summer and early Fall were 

 unusually cool. However, temperatures did not 

 fall below 50°F any earlier than usual, and once 



they did, hours below 50° did not accumulate 

 any more rapidly than usual. The unusually 

 cool temperatures involved many hours in the 

 low 60's and the 50's. The question was, did 

 the unusually large number of hours in the 50's 

 in late Summer have a significant effect on the 

 tjrpical temperature-scald relationship seen in 

 Figure 1? We suspected that they would. 



We begin counting hours below 50°F on 

 about August 1. The unusual coolness in 1994 

 is illustrated in Figiire 2, as the accumulated 

 hours below 54°F, in comparison with the aver- 

 age of the preceding years. 



On September 28 and again on October 4 

 and 7, we harvested one-bushel samples of 

 apples from each of five trees of Cortland and 



Fruit Notes, Summer, 1995 



