Re: Transparent Apples in South Puget Sound, July 2012
Thanks for your replies. Here's an update about Transparents in South Puget Sound:
July 27, 2012: apples have been falling exactly a week; today, picked 6 pounds from the top branches on the sunny side; they were not ripe at picking, and 24 hours later stored lying single layer at room temperature in a darkened room are paler green/more yellow, and 5 look and smell ripe.
Conclusion: they are not yet ready to pick (but the windfalls are making lovely salads and sauce).
This tree is against a greenbelt on its south side, so the south side of the tree, except for the very top of the branches, gets no sun. The NW side gets afternoon sun.
It is at least 40 years old. We bought the house in 2004. Each year, this tree has borne about 50 pounds of apples; this year, based on the number of bags we used, it looks to be bearing about 240 pounds. We thinned (1 apple every 6" of branch), we have not watered this year, we fertilize with composted steer manure, the ground is cardboard and wood chips. We removed all sod from our orchard five years ago.
I would like to learn the reason this year's crop is so much larger, and I would like to learn how to get larger apples. Though we thinned when they were smaller than walnut size, the apples that remain are smaller than normal. I've read about 3 apples make a pound; yesterday's picking yielded about 5 apples/pound.
I've read recently that the apple's size is determined by the number of cells, and that is determined very, very early in the season. How does one increase the number of cells at the right time; that is, what conditions must be present that we humans can provide that will yield enough cells to get a large apple?
I've also read that aggressive thinning will produce larger fruit, but I don't understand how that works if the size of the apple is determined by how many cells it has. Maybe the aggressive thinning has to happen early enough?
Am I obsessing? Well, yes.
But why go to any work at all if one doesn't do the right thing to get a good result?
(I have a very patient husband!