We hope it's helped you stay on top of the 2000 harvest and look forward to bringing you Healthy Fruit in 2001. In the meantime if you have any questions or suggestions, please don't hesitate to contact any UMass Fruit Team member. And don't forget to visit the UMass Fruit Advisor on the web to keep informed about upcoming events, programs, and new publications during the winter meeting season. Starch iodine indices for Cortland, Empire, Macoun, on October 3 were 4.4, 4.9, and 5.4, respectively. This is near what one would normally expect for this date.
Fruit are in good condition for regular air storage.
Starch iodine figures for Delicious range between 3 and 3.4. Fruit should be ready to harvest for CA storage and long term regular air storage. Starch iodine figures for Golden Delicious were above 6 and firmness running less than 15 pounds on appropriately cropped trees at the Horticultural Research Center in Belchertown. These maturity markers indicate that Golden Delicious may be ready to harvest well in advance of the historical normal harvest date. Watch carefully for the development of drop on Golden Delicious.