This chapter outlines the principles and practices involved in postharvest handling and stress of apples. The effects of fruit maturity and harvest time, harvesting and handling, storage, and physiological and pathological disorders in the crop at postharvest are discussed.

An inorganic (sulfur) and a conventional organic fungicide spray program were evaluated on an apple scab-resistant (Liberty) and a scab-susceptible (McIntosh) cultivar for control of scab and for cost effectiveness. Trees of both cultivars were either nontreated, treated with inorganic fungicides only, or treated with a conventional fungicide program. McIntosh trees received full-season fungicide applications and Liberty trees received only the summer cover sprays (after petal fall) for control of summer diseases. In 1991, the number of fungicide applications ranged from 0 for nontreated Liberty to 12 for the full-schedule inorganic program on McIntosh, with both treatments providing excellent scab control. All nontreated McIntosh fruit were unmarketable due to scab infection. Due to a dry growing season and lack of summer disease development, nontreated Liberty fruit was of high quality. In 1992, the number of fungicide applications ranged from 0 for nontreated Liberty to 14 for the full-schedule inorganic treatment on McIntosh, with both treatments providing good to excellent disease control. Results were very similar in 1993. Scab incidence was low for all treatments except the nonsprayed McIntosh over all years. Over 3 years of testing, the conventional fungicide program resulted in an average of 9 and 5 applications per year for McIntosh and Liberty, respectively, compared to 12.6 and 7 applications, respectively, for the inorganic fungicide program. The large reduction in the number of sprays for both programs was due to the elimination of all pre-petal-fall applications on Liberty; post-petal-fall applications are needed to control summer diseases such as flyspeck and sooty blotch. An economic analysis for total cost of fungicide applications for each spray program and cultivar was conducted for hypothetical 4.0-, 8.1- and 16.2-ha farms. Regardless of farm size, the cost of fungicides per ha varied among treatments and cultivars. The inorganic and conventional spray program for McIntosh had similar total costs. On Liberty, the inorganic and conventional programs had 73 and 57% less total cost, respectively, than on McIntosh. Fungicides for the conventional program on Liberty were 1.45 times more costly per ha than fungicides in the inorganic program, but the inorganic program required more applications, resulting in a small difference in total treatment cost per ha.

No abstract

The ecology and management of the arthropod pests of apples including the fruit, the foliage and the structural feeders are discussed. Pesticide-based and integrated management of the pests are described.

`Chambourcin' (Vitis sp.) is a French-American hybrid cultivar that has the propensity to overcrop, and its performance under cool climate and short growing season is not known. This study was conducted for five years (2000 to 2004) to evaluate the effect of three levels of cluster thinning (10, 20, and 30 clusters per vine) on yield and fruit composition of `Chambourcin' grown in northeastern Ohio. Cluster thinning reduced yield per vine and crop load, but increased pruning, cluster and berry weights. Cluster thinning also improved juice composition by increasing soluble solids and pH but not acidity. It was concluded that under the climatic conditions of this study, thinning to 10 clusters per vine (or 8 clusters per meter of row) produced the lowest yield but the highest vine size with the most optimum fruit composition. Therefore, vines from the 10-cluster treatment were considered the most balanced in the 5-year study. Additionally, due to the repeated coincidence of harvest with the first fall frost, it was suggested that the site in continental Northeast Ohio is risky for commercial production and longer and warmer seasons are thus preferred.

The types of pruning cuts and effects of pruning on the growth, flowering, fruiting and physiological processes in fruit trees are discussed, along with the physiological basis of training.

This chapter describes the general principles and objectives for orchard floor management (OFM), compares different weed and soil management systems used by fruit growers and suggests opportunities for improving the sustainability of fruit growing by optimizing and integrating OFM systems.

This chapter covers the nutrient requirements of apple, highlighting the direct determination of apple tree nutrient status, nutritional implications of rooting characteristics in the crop, soil testing, augmenting apple nutrition, special nutrient considerations ad individual nutrients required by apple trees.