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Bob Morris

Sun bakes apples if shade is lacking

July 18, 2011 - 11:17 pm
 

Question: I have this problem. Our apples have been developing brown areas, usually on their bottoms. Can you help?

The apples on the tree looked like Anna apples. The rotting of the bottom of the apple is damage to the fruit caused by high temperatures. The apples basically cooked on the tree.

The fruits will do better if they are shaded by the eight canopy of the tree and not exposed directly to sunlight all day long.

I have had this same problem with Anna apples at the orchard. Cut the apples open and look inside the core to make sure that there were seeds developing, and check to see at which stage of development they were.

When an apple fruit is mature, the seeds will be dark brown, with maybe the pointed tip still white. I just want to make sure that the fruit was mature and that you had pollination for fruit development. If there are seeds present, then it makes it more conclusive that it is due mostly to high temperatures.

Bob Morris is a horticulture expert living in Las Vegas. Email him at extremehort@aol.com or visit his blog at xtremehorticulture.blogspot.com.

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