Heat & Light Stress Part 3

Heat & Light Stress Part 3.  I’m Greg Martin with today’s Fruit Grower Report.

We have been talking with WSU’s Larry Schrader about heat and light stress on tree fruit and particularly in apples where some fruit during hot days can literally be cooking on the inside. There are a number of conditions that will appear both pre and post harvest that make fruit unusable.

SCHRADER: What can be done to suppress sunburn as well as a lot of these other disorders because if sunburn occurs it’s likely that some of these others will also appear. There are two classes of sunburn protectants that are currently available.

Schrader says that like us there are sunscreens available for tree fruit.

SCHRADER: Sunscreens have two components. They have an organic component and an inorganic component. The organic part of it absorbs ultraviolet B radiation and the inorganics reflect, block or scatter solar radiation.

There are of course a number of these sunscreen products available.

SCHRADER: Another effective tool is evaporative cooling. Evaporative cooling in my opinion is the best way to reduce the fruit surface temperature. But its shortcoming is that it does nothing to absorb or block out the damaging ultraviolet radiation. The other thing is it requires a very effective management;  setting your cycles t the right length and turning it on and off at the right time.

That’s today’s Fruit Grower Report. I’m Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network.