Ministry of Agriculture & Lands
Tree Fruit Leader, Vol. 4(1) Mar. 1995
Consumer Preference, ATS, Tree
Response and Notes from IDFTA
by Mike Sanders, P.Ag., Tree Fruit Specialist
BCMAFF, Kelowna
What does the consumer prefer?
Dr. Albert Manalo, of the University of New Hampshire, did a study on consumer preference of apples in New England. The following summarizes a few key points.
The trademark variety of the New England fruit industry is McIntosh. Mclntosh is bought most frequently by 50% of the consumers followed by Red Delicious (20%), Cortland (12%), Granny Smith (10%) and Golden Delicious (8%).
It was interesting to note that Mclntosh was preferred more by people over 50 years old than by younger people. The assumption was made that apple variety preference does not change as consumers grow older so the expectation is that the strong preference for Mclntosh in New England will decrease over time.
This means that New England growers, who rely so heavily on McIntosh, should either work on promoting McIntosh to younger people or start growing other varieties.
What does this mean to us? The latest acreage statistics prepared by the Okanagan Valley Tree Fruit Authority show that McIntosh is our most widely planted variety although Red Delicious is still number one for production. McIntosh production, however, will very soon overtake Red Delicious as production from younger plantings comes onstream.
If the same trend occurs in the west as in the east, McIntosh growers could be in for a rough ride. A contrary thought to this, however, comes from "The World Apple Report" that suggests McIntosh should hold its own in North America.
With so many other high quality apples on the market, if McIntosh is to hold its own, it must do so through fruit quality. Aim for firm, well coloured fruit by carefully managing vigour and providing good sunlight conditions.
The importance of firmness was documented in the Manalo study when they tried to determine what the most important apple attributes were to consumers. Here they looked at crispness, size, colour, flavour and price. Crispness was by far the most important, colour and size were next, and price and flavour were ranked considerably lower. These results are what the market is telling us. The highest returns of the new varieties are from Gala and Fuji, both crispy varieties whereas Jonagold, a softer variety is returning considerably less. How many times have you heard, "Jonagold sure has great taste but its too soft"? Keep crispness in mind when selecting new varieties.
Thinning with ATS
We continue to learn more about ATS (ammonium thiosulphate) fertilizer used as a blossom thinner but variable results still occur.
The following is a summary of a meeting of packinghouse fieldmen, BCMAFF horticulturists and Norm Looney of Summerland Research Station to discuss ATS results shortly after the 1994 blossom period.
- best results occurred when 80 to 90% of the blossoms were open and the Kingbloom was set.
- late application resulted in poor results.
- overthinning and leaf burning was not common and seemed to be worse on weak trees, on tree bottoms, on poorly pollinated trees, to trees that received double application with the same application (in other words, drift as compared to spraying at two separate times), on shaded trees and to tree parts close to the blowers and under slow drying conditions (too much water, night application).
- only a few severely overthinned situations occurred and these were attributed to double spraying and putting too much material in the tank.
- consensus was that results were much more consistent with dilute applications to the point of run-off than with concentrate applications.
- non-spur strains of Red Delicious seemed to overthin but fruit set was thought to be more of a factor.
- it appears that there are variety differences in sensitivity to ATS; this should not be surprising since the same thing was experienced with Elgetol; for growers trying ATS the suggested rates based on test plots and observations are as follows: Gala, Jonagold and Empire - 1.2 I/100 I; McIntosh and Golden Delicious - 2.0 I/100 I; all other varieties - 1.6 I/100 I.
Tree Response from First Year Treatments
In 1989 I planted a plot at the Test Orchard to determine the optimum treatment for whips in the year of planting. McIntosh on Malling 9 was used. The treatments consisted of various heading cuts to the leader (32" at planting, 32" when new shoots are about 1" long, 20" at planting, and 10" at planting), girdling, unheaded and low quality two year-old branched trees.
The unheaded treatment was trained and managed, more or less, as super spindle trees. The other treatments were managed as slender spindle trees.
The highest pre tree yield after six years was obtained from the two-year-old branched tree, but this was not significantly different from the 32" headed at planting, or 32" delayed headed treatments or the trees that were not headed. Yield on these four treatments was considerably higher than the other treatments.
However, some significant growth differences occurred. The headed treatments and the two-year-old branched trees all covered approximately 50% more ground area than the unheaded treatment whereas the unheaded trees were in the range of 15% taller than the other treatments.
Overall tree vigour on the headed trees was much higher than in the unheaded trees. The unheaded trees did throw a few strong shoots but were much easier trees to work with regarding training and pruning.
After being told for so many years that heading whips in the year of planting is necessary, it's interesting to note the results from unheaded whips. The only system that has not regularly headed whips is super spindle type plantings; however, some vertical axe plantings have also not used heading cuts.
Results from unheaded whips in this trial show that this technique may result in some real benefits. Higher densities can be planted (1,400 to 2,000 trees per acre without using intensive super spindle techniques), yields will be higher and the trees are easier to manage. Longevity of such plantings is unknown. The key is to increase the distance between the rows for unheaded trees because they are taller but to reduce the spacing in the row because they are narrower. Try some. You might be surprised. You might also want to try this technique with bagging. See article in this edition.
At the recent International Dwarf Fruit Tree Association (IDFTA) meeting held in Pennsylvania, February 26 to March 1, super spindle densities were discussed by horticulturists from southern Germany and southern Tyrolia. Lifespans of the first super spindle planting was too short, so densities have declined to around 1500-2000 trees per acre for recent plantings. Their thought is that if trees cost more than $3.00 each, super spindle will not be economic.
The southern Tyrolia advisory service did a survey of commercial orchards and found the most profitable densities were from 1200-2000 trees per acre.
