Yablochny Spas: how to harvest and store crops correctly
If done correctly, the fruit will remain fresh for a long time.
Summer apples and pears are harvested at the end of August. Autumn and winter need to be finished. If they are removed prematurely, they will be poorly stored, and they will not please the taste.
It is possible to determine that the fruits are ripe by external signs. They stop growing in size, acquire the color, taste and aroma characteristic of a particular variety, the seeds turn brown in whole or in part. Apples and pears at this time are easily separated from the fruit (small branches to which the stalks are attached).
If healthy fruits begin to fall from the tree, then it’s time to harvest. Examine the carrion carefully. If the fruit contains tracks made by caterpillars, measures must be taken to save the harvest. The caterpillar, having landed on the ground together with the apple, will rush again up the trunk to the crown in search of a new victim. Place a trapping belt in the path of the pests. You can buy it at the store. Collect fallen fruit regularly. They can become a breeding ground for diseases and a haven for pests, which will settle in them for the winter, and in the spring they will again begin to attack trees.
Fruits that have fallen even from a small height are not suitable for storage. When cleaning, be careful not to wipe off the wax film from the skin.
How to collect
To collect fruits from the upper branches, special fruit pickers are suitable, which can be put on a long handle. Prepare baskets, buckets lined with foam or other soft material.
The best apples are found in the outer part of the crown, which is well lit by the sun. You need to start harvesting from the lower tier and gradually move to the top, then there will be fewer damaged apples. The removal technique is as follows. The fruit must be grasped with your hand so that the index finger falls on the stalk where it is attached to the fruit, then lift the fruit up and turn slightly to the side. Apples and pears are removed with stalks, without damaging the fruits, on which flower buds are laid for the next harvest.
If the crop is large, place supports under the branches, otherwise they may break under the weight of the fruit.
How to save
Harvested apples and pears should not be kept in the sun. They should be immediately placed in a cool, well-ventilated area, such as a cellar. For long-term storage, any place is suitable where it is possible to maintain a uniform temperature not higher than 5 ° and not lower than 0 °, with an air humidity of 80–90%.
Before storing fruits, it is necessary to sort out, removing damaged, affected by diseases and pests. It is better to select fruits of medium size, since the large ones quickly overripe, and the small ones wither.
When stacking in boxes, it is better to isolate the fruits from one another. To do this, wrap each fruit in paper or sprinkle it with sawdust. The denser they are in the box, the less mechanical damage will be during transportation.
You can use plastic bags for storage. This prevents the apples from wilting and reduces the consumption of nutrients for their respiration. Early in the morning, after a cool night, apples or pears must be removed from the tree, dried in natural conditions, then put in bags and tied so that no outside air gets into them. Then the oxygen concentration will decrease, and the carbon dioxide concentration will increase. As a result, the metabolic processes in fruits will slow down.
If apples and pears are properly picked and stored, they can stay fresh until spring.