The influence of harvest maturity and basic macroelement content in fruit on the incidence of diseases and disorders after storage of the ‘Ligol’ apple cultivar

Research was carried out during the 1999-2007 growing and storage season using ‘Ligol’ apples from trees grafted on M.26, and fertilised in accordance with recommendations for commercial orchards. The approximate optimum harvest date was determined mainly on the basis of starch index measurements and Streif index calculations, evaluated 7-8 times every 4-5 days each year. In addition to samples collected to determine OHD each year, there were four harvests of fruit intended for storage. The apples were stored in a cold storage room at 1-2°C and RH of around 90% for about five months. Following a storage period lasting the same number of days for each harvest, the quality of fruits was examined and the correlation between the concentration of minerals in apples and all fungal diseases and physiological disorders was calculated. In years with high precipitation in the period preceding the harvest, the share of fruits affected by fungal diseases and physiological disorders after storage depended more on weather conditions prevailing in the growing season than on the harvest date. The incidence of bitter pit increased with the number of days preceding OHD. Other recorded losses were caused by internal breakdown and superficial scald, but they were small and did not seem significant for ‘Ligol’ apples. Each characteristic mineral concentration in the fruit at harvest (N, P, K, Ca and Mg) was correlated with the incidence of physiological disorders and/or fungal diseases. The incidence of bitter pit and lenticel blotch pit and the sum of physiological disorders increased along with the increase in nitrogen concentration. The feature that best predicted the storability of ‘Ligol’ was the K/Ca ratio.