Advice for the Home Gardener from the Help Desk of the
UC Master Gardener Program of Contra Costa County……
Client's Request: How do I know when to pick the ripe apples off my backyard tree?
Using a combination of methods should help you to decide when it's best to pick:
- Monitor the color as it changes. The fruit is ready to pick when it reaches full color, which varies quite a bit by apple variety. Background color on varieties that aren't solid red at maturity will change from greenish to yellowish. Yellow apples will also change from a greenish yellow to a more golden yellow.
- Some varieties will show a whitish, waxy outer coating. This is another sign the apples are ready for picking.
- Watch for apples that begin dropping to the ground. While unhealthy fruit, or fruit that has been damaged by birds, insects or rodents may fall from the tree at anytime, healthy apples typically only begin falling when the fruit is ripe and ready to pick.
- Testing an apple from the tree is the easiest and most obvious way to test for ripeness. Unfortunately, if you have a small tree or a small amount of fruit, picking and testing fruit will cause you to end up with even less to eat or use for cooking. It is important to not pull the fruit from the tree. Lifting the fruit gently up should cause the ripe apples to easily detach from the tree with the stem attached.
- Ripe apples will also have brown seeds instead of the white seeds that appear in immature fruit.
- Flesh will be white instead of tinted green. (for white fleshed apples)
Here is a link to the UC Davis information about harvesting and storing apples.…http://ipm.ucanr.edu/PMG/GARDEN/FRUIT/CULTURAL/harvesting.html
I hope this information is helpful. Please feel free to contact us again if you have more questions or concerns.
Help Desk of the UC Master Gardener Program of Contra Costa County (SMH)
Note: UC Master Gardeners Program of Contra Costa's Help Desk is available almost year-round to answer your gardening questions. Except for a few holidays (e.g., last 2 weeks December), we're open every week, Monday through Thursday for walk-ins from 9:00 am to Noon at 2380 Bisso Lane, Concord, CA 94520. We can also be reached via telephone: (925) 608-6683, email: ccmg@ucanr.edu, or on the web at http://ccmg.ucanr.edu/Ask_Us/. MGCC Blogs can be found at http://ccmg.ucanr.edu/HortCoCo/ You can also subscribe to the Blog (//ucanr.edu/blogs/CCMGBlog/)
Advice from the UC Master Gardener Program's Help Desk Client's Question:
UCMGCC Program's Help Desk's Response:
You most likely have codling moths. By the time you see the damage, typically at harvest, it is too late to protect that year's crop ‐ your preventative tactics need to take place now, in the spring.
Codling moth is a common and serious pest in Contra Costa County's home-grown apples, pears, and even in walnuts, but calls received at the UC Master Gardener Program's Help Desk are almost always about apples and pears. And those are not really worms, either, but rather caterpillars, a common term for the larvae of butterflies and moths.
Traps:
Information on a home-made codling moth bait trap can also be found on UC MGCC Program's web site at http://ccmg.ucanr.edu/files/48135.pdf.
Sanitation:
Sanitation should be an integral part of any codling moth control program. Beginning about six to eight weeks after bloom, start checking fruit for sawdust‐like filled holes (larvae entry holes in the fruit). Check every week or two and remove the infested fruit from the tree and the ground. Dispose of it in your yard waste, not your compost pile.
Sanitation and trapping may be all that is needed when you have an isolated tree and low codling moth populations. But, if populations have been allowed to build up over a number of years (or your neighbors haven't managed their trees) you may need a more aggressive approach to achieve satisfactory control (and maybe your neighbor's cooperation). For even more information on aggressive management of codling moths, including even more organic and/or non-chemical actions, go to the UC IPM Online‐-Statewide Integrated Pest Management website: http://www.ipm.ucdavis.edu/PMG/PESTNOTES/pn7412.html
Good luck on "worm" free apples and pears this year.
Contra Costa Master Gardeners Help Desk
This Help Desk response was originally written by Emma Connery for publication in the Contra Costa Times in February 2010. It was originally posted on the blog in March 2015. Because of the numerous questions about Codling Moth at the Help Desk, it has been reposted again this year as a reminder It has been updated for the blog and any errors are the responsibility of the current HOrT COCO blog editor.
Note: The UC Master Gardeners of Contra Costa's Help Desk is available year-round to answer your gardening questions. Except for a few holidays, we're open every week, Monday through Thursday for walk-ins from 9:00 am to Noon at 75 Santa Barbara Road, 2d Floor, Pleasant Hill, CA 94523. We can also be reached via telephone: (925) 646-6586, email: ccmg@ucanr.edu, or on the web at http://ccmg.ucanr.edu/Ask_Us/ MGCC Blogs can be found at http://ccmg.ucanr.edu/HortCoCo/ You can also subscribe to the Blog (http://ucanr.edu/blogs/CCMGBlog/).
- Author: Shannon Wolfe
I love this time of year. Fall is just around the corner, and these shoulder seasons at the farmer's market are always a great time to buy a variety of fruits and vegetables. Nothing says fall to me like apples. Yes, I also love the falling leaves and pumpkins and the excitement in the neighborhood as Halloween approaches, but apples will always be the first signal of fall's approach for me. Well, apples and my birthday (which is on the fall equinox).
While a couple of my tomato plants and my strawberries are still producing, my baby apple tree (only planted a couple years ago) has already given me some tasty apples. At the farmer's markets you can get anything from watermelon and peppers to brussels sprouts (did you know the proper spelling is, in fact, "brussels sprouts," not "brussel sprouts," as the tiny cabbages are named after the city Brussels? You can learn a bit more on that topic here) to yes, you guessed it, apples.
In the United States around 2,500 varieties of apples can be grown, but only 100 of those varieties are produced commercially - so keep an eye out for some new varieties at your local farmer's markets. If 2,500 seems like a lot of types of apples you should know that throughout the world over 7,500 varieties of apples are grown! If you are interested in some more facts about apples, check out this website from the University of Illinois Extension.
A few years ago I was lucky enough to be on the East Coast during fall, and was taken by some friends to an apple orchard in Pennsylvania where we got to do our own picking. Needless to say our suitcases came home full of as many apples as we could fit. We also indulged in amazing apple cider, and apple cider donuts! If you ever get the chance to pick your own apples, I highly recommend it. Just be careful how crazy you go out in the orchard, because most orchards have a "you pick it, you bought it" rule!