A Detailed Guide to the Correct Methods of Apple Harvesting and Storage
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I. Harvesting
If the planting area is large, use as many pickers as possible to shorten the harvesting time and ensure quality. Generally, pickers need to wear clean gloves and use sterilized scissors made specifically for cutting fruit; when cutting, leave about 1 cm of fruit stalk. The cut should be flat, clean and decisive. Fruit with a high degree of ripeness should be picked first, or the fruit on the outer part of the canopy; the fruit at the top can be harvested together with them. During harvesting, do a rough sorting first, separating the large high-quality ones, the small ones and the bird-pecked ones, to make later screening easier. In addition, remove deformed fruit and rotten fruit.
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II. Storage
1、At present, the most widely used method is low-temperature storage. Generally, apples are best kept at a temperature of around 0 degrees, no lower than minus two degrees and no higher than 5 degrees. A relative humidity of around 80% is generally considered best. Under such conditions, cold storage can keep them for about half a year. Cold storage must be prompt, otherwise the storage time is easily reduced. Generally, it is best to place them in a facility where the temperature can be adjusted.
2.When conditions were limited in the past, local people came up with the method of digging cellars for storage. The cellar was dug in a place with slightly higher terrain, dry underground conditions and convenient transportation. A cellar generally needs to have free space exceeding half of the production volume. Underground oxygen is scarce, which can prevent the fruit from respiratory oxidation. Relatively speaking, this was a very good method in the past, but it is not quite the best method.
3.If the apples only need to be stored for a short time, one or two months, before being disposed of, then you can find a shady, dry place and put the apples there temporarily. Generally, choose a flat place with good transportation, pack the apples well and store them in a drainage ditch, but protective measures must be set up on the ground to prevent rain, snow and freezing. When transporting them for sale, refrigerated trucks are generally used.
How apples should be picked and stored can be combined with actual practice, but different regions have different methods, and there are also many experience-based methods of the working people that are simply not widely known. Perhaps you will also accumulate your own experience during the growing process.