apple orchard nz

Are your apples lacking colour and flavour?

A note to our commercial apple orchardists… 

Because producers are often paid on fruit quality, we regularly get asked how to improve the colour, texture, sweetness and flavour of fruit before harvest.

There are two minerals that come to mind that will significantly improve your fruit quality: Calcium and Potassium. These can be applied in highly bioavailable forms and potentially applied foliarly to bypass dry soils.

Take a look at this image below. See the difference in the colour of the bin at the front?

That block used a more absorbable form of foliar Calcium. A comparison report was produced here that shows the difference in two halves of the same orchard using different Calcium products. Using a glycine chelated foliar Calcium (BIOMIN Calcium) improved his colour and bottom line by thousands. Using a BIOMIN glycine chelated mineral means less product is needed for maximum uptake.

Check out the trial data here: CALCIUM ON BRAEBURN APPLES, HAWKES BAY NEW ZEALAND. 

Potassium is always a firm favourite in increasing sugars, colour, flavour and speeding up the ripening process. Again, this could be foliar applied to enhance absorption through the use of K-Forte which importantly contains zero nitrogen.

If you’re a commercial grower and would like o chat about your crops nutrition to decide if BIOMIN Calcium or K-Forte (Potassium) will suit your needs, send me a message via our online contact form.