Do Bramleys get bitter pit?
For many years my Bramley apple tree has produced a good quantity of good apples.
I keep the tree relatively small - around 10-12 foot high - and last year, after some very careful and quite radical pruning in places, during the preceding months, it gave the best ever performance: the quality was so good I was able to store over a hundred for quite a few months.
This year the story was very different: the majority of fruits and becoming affected with a variety of conditions...
Some fruit, however, apparently escaped the adverse conditions, whatever they were, and I was able to store some of the most promising fruit again.
But today, when using up the last of these stored apples, this is what I found inside an otherwise decent looking apple...
(Sorry about the fuzzy image)
It looks like bitterpit, a condition which I have come across in previous years in my James Grieve eating apples. The questions I am asking myself now are
- What is this condition?
- Can Bramley's get bitterpit? If so, why?
- And why this year but, as far as I know, never before?
- Can the apple still be used - eg stewed - without spoiling the flavour or edibility of one's dessert?
The outside of the affected apples mostly showed no sign of anything wrong inside...
...although the one illustrated above must have had a penetration wound that has clearly gone bad in storage.
I was wondering whether the little darker flecks on the otherwise unblemished skin were relevant, or are they just part of a normal Bramley's appearance? (I know: I should know, but I'm afraid I don't!)
Any ideas and advice from apple growing /cooking experts would be welcome.
Posts
The top image is Scab, one of the most common Apple fungus and a bad year for it this year it has been too.
Yes, that is Bitter pit and Bramleys are rather prone to it. It is caused by a Calcium deficiency. Often weather related when the calcium in the soil becomes unavailable because of extreme drought or leached out by extreme rainfall.
We find they are not edible when afflicted by Bitter pit.
I treated ours by making deep holes around the tree with a crow bar and filling them with a Calcium solution. It seemed to work.
Looks like a multitude of sins.
have you pruned this winter yet? if not then the best time is when the tree is dormant.ie nowish
take out dead dying crossed branches my mum inlaw insisted that the centre of the tree should allow a bird to fly through. which is ok unless you have redkites!
Burn all cuttings, leaf and fruit,mulch around the base as deep as you dare but belowany graft with cow manure not chicken as it is too high in nutrients save that for the vedge/rose beds
feed in the spring
remember to thin out fruits
we did this with a pear with scab, worked a treat and the tree looked much healther
happy hunting
Thank you both
for your input.
Berghill: that idea for calcium treatment is a really useful tip - I may use it also on my James Grieve, although interestingly this year, after the very first fruits which were affected. the later fruit seemed less susceptible to bitterpit.
Rachel: no, I haven't started the pruning yet but coincidently did think about it Today. It's now on the list.
Fortunately, for the last two years I have been pruning a lot more intelligently than in previous years, but I'm grateful for the advice, and thankyou for the suggestion of burning rubbish and info about mulch.
You can spray the blossom with Calcium as well, or just spread lime on the soil round the tree. I did the Calcium thing as there are plants under our trees which are not that fond of lime.