Managing Honeycrisp nutrition

It’s all about balance.

Balancing the crop load is particularly important with Honeycrisp, which is more
susceptible than other apple varieties to problems involving mineral nutrition.

The fruit disorder bitter pit, which is associated with low calcium levels, can be a serious
problem, especially in young trees, trees with a light crop load, or trees in warm sites, Dr.
Lailiang Cheng, horticulturist at Cornell University, New York, reported during a
Honeycrisp Fruit School presented by Washington State University in December.

On the other hand, when the tree is heavily cropped, the apples don’t color up, are
smaller, and have lower sugar levels.

“To grow good quality Honeycrisp, the crop load has to be right,” Cheng emphasized.

“I think making foliar applications after harvesting the crop is a great way to increase the trees’
nitrogen reserves to strengthen the spurs for next season.”
—Dr. Lailiang Cheng

It’s a similar situation with nitrogen. In low nitrogen conditions, when the leaf nitrogen
content is less than 2 percent, trees are more prone to biennial bearing. Increasing the
nitrogen supply improves fruit set, fruit size, and yield, and reduces the biennial bearing
tendency. However, it also reduces fruit color, firmness, and storability.
“So, the nitrogen supply has to be right in order to balance all these opposite effects,”
Cheng said.

This is why Cheng believes the two key aspects of Honeycrisp nutrition are:

—Improving the fruit calcium level to reduce bitter pit; and

—Optimizing the tree’s nitrogen status to balance tree vigor, biennial bearing tendency,
and fruit quality.

Tree roots take up very little calcium between bud break and bloom. After bloom, total
calcium uptake increases linearly until harvest. Partitioning of calcium between shoots
and leaves or fruit is different from other mineral nutrients. Once calcium is taken up by
the roots, the partitioning is largely dictated by transpiration. As a result, typically about
85 percent of the calcium in new growth ends up in the foliage and only 13 to 14 percent in
fruit. Cheng said that in warm climates, such as Washington, even less calcium might be
partitioned to fruit because of the higher evapotranspirative demand on leaves.

Although the incidence of bitter pit increases with fruit size, fruit of any size from lightly
cropped trees is more prone to bitter pit than fruit from heavily cropped trees. Cheng said
this is because fruit is a major sink for potassium, and so when the crop load is light, the
apples have high potassium levels, which inhibit calcium uptake and, in turn, translate
into higher bitter pit incidence.
Magnesium

In contrast, fruit magnesium levels seem unaffected by crop load. Generally, high levels of
magnesium in the fruit will compete with calcium, so lower levels are preferable.
Calcium management begins with ensuring that there is enough calcium in the soil and
that the tree roots are able to take it up. Trees need to have enough boron and zinc to
promote root growth because calcium is taken up only by the very tips of the roots, Cheng
said. Water stress any time after petal fall will set up the trees to have more bitter pit in the
fruit.

Vigor of the tree should be managed to mitigate competition between the foliage and the
fruit for calcium, and the crop adjusted so that the trees carry a moderate load of five to six
fruit per square centimeter of trunk cross-sectional area, Cheng advised.

Despite such efforts to promote calcium uptake, in many cases fruit calcium can still be too
low. Foliar sprays might be needed in addition, particularly in Washington’s warm
climate.

Cheng recommends four to five sprays of 1.5 to 2.0 pounds of calcium chloride in 100
gallons of water, applied at two-week intervals, starting shortly after petal fall. The
following season, use higher concentrations of perhaps three to four pounds in 100 gallons
and apply three times. This program provides about four to six pounds of elemental -
calcium per acre per season.

He warned that many calcium products contain a low percentage of elemental calcium
and need to be applied more often, otherwise the tree will not take up enough calcium to
make a difference. For example, calcium chloride in flake form contains only about 28
percent calcium and Stopit (calcium chloride) contains only 12 percent. In some products,
the calcium content is even lower. A surfactant can help promote calcium uptake.

Nitrogen management

Ideally, a Honeycrisp tree will have a high nitrogen status early in the season to promote
canopy development and early fruit growth, Cheng said. As the season progresses, trees
should have lower nitrogen levels in order to ensure good fruit quality and maturity.

The tree has two sources of nitrogen, even before fertilizer is applied. First of all, it has
nitrogen reserves from the previous season that are readily available for fruit growth and
development. It also has access to nitrogen released from organic matter in the soil,
though uptake depends on soil temperature, soil moisture, and the amount of organic
matter. During the summer, this is a significant source of nitrogen for tree growth and -
development.

After bud break, the tree’s demand for nitrogen rapidly increases, particularly after bloom
when tree growth accelerates. After shoot growth stops, demand for nitrogen gradually
decreases, and as the season progresses, trees should have lower nitrogen levels in order
to ensure good fruit quality and maturity.
Studies in New York show that if fertilizer is applied early in the season, after bud break,
nitrogen is taken up by the roots and partitioned equally between spur leaves, shoot
leaves, and fruit. When fertilizer is applied later, in May, during active shoot growth,
nitrogen is taken up rapidly to support mainly shoot growth.

Therefore, in a first- or second-leaf planting where the grower wants to promote tree
growth to fill the space quickly, nitrogen should be applied during the period of rapid
shoot growth, Cheng said. But, in a mature orchard, where the grower does not want to
promote vegetative growth or affect the fruit at harvest, nitrogen should be applied
shortly after bud break and before petal fall.

In sandy soils or soils with low organic matter that don’t retain nitrogen well, fertilizer
should be applied throughout the spring and early summer in low amounts. If the trees
are fertigated, focus on the period of high demand from bloom to the end of shoot growth.

Cheng said studies show that the later in the season nitrogen is applied, the higher the
nitrogen content of the fruit at harvest, and growers should bear in mind that high
nitrogen concentrations increase bitter pit and reduce the storability of fruit.

Nitrogen fertilizer can be applied after harvest when the tree will take up calcium and
store it for use the following season. At that time of year, it will not stimulate growth, so
cold hardiness is not an issue. It is a good time to make a foliar application of 3 percent
urea.

“For Honeycrisp trees, especially in Washington, if you harvest the crop in early
September, you still have the entire months of September and October,” Cheng said. “I
think making foliar applications after harvesting the crop is a great way to increase the
trees’ nitrogen reserves to strengthen the spurs for next season.”

Nitrogen rate

The amount of nitrogen a tree needs depends on the nitrogen status of the tree, the
existing supply in the soil, and the uptake efficiency. The optimal nitrogen application rate
is site specific because each block is different in terms of organic matter, cation exchange
capacity, soil moisture, etc., Cheng stressed. As a rule of thumb, every 10 percent increase
in the nitrogen application rate results in a 0.1 percent increase in nitrogen in the foliage.

In trials he conducted with Honeycrisp in Washington State, in collaboration with the

Washington Tree Fruit Research Commission, Cheng applied nitrogen at rates from 30 to
120 pounds. He found that yields and fruit size improved when rates of up to 30 pounds
were applied, but there were no additional benefits of applying more than 30 pounds. For
bearing Honeycrisp trees, the optimal leaf nitrogen concentration is between 2.0 and 2.2
percent, he concluded.
Chlorosis

Zonal chlorosis (a yellowing of foliage) is a trademark of Honeycrisp. Although yellow

leaves generally have lower nitrogen concentrations than green leaves, this disorder has
nothing to do with nitrogen management, Cheng said.

It is caused by an accumulation of excessive amounts of carbohydrates—particularly

starch—in the leaves, and the severity is related to crop load. Trees with a heavy crop load
might have a few yellow leaves, but symptoms can show up earlier and be much more
severe on lightly cropped trees. It appears that a light crop can compromise the transport
of carbohydrates in the phloem, blocking the export of carbohydrates from leaves to fruit
so that excessive amounts build up in the leaves. Yellow leaves have three to five times as
much starch as green leaves. The yellowing stops the leaves from producing even more
carbohydrates through chlorophyll synthesis, Cheng said.