Hi All,

I am wondering if this worths a shot given east coast wet weather? This is a research paper published by turkish researcher in 2014. Using 3 times pre-harvest calcium foliar sprays to reduce sweet cherry cracking.

http://www.notulaebotanicae.ro/index.php/nbha/article/viewFile/9369/7710

Title: Effect of Preharvest Calcium Treatments on Sweet Cherry Fruit Quality
"Calcium applications reduced the cracking index of cherries by 38% to 66.0% compared to those that received no foliar Ca applications. The most effective preharvest foliar calcium treatments were calcium chloride and calcium hydroxide, which reduced cracking by 62% and 66%, respectively. "

"Four different calcium compounds were used as preharvest foliar sprays and were applied 30, 20, and 10 days before harvest. The treatments included the following: control (water with surfactant), 0.5% calcium nitrate [Ca(NO3)2], 0.5% calcium chloride [CaCl2 2H2O], 0.5% calcium caseinate and 0.2 M calcium hydroxide [Ca(OH)2]. The experiment was a randomized block design with 3 replications, each of which comprised one tree. A surfactant was added as 0.04% including the control treatment."

But the testing method is "Cracking indexes" which is a simulated environment.

What do you think?

Thanks

Alex

Here is a link that might be useful: Effect of Preharvest Calcium Treatments on Sweet Cherry Fruit Quality

This post was edited by FruitNewbieNYC on Wed, Oct 8, 14 at 22:36