Usually called watercore I believe. We don't get it down here. Did a little in Amarillo 400 miles north of here.

What about it don't you like? Taste, storage life, or ? I haven't found it objectionable, what little I've seen on my own fruit.

Not water core.
I get a bit of that now and then in some other varieties, and it's fine.

This begins a slight brown discoloration about 1/3" in from the surface.
At first it seems to have not effect on fruit taste or texture, but it progresses pretty quick into collapsing brown pulp. Storage life is gone. These are apples harvested in the last week.

Double post

This post was edited by windfall_rob on Mon, Oct 13, 14 at 20:25

Hmm? There are storage rots but not many that develop that close to harvest. Could it be bitter pit? I think that's related to calcium deficiency. Could your soil be too acidic?

Take a look at the info at the link below ...

Here is a link that might be useful: soggy core breakdown -

I can't efficiently grow Honeycrisp here. Small trees in my nursery produce mostly sound fruit but established trees get rot spots on the vast majority of fruit no matter how I thin, and apparently no matter what the weather.

Commercial growers rely on a lot of calcium sprays with this variety and still throw away a lot of the fruit. Without this, it seems they are more reliable if they get a fair amount of shade.

Soggy core breakdown shouldn't affect the fruit on the tree from what I read of Jean's guideline- it is a storage disorder. I think you should try calcium sprays, which is what I plan to do where I need to make Honeycrisp work. The variety isn't really worth growing here, IMO, but people love it and if a customer wants to pay for a more complicated spray sched. I will oblige.

Thanks for the link jean. I had seen most of that information before, but the co2 treatment was new, and while a pain could be accomplished reasonably easy at home since I have tanks.

Harvestman, I was planning to try calcium sprays this year, to deal with bitter pit problems I have seen on same tree. But it didn't happen, and allowing larger fruit set with the correspondingly smaller size, bitter pit issues were mostly resolved....or at least much improved. I believe I read last year somewhere about speculation regarding ca and soggy core as well.

I'm running storage tests now, with apples in cellar at 50 ish and in bottom half of fridge....which may well be too cold. So far this year it has been just apples from the fridge. Last year it was present at both locations.

Not mentioned in jeans link was a connection with allowing fruit to over ripen...I don't think I am doing that, but I certainly allow them to fully ripen.
I still have 1/3 of the crop on the tree. I just don't think it becomes a really good apple at our location unless I give them time.

Just pulled several fruit from tree showing early signs.
It may not be soggy core breakdown, but all the images I find match very well. And honey crisp is known to be prone.

We have had lots of cold frosty nights, but no hard freezes...

rob:

For long term storage apples must be picked at the right stage of maturity, too green for eating. If you let them ripen on the tree until they reach optimum eating stage they won't store very long.

Commercial growers use an iodine starch test. The pattern of starch conversion on the cut surface indicates the stage of maturity. I just try to pick a couple weeks earlier than for immediate consumption.

You probably already know this but thought I'd comment.

I am aware fruit nut but thanks.
We don't really intend to use the honey crisps as a storage apple. The ones I have had picked early and held were pretty boring. But maybe that was too small a sample.

I've read about storage issues with Honeycrisp, and it does need to be kept at a few degree warmer temp than other apples so it is possible your problem is frosty nights.

To avoid storage problems with Honeycrisp we hold them at 40-50ð for about a week before going into regular cold storage or controlled atmosphere.

Thanks all for input.
I had been hoping for mineral deficieny as that could be rectified. But am starting to think that cold exposure on the tree perhaps coupled with riper fruit may be the issue. In which there is not much to be done but eat or juice them right away some seasons.
My records aren't good enough to tell me if there has been earlier fall cold in the last few years to account for the appearance of the issue.

Sal, according to this somewhat dated article, you are right about letting it sit for a week at room temp before storage but that the variety can't be stored in CA storage and the recommended temp is 38 degrees, which I believe is significantly warmer than recommendations for other apples.

However this is to achieve long term storage capability and much of the crop is consumed before this becomes an issue, so I'm sure many growers aren't so concerned with long term storage at all. Are you sure growers put it in CA storage? The article suggests that this causes rapid breakdown of Honeycrisp.

Windfall, the fact that 38 degrees is recommended suggests that you may need to ripen the apples as quickly as possible. About all you can do to achieve this is keeping the trees very openly pruned- maybe even wiping out annual shoots in spring that aren't needed for spur renovation (and feeding the fruit) and repeating the process in mid-summer.

Eventually sports of earlier bearing Honeycrisp may become available. Meanwhile, Zestar is an awfully tasty apple.

Trees positioned to get dawn to dusk sun ripen there fruit more quickly than those in partial shade. An espalier on the south side of a house will also do the trick.

Here is a link that might be useful: Honeycrisp apple storage

Whatever I have going on, there appears to be correlation betwean the susceptibility or onset of the problem and the ripeness of the fruit.
So far I have not seen it on any of the apples that still show significant green in their background color.
Unfortunately, while perfectly acceptable, apples at that stage on this site are just nothing special. Home orchard is too much work to settle for mediocre fruit.

harvestman, since the article you linked to much research has been done on Honeycrisp storage. They've tweaked the oxygen and CO2 levels to where there is no damage.
Use of SmartFresh is the main method of long term storage over CA though.

Adams County Nursery offers an early Honeycrisp that is 3-4 weeks ahead of regular Honeycrisp. I have no experience with it.

This begins a slight brown discoloration about 1/3" in from the surface.
At first it seems to have not effect on fruit taste or texture, but it progresses pretty quick into collapsing brown pulp. Storage life is gone. These are apples harvested in the last week.

Harvestman...correct me if I'm wrong, but given the fact that we know these apples received frost coupled with rob's description of the tissue damage this sounds like a clear case of frost damage to me.
I just saw a photo of frost damaged apples cut in half the other day and it looked just like what windfall_rob describes. The photo was also Honeycrisp. As far as storage issue with HC. it stores just fine for me. though admittedly they don't seem to last too long here since my kids eat them every day. I am however thinking about my Goldrush and how I'm going to avoid frost damage before their harvest date of Nov. 10. My daughter yanked one off a week or so ago "by accident" and I cut it to taste it and it was awful,,,super tart. dry and a bit chalky still. I'm questioning whether I really have the season for it here.

fruitnut
I get a tiny bit of bitter pit on a few apples on my Honeycrisp too, and have considered the calcium sprays because the product is so cheap and easy to apply. I probably will next year.
Bitter pit is so easy to distinguish and really cannot be mistaken for anything else. particularly on HC since it is prone to it. I know you kinda figured that, but his description just sounds nowhere close to bitter pit.