First Enterprise apple

Thanks for the info.

-mroot

I donā€™t have a picture of the rot. Brown to black circles that spread across the apples. Here are some less than great pictures of the leaves.


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Well for the fruit it could be bitter rot, brown rot or something else. I have attached a link to the Diagnostic Guide to Common Home Orchard Diseases put out by the University of Georgia. It has pictures of the diseases and descriptions of how they develop. Take a look at the pictures and compare it to your damaged apples. I suspect it is bitter rot and I have attached a second link that covers bitter rot in more detail (more pictures too).

For the leaves my first thought was scab but Enterprise is highly resistant to scab. Although Enterprise can get scab it is highly unlikely unless conditions for scab are really bad. So you may have to do more searching as far as the leaf disease and I am not sure the leaf disease is even related to your fruit problem.

https://extension.uga.edu/publications/detail.html?number=B1336#Apples

-mroot

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I think I have bitter rot. Those circles look just like what I have on my apples. Thanks so much, I was so focused on scab I didnā€™t even know about this Bitter Rot. I knew I bought scab resistant trees so was thrown off by my incorrect diagnosis.

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Well bitter rot and scab can be controlled by captan. I have attached a link for a short article on apple scab control from Purdue University. It discusses using captan and other chemicals to control it. Since captan also works on bitter rot it would be a good choice for you.

The main disadvantage of captan is it breaks down quickly when you add it to water that has a pH above 7. So in many cases you will need to lower your waterā€™s pH before adding captan. Well water or city water is often above pH 7. Usually people use citric acid (usually found in the store with canning supplies) or vinegar. I have added links about the pH issue and how to adjust the water below.

I am curious about your scab problem since both Jonafree and Enterprise are highly resistant to scab. I wonder what in the environment makes scab really bad for you or if maybe the condition on the leaves just looks like scab and is caused by some other organism.

https://www.extension.purdue.edu/extmedia/BP/BP-1-W.pd

-mroot

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Thanks for all the input. As I have mentioned, I have been organic since I started. I understand I am going to have to change directions here to get this problem under control. I know very little about the non organic sprays, so I have some research to do. All the information you have provided will be very helpful, Iā€™m sure. I also understand I need to be more diligent with orchard sanitation.

Again, thanks for all the info.

Well you may be able to stay organic if you desire to do so. You could spray organic certified compounds and bag all the apples. Your best bet is spraying sulfur in this case. You could also use lime-sulfur but that is harder to obtain.

-mroot

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Iā€™ve been doing the sulfur and bagging but I havenā€™t liked the results. I guess I could do more sulfur sprays over the course of the season. Even the apples in the bags had rot. I have all winter to mull it over, so weā€™ll see.

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Jim,
You are up against the odd living and growing fruit in the humid east. Usually, party is over by year 4. The fortunate part is that there are several good tasting disease resistant apples available. You have to find the ones that match your climate.

If you grow apples that are prone to rot and bag them in sandwich plastic bags, the chance they will rot is higher. In the Guide category on this forum, there is good info on spray both organic and non organic.

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@Auburn
I thought I would share my experience with enterprise with you. I thought I had posted something, but I canā€™t find it so maybe I didnā€™t or imagined that I did. I didnā€™t take good notes or keep track of things well. My enterprise were bright red like what applenut posted, but it appears that I didnā€™t snap any pictures of mine. Directly off the tree, the first bite was definitely good, but then I quickly tired of the taste and was done, and was searching for something better. It was a big apple. I picked the apples and threw them in the fridge. Fast forward a couple of months and my wife is cleaning up the fridge by making apple chips. One of the apples she cuts looks really great so I asked for a bite before she throws it in the dehydrator. Just one biteā€¦ and Iā€™m fairly sure it was an enterprise based on the look and taste. It was quite good, and my finicky son agreed, so maybe they can improve with age. One thing that impressed me was that despite a terrible hail storm that cause damage/splits to most of my other apples which then led to bugginess, the enterprise apples were relatively blemish freeā€¦maybe about the best in that respect of any apple we had. Anyway, Iā€™ll try to do a better job of keeping track of things next year so I can share a more accurate report with everyone :slight_smile:

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Thanks for the review. I only had one apple and it hung on the tree until it dropped. Apples are a pretty good challenge to grow in my area so Iā€™m hoping Enterprise will be good here.

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Things are looking better this year. I got a fair amount of fruit on my enterprise and the fruit looks pretty clean.

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Lovely, clean fruit! A lot of work goes into fruit like that.

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They look good. I only have three but they look better than last year.

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Enterprise have very thick skin!

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Iā€™m hoping enterprise might be resistant to certain damage with that thick skin. The late freeze wiped out our enterprise blooms (and most everything), so I will wait until next year to sample some more.

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I had Enterprise for almost 8 years or longer before I had an apple to pick.

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Our enterprise is on m111 and didnā€™t take too long so maybe we got lucky then. We planted it in 2016 and had maybe 10-15 nice sized apples in 2019 with a decent amount of rain.

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And I was in zone 7a. :stuck_out_tongue:

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Almost the banana belt :slight_smile:

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