I don’t know if there’s interest in it, but I thought I’d open a thread to document watercore encounters and impressions.
This was a Duchess of Oldenburg grown in Webster, MN. 2022 has been a warm, droughty summer. The grower commented that she did not have many Duchess of Os this year - I received enough to make two pies. In my opinion, the watercore worsened the texture and did not enhance the flavour of this apple when sampled raw.
My Winesap tree had bad watercore one year. Then I started burying eggshells under the tree. Haven’t seen bad watercore since.
I get some watercore in a few my Zabargau apples. I am not sure if it was because we have a lot of rain before they ripen or was because the opposite, lack of rain. I need to watch the weather rain/lack of rain to see if this causes it here. I occasionally get some in other apples but not on a regular basis. Interesting that tennessean added eggshells and hasn’t seen watercore since.
Good suggestion.
A wide range of environmental and physiological factors have been implicated in the incidence of watercore. In general, there are three main factors contributing to watercore incidence:
(1) Abnormal temperature. For instance, watercore fruit in the “Hosui” and “Niitaka” pear species was found to increase significantly under higher air temperatures during fruit maturation [5].
(2) Plant hormones. In pear production, gibberellin (GA) is widely used to increase fruit size and promote ripening. However, the exogenous application of GA to “Hosui” fruit resulted in an increase in fruit size and watercore incidence [6,7]. On the contrary, the GA inhibitor paclobutrazol can suppress watercore formation in pears [8].
(3) Mineral nutrition deficiency. Low fruit calcium is supposed to be an important cause of watercore in apples. Moreover, watercore can accelerate the softening of fruit and make it not suitable for storage [3].
using eggshells seems reasonable
