Generally apples are fine down to about 25, depending on their brix. I’ve seen Goldrush take 22 and sustain all its crunch. Here we ripen late varieties well into Nov. most years and ignore temps above 25F.
It’s amazing how hard this is to find information on with a search. I suspect because there’s a wide range of cold tolerance the “experts” don’t want to commit. If every commercial grower automatically harvests all apples before temps get below 30 maybe the industry is unsure.
It would seem to be an easy research project to figure out at what temps and at what brix apples become soft or otherwise lose storage capacity.
@hambone@smsmith
In my somewhat warmer climate, I got some very long keepers with great taste by waiting to pick until about Oct 15. Short of looking, I know it was later like that. They kept until at least April and tasted amazing. Of course, one spring disaster after another since then has caused me to get almost no fruit from that tree.
Here’s what I posted about it this fall, I picked toward the end of Oct. The only thing not noted then was my impression that the sweetness was similar to artificial sweeteners.
Mine is on B118, last year it overset and I didn’t thin, so quality and size was affected however I still got quite a few high quality fruit. Splitting was not a problem. Due to crop load this tree tipped over so now it’s at a 45 degree angle, this has not happened to any tree in my orchard before.
Find a heavy crutch in the woods and use a hand winch or a rope tied to a truck to pull the tree up if you want to straighten it. I do this on a regular basis. M7 is especially prone to tipping on first year of heavy cropping- even when “properly” thinned.
If the soil is wet and the tree is dormant, the tree will hardly notice the repositioning. .