No abstract

Light has long been known to stimulate anthocyanin accumulation in apple peel, but changes in apple flavor as a result of fruit shading is poorly understood. Some growers maintain that the redder the strain, the less flavorful the fruit. An experiment was conducted to help characterize the role of light in biosynthesis of color versus flavor molecules in apple peel. Bags fashioned from 3 meshes of shade cloth were fastened around fruitlets of red delicious strains `Starkrimson' and `Topred' on M26, MM106, and MM111 by 21 DAFB to produce average light ranges of 100%. 41-68%, 12-30%, and < 1% of full sun incident upon the fruit. Observations from the 1993 harvest indicate that anthocyanin content of peel increased with fruit maturity and level of sunlight. Concentrations of flavor molecules were higher with low and moderate shade than with full sun, and also increased with fruit maturity. From this harvest data, it appears that apple flavor can be enhanced by lightly shading fruit without substantially reducing fruit color.