Before we moved into our current home I had plenty of experience with apple anthracnose and scab and wooly apple aphid and codling moth. In the seven years since our move I have become way too familiar with apple maggot and with bitter pit. Words cannot adequately express my disdain and frustration for the beastly little apple maggot, (at some point I might try), but up until this year equally venomous words were saved for bitter pit, the scourge of my apple crop.
I say "up until this year" because this summer I began to spray the apples with liquid calcium and now notice a remarkable improvement in fruit quality.
Bitter pit is a fruit development problem linked to calcium deficiency, possibly to soil moisture — as well as to fruit variety. I had barely even heard of it until we moved to our current home in 2008. Here our lone apple tree produced hundreds (hundreds!) of early yellow-green apples pockmarked by dozens of small brown spotty indentations. These “bitter pits”, where fruit cells have shriveled and died, affects both the fruit flavor and the storage.
Following recommendations, this past year I began spraying the fruit on my trees with liquid calcium. By now this tree supports seven different varieties (a different story) and some types seem more prone to bitter pit damage. Our 2016 season had a wetter than average spring after an excellent fruit set; I cannot say whether it was my several applications of liquid calcium or because the fruit was better hydrated, or how much the two are related. I just know that all the varieties of apples I am growing were far cleaner in this year of spraying calcium than in the past.
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