FLAVOUR IN APPLES.

Auckland Star, Volume LXII, Issue 102, 2 May 1931, Page 7

FLAVOUR IN APPLES.

—■ — » — mm OF SOIL. DIFFICULTY IN GETTING BALANCE. (From Our Own Correspondent.) LONDON, March 16. Some interesting notes on the effect of soil and manures on the flavour of apples have been brought to our notice. Their influence is, of course, well known, and is sufficient to account for the variations in the flavour of well-known eating apples, like Cos's Pippin. Grown in two adjacent orchards, one manured with farmyard manure, and the other with a chemical fertiliser, the flavour of the fruit may be markedly different. So great a bearing has the nature of the soil on the fruit grown in it that in these days it is hardly likely that any sane individual would embark on fruitgrowing without a preliminary examination of the soil. Any deficiency of a particular chemical element that may exist in certain soils can be temporarily made up by applying the particular element, but there is generally a difficulty in applying it in the right proportion, so that the balance between the different elements may be maintained. A typical illustration of the result of the disturbance of the correct equilibrium between the elements is furnished by the presence of leaf-scorch on apple trees grown in soils not deficient in potash salts, but over-rich in nitrogen, so that the normal balance between the potash and the nitrogen content is affected. In such a case the balance can be redressed by reducing the nitrogen supply or by laying down the orchard to grass, for example, with the •• onsequent disappearance of the leafscorch which is typical of potash deficiency. The symptoms of a lack of this or that essential element are tolerably well known, apart from the leaf-scorch associated with a deficiency of potash, which leads eventually to stunted growth: want of lime, for instance, shows itself in abnormal growth of shoot and leaf and then in breakdown of the leaves. A deficiency of phosphorus generally brings with it an early fall of leaf, which also takes on a characteristic metallic appearance. The growth of the shoots, too, is poor, and the buds are slow to break in the spring. Want of magnesium is generally noticeable in the markings of the leaves. Apple leaf-scorch may also be temporarily caused by a prolonged rainy season dissolving the potash content of the leaves, and the latter may be temporarily replaced by spraying with potash salts. The stocks on which trees are worked have an influence on the response of a tree to unbalanced nutritional elements, for different stocks have varying powers of absorption of the soil nutrients. Some, for example, are able t take up more potash than others. The water content of the soil exercises a profound influence on the growth of the fruit. An excess of it produces growth of wood at the expense of the fruit, and a comparative want of water may produce less wood and freer cropping.