The phenomenon of chapping of bagged apples is serious this year.

After Fuji fruit was unbagged in October, fruit growers in Hebei, Tianjin, Shandong, Shanxi, Henan, Liquan, Shaanxi and other places reported that the phenomenon of chapped apples they produced was more common. Why is that?

On October 4, we arrived at Liujiama Orchard in Quyang County, Hebei Province for investigation, and found that the bagged apples had more serious chapping consequences. The orchard is a dwarf rootstock close planting mode, the variety is Red Fuji, this year is the second year of fruit. According to the investigation, more than 50% of the fruits showed chapping, and the more serious fruit surface chapped accounted for about 20%. Although chapping does not affect eating, but it seriously affects the appearance of fruit, some fruit surface chapped due to bacterial infection, began to appear red spots, further development will form rot spots, greatly affecting the sales and storage of fruit.

The phenomenon of bagging fruit chapping occurred in the garden in 2015, but due to the less results in the first year, the main reason for the initial analysis was due to drought and less rain in June and more rain in the later stage. This happened again this year, the author believes that the reason is not so simple, because we found that many missing bagged fruits are rarely chapped, while the adjacent bagged fruits of the same tree are chapped. It seems that the chapping is mainly due to the adverse effects of microclimate in the bag after bagging, which may be due to a significant decrease in the absorption of some elements such as calcium.

The microclimate in the bag is inseparable from the environment. According to our observation in recent years, the phenomenon of fruit chapping is not serious in high-altitude areas such as Luochuan, Gansu, southwest cold areas and so on. No chapping phenomenon was found in the dwarf rootstock dense planting garden in Rongcheng and other coastal areas of Shandong Province this year. According to the exchange with relevant experts, as early as ten years ago, the fruit of bagging in Yuncheng, Shanxi and Hengshui, Hebei Province was also seriously chapped, but later, after two procedures of covering the fruit with film bag and then paper bag, the phenomenon of chapping was obviously reduced. This year, the person in charge of a large orchard of several hundred mu in Tianjin also reflected that only the plastic film bag was severely chapped, while without the bag, there was no chapping. What kind of conditions caused the chapping, which is worthy of further study in the future.