Growing a new apple cultivar poses growing pains, and for WA 38, one of those challenges has been the green spot disorder.Scientists trying to understand the cosmetic disorder still don’t have it entirely solved but said the 2021 season offered both good news and insight into how growers can reduce the problem going forward.First the good news: In about two dozen commercial orchards surveyed by Washington State University, there were much lower rates of green spot in 2021 than in 2020. Physiologist Lee Kalcsits reported the incidence dropped from 12 precent to 3.7 percent — a finding that likely reflectsboth the trees maturing and the differing environmental conditions between the growing seasons. The same study also found the rate of bitter pit incidence in Honeycrisp in 2021 was half that of 2020, Kalcsits said when presenting the findings to the Washington Tree Fruit Research Commission in January.
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