Apple-picking season has been over in most of the United States since November. The trees are bare and dormant, and the orchard workers have set about their cold-weather pruning. Pyramids of Red Delicious, Pink Lady, Gala, and Fuji that are destined for the grocery store have been living in modified-atmosphere storage warehouses for months, and will soon be joined by fresh reinforcements from the Southern Hemisphere. But, even in this winter lull, the question on growers’ minds is the same as it has been since Robert Frost pointed his ladder heavenward and Winslow Homer painted his young pickers in sunbonnets: How can you tell when an apple is ripe?
The human mouth, that multifunctional organ of sensory perception, is a first-rate ripeness detector, but it delivers its verdict only after an apple has been picked, purchased, and, for all practical purposes, despoiled. Even the most skilled appraiser can’t be truly sure that she’s chosen a winner until she bites into it, met with either the reward of a sweet-tart crunch or the terrible disappointment of woolly, flavorless mush. Apple farmers face the same challenge as grocery shoppers, but on a more financially significant scale. To maximize the quality and storage life of their fruit, they must harvest it at peak ripeness—the precise moment at which the adolescent apple reaches its hormonal high point. (In plants, the hormone ethylene stimulates fruit ripening, as well as leaf dropping and root-hair growth.) Bringing in a crop too early or too late can make or break a season. But, as at the supermarket, there are precious few ways of gauging ripeness reliably.
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