The Composition of Irrigated and Non-Irrigated Apples

Extract

Expression is frequently given to an apparently widespread belief that irrigated in comparison with non-irrigated fruits are flat in taste and less resistant to the various agencies which effect decay. In support of that belief this statement in substance is almost invariably advanced: “The irrigated fruits contain abnormally high percentages of water and consequently low percentages of solid or dry matter; they are, therefore, deficient in the particular compounds upon which taste and body or solidity of structure depend.” We do not presume to say that from analyses alone can the many questions relating to quality in fruits be definitely settled, but since those alleged characteristics of irrigated fruits are charged by this statement to radical deficiencies in certain compounds, it would seem that analytical data would be of material service in the settlement of questions relating to quality. This view of the matter and the fact that here in the north-west, in both the irrigated and the non-irrigated sections, the hardy fruits are grown extensively and shipped to distant markets induced us to undertake some two years ago extensive analyses of fruits grown with and without irrigation. We wish to report here in summarised form the results of that work on the apple; for it, in point of commercial importance, stands pre-eminent among all other fruits grown in the north-west.