The 2012 ASHS Annual Conference

On-tree bagging is an ancient technique used for pest exclusion and quality enhancement of many fruits. Peach fruit tend to have among the highest amount of residual pesticide at harvest of any fruit. The bagging of peach fruit provides a unique opportunity to greatly reduce the amount of pesticide exposure on fruit and exclude pests, as well as potentially improve fruit quality. Different types of paper bags specially manufactured for fruit bagging (from two manufacturers in Japan and one in Spain) were tested on 'Encore' peaches in two years. Peach size and mass were unaffected by bagging treatments. Fruit skin color was markedly different with hue angle and chroma both significantly different among treatments (P < 0.0001 and P < 0.0001). Fruit in darker colored bags had less red color and lighter colored bags were similar in appearance to non-bagged fruit. In experiments with 'Fantasia' nectarine no significant differences among bagging treatments were detected in total soluble solids (P = 0.4721) and total titratable acids (P = 0.7885). Bagging is labor intensive, but appears to provide significant pest protection with no adverse effects on fruit quality. More importantly this technique could allow growers in the east to market new, unique, high value produce to consumers.