‘WA 38’ (Cosmic Crisp®) is the newest cultivar released by the Washington State University apple breeding program, and today in its sixth year of commercial production in WA. This cultivar has a high pack-out, i.e. highly colored fruit and few external and internal defects. Nevertheless, skin greasiness has been one of the main defects at harvest and postharvest, making waxing during packaging challenging, and affecting the cosmetic appearance. Since the starch degradation index is the only maturity index used to commercially harvest WA 38, the correlation between maturation and the onset of greasiness was studied during two seasons. Different maturity indices pre-and postharvest (firmness, soluble solid content, internal ethylene concentration (IEC), starch index (1-6), IAD values) along with skin greasiness were evaluated from 3-4 weeks before harvest (WBH) until 6 months in air (1oC) or controlled atmosphere (2.5 kPa O2, 1.5 kPa CO2) storage in fruit from four commercial orchards (#1 to #4; 2nd-4th-leaf). In 2022 and 2023 the rate of change of all maturity indices were block-dependent. In both years, IEC was detected in up to 80% of the fruit sampled four WBH in orchard #1 (average 0.3 ppm). At this same time point, only 16% of the fruit had started the starch degradation process (SI=1.5/6.0). The climacteric peak occurred 3-5 months into cold storage, and it was block-dependent. Greasiness on fruit skin was detected 2 WBH in two of the four orchards in 2022; in 2023 this occurred at commercial harvest. Overall, there was a higher incidence (and severity) of greasiness in fruit from air storage compared to CA, and in both cases, it increased during the shelf-life period (7 d at 20oC). The results indicate that fruit greasiness appears to be more related to fruit maturity and perhaps seasonal weather than tree age, nevertheless, additional seasons are needed to confirm these results.
