BELLEVILLE, Ill. – You’ve heard of sunscreen for your skin to protect from harmful UV rays, but what about sunscreen for fruit?
That’s right, your fruit can get sunburned.
It happens the same way it forms on your own skin. It’s an inflammation reaction resulting from overexposure to harmful ultraviolet radiation. The team at Eckert’s Farm is working to protect their apple crops for the fall season.
“We’re actually pulling apples that do get sunburnt,” Jim Hearn, farm manager at Eckert’s, said. “Just trying to keep the tree healthy because, most importantly, the tree is our biggest investment so we can have crops year after year.”
Sunburnt apples that are left on trees can actually create diseases and spread infections to healthy trees. In an effort to reduce the problem, Eckert’s uses two methods.
“We actually apply some different things, it really comes down to a clay-based product that we can put on them, like sunscreen, just like you’re going out to the pool,” Hearn said. “We’ll go through and spray the apples with clay…we’re also using nets and we’re trying to use that to give them a shade effect.”
However, the nets can be costly and may be more of an issue than a solution.
“With the wind buffeting that net, you can either get it where it knocks off the apples or it can be abrasive and it will burn the apple itself. So, (it can work better on) different types of apples or different orchards,” Hearn said.
Changes in the weather have been another issue in keeping produce healthy, and it’s not just apples they’re protecting from too much sun.
“If it’s too hot or very sunny for multiple days…it doesn’t seem like we get a break as often as we used to from the weather, and, that’s where it becomes more of an issue with sunburns,” Hearn said. “You can get some sunburns on berries, tomatoes a little bit…but yeah, there’s sunburns that can occur on a variety of fruits.”
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