Managing Cripps Pink harvest and storage for optimum fruit quality and outturn

March 2007 | John Wilton and Craig Hornblow, AgFirst | Future Orchards® notes

These notes focus on managing Cripps Pink from the orchard through harvest and storage so that fruit meets quality standards and performs well at outturn. The starting point is the crop itself: a light, open canopy with good fruit exposure supports colour development, while thinning and removal of unwanted shading growth improve uniformity.

The resource discusses Retain® as a harvest-management tool. It notes that Cripps Pink is a medium-response variety and that applications around 21–28 days before harvest may delay maturity by about seven days, potentially spreading harvest and moving part of the crop into more favourable colouring conditions.

Maturity assessment remains essential because Cripps Pink is harvested to tight quality standards. The notes link harvest timing, colour, firmness and storage potential, and emphasise that orchard practices before harvest can strongly affect later fruit performance.

For growers, the resource provides a useful reminder that storage quality is not created in the coolstore. Canopy management, crop load, maturity testing and harvest timing all determine the quality of fruit entering storage.

The notes also connect colour-management tactics with storage decisions, making clear that delaying harvest to improve colour only adds value when maturity remains within the specification required for the planned storage and marketing program.