Skipley Farm
Organic upick fruit, berries and edible plant nursery, scionwood, grafted trees. Near Seattle in Snohomish, PYO apples, blueberries, grapes, berries, currants, more
When apples go bad…
This is unfortunate.
Orchards vary in their management of “drops” or “windfall”. Most orchard apples fall from high up so when they drop, they bruise by hitting bare ground, ground cleared and killed by herbicides, primarily ‘Roundup’/Glyphosate. Problem #1-bruised apples with residual glyphosate. When apples fall they often ‘dent’ where the skin is intact without tearing. Ok …but only if they don’t contact animal poop (thats not been composted for 3 months) down on that ground where E-coli becomes a problem. Patulin and E-coli have been on the Radar of all orchardists due to a few instances of poop, rot and fruit. The e-coli comes from contact with fresh feces including Rodents, Cow, horse, chicken, goat, human, you name it. Eating poop is not recommended for humans (although I here cow dung is loaded with B12). Insect frass/poop is not framed as E-coli contaminated.
Food safety news about field contamination of apples reiterate from one research group in Illinois on the footsteps of a cow dung infused Apple farm that caused 10 people to get sick. The scare is on for a decade now. There is more chance of contracting E-coli from a hand picked apple, especially by a child, with fingers previously …. here’s why:
Orchards with small, low trees, with no farm animals pooping in the fields, with rodents like rabbits and mice not piling their poop under the trees, on top of the plants where apples may drop, the risk of apples being contaminated drops off dramatically. Falling short heights into and onto soft grass or onto the perfect plant guild that nestles and surrounds the fruit with the chill and dew of evening air, ripening the apple over days, sometimes weeks in the most perfect environment… E-coli contaminated fruit drops to one in a million.
No problem if falling into clean plants and soft grass.
Now bruised apples with a tear open to the flesh inside most certainly will be visited by the spores of 2 or 3 fungi that can cause a potent toxin, Patulin, also cited as a homeopathic- found to fight cancer as well as potentially cause cancer. The photo above is a blue mold that causes the potent Patulin.
Would you or you child eat this? An indiscriminate orchardist could rake it up for cider pressing.
It take several days for this mold to establish. You can see it. Unbroken apples sometimes achieve mold production at the end of their edible life and sometimes in cold storage ahead of their lifespan where conditions of moisture and temperature can create spore germination-fungicides are used to intervene here.
If you want the perfect crisp Apple, you will find it in the grass, nestled, out of direct sun, still cool at the end of the day, breathing with the fluctuating night-day temperature shift, kissed with evening dew at dew-point, moist cool air, drying by day but still cool. No fungus! Look for mouse or rabbit poop, should you find it don’t eat it. There is a slim chance a fruit is nestled in a pile of poop. You the apple you-picker, orchardist, can see this. Like Apple cores in the field pick these up, toss them to the field shoulder or put them in a trash bucket. Germs are everywhere!
Skipley Farm 
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