Michigan State University’s 2014 Controlled Atmosphere (CA) Storage Clinic was held at the Boulder Creek Golf Club in Belmont, Michigan on Aug. 6, 2014. The goal of the CA Clinic, organized biennially by the MSU Department of Horticulture, is to pass on new information relating to controlled atmosphere storage and warehousing of apple and other temperate fruit, and serves to facilitate communication between researchers, industry spokespersons, technical experts, and packinghouse and storage operators

This year, we featured Jennifer DeEll from the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs, Christopher Watkins from Cornell University, and David Rosenberger from Cornell University, three of the nation’s leading experts on the storage of apples. Presentations dealt broadly with the challenges of successful fruit storage and highlighted storage of the Honeycrisp apple. Experts provided additional presentations from MSU’s Randy Beaudry and Renfu Lu, and a number of post-harvest industries including Pace International, Valent USA, Decco, Storage Control Systems and AgroFresh.

Clinic organizers include Phil Schwallier and Amy Irish-Brown from Michigan State University Extension, and Heidi Davey and Ken Silsby from AgroFresh.

Presentations and related information are included in proceedings available at the MSU Apples website. Go to www.apples.msu.edu, click on Harvest in the left-hand column, then click on Post-harvest to access the presentations.

Proceeding topics include:

• Understanding CO₂ Injury (Randy Beaudry)
• CO₂ Injury/Scald Control without DPA (Chris Watkins, Jennifer DeEll)
• DPA and Other Apple Residues Issues in the Media (Food and Farming Network)
• Storage Decay Control (David Rosenberger)
• Honeycrisp Storage Panel (Randy Beaudry, Jennifer DeEll, Chris Watkins)
• Experiences with the DA Meter (Chris Watkins)
• Will Advances in Stress Sensing Make Safe, Ultra-low O2 CA Storage Possible? (Randy Beaudry, Jennifer DeEll, Chris Watkins)
• Watercore Review – Causes and Control (Randy Beaudry)
• In-field Apple Sorting System Update (Renfu Lu)