Apricots and peaches keep ripening after picking; what turns that into an advantage is the temperature the fruit waits at and for how long.
Fruit picked in the afternoon heat enters cooling warmer and ripens faster, and if you mix the two lots the counter shows fruit that is both firm and overripe. That lot is therefore marked separately and cooled first.
- Sunrise to noon: harvest, with crates moved into shade as they fill.
- Midday: harvest pauses and what has been picked goes to cooling.
- Afternoon: picking resumes as the heat drops, and this lot is marked separately.
- Evening: the day's last dispatch.
According to USDA Agriculture Handbook 66 the apricot target is -0.5 to 0 °C, and cooling quickly to 4 °C or below slows decay and softening. For peaches the target is -1 to 0 °C, and for cultivars prone to internal breakdown cooling should be finished within 8 hours. The risky band is 2-7 °C: gel breakdown in apricots and mealiness in peaches develop faster there than at 0 °C, and flavour is lost before any visible symptom.
Stone fruit is sensitive to pressure, and the bottom layer of fruit piled in a crate is crushed. If you record when crates went into shade, were packed and were dispatched, a quality difference can be compared against orchard and waiting time.
