Human beings have been manipulating nature for many years through the use of grafts or chemicals to obtain better food, but producing ghost apples with an ethereal appearance and transparent like glass is still not within our capabilities, this phenomenon is completely natural and We could even call it something magical. They were discovered by a farmer in Michigan after a freezing rain storm.
Image: Andrew Sietsema
This is how ghost apples are formed
Once rain falls, it has nothing to do but freeze, creating thin layers of frost. When it falls on the apple, the water covers it as it freezes, this explains the mold of the figure, but why is there no apple inside the ice? Susan Brown, professor of agriculture at Cornell University, explained how this process is carried out in the article published in Today.
The phenomenon of ghost apples cannot occur anywhere, since it requires a perfect combination of different complex factors. The main factor is the apples of course, since they should not have very hard skins, “the skin keeps them like a full water balloon,” says Brown, this because the layer of ice that then covers them is very thin and It doesn’t last many hours.
In turn, this phenomenon will also depend on the pulp of the apples, so the best option is those apples that remain on the trees long after the harvest season, these decompose to the point of taking on a puree-like consistency. or porridge.
Because the freezing point of apples is even lower than that of water, it causes the peel of the apples to be consumed, allowing the liquid porridge inside to drain out of the mold that the ice has formed. This is how the apple falls to the ground leaving only the transparent layer of ice in the exact shape of an apple.
Image: Andrew Sietsema
They need a combination of freezing rain along with prolonged subzero temperatures for the ice to work its way up the entire fruit and then the rotten apple mush to seep into the bottom of the frozen layer, giving the detailed, hollow impression of an apple.
Andrew Sietsema was in the right place at the right time, so he was the lucky person who managed to capture this incredible natural phenomenon that occurred in his orchard in Sparta, Michigan. Sietsema told Today Food that the ice was about half an inch thick and that the apples looked like “Christmas tree light bulbs.”
“I like the term ‘ghost apple’ that was coined,” Brown said. “What I love about this story and the excitement it generated is that it shows all the hard work our apple growers do no matter the weather conditions. The fact that Andrew was outside in freezing conditions allowed him to capture this beautiful event.”