Students sorted and bagged apples at the ISU Horticulture Research Station Wednesday for the ISU Horticulture Club’s second and final apple sale of the season.

The sale runs from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday and from 1:30 p.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday at Reiman Gardens, or until they sell out, said Julie Van Zee, senior in horticulture and co-chairwoman of the apple sale.

The Horticulture Research Station, located four miles north of Ames on Highway 69, began selling apples to the Horticulture Club for the club’s apple sale last year. In the past, the club bought apples from area orchards.

Darin Enderton, senior in horticulture and co-chairman of the apple sale, said he thought this year’s apple sales would be the best of his four years at Iowa State. This is the first year the Horticulture Club has held more than one apple sale date, he said. In order to sell different apple varieties as they were ready, the club decided to hold two sale dates this year.

It takes about six afternoons at the farm to prepare for each sale, Enderton said.

“It’s kind of nice to get away from your homework and play with apples,” said Van Zee.

From a walk-in cooler smelling of sweet apples came crateful after crateful of apples to dump onto the conveyer belt. Four club members were on hand to sort about two dozen crates of both Chieftain and Golden Delicious varieties.

The apples were rinsed on the belt before traveling up to be sorted by size. The machine divides the apples into small, medium and large.

Students at the end of the line expertly examined each apple, then filled clear plastic bags with the best.

Each bag holds ten pounds, or about 32 medium apples or 22 large apples, Enderton said.

Small apples aren’t sold, so they went right into the cull, or “bad apple,” crate. Sometimes these are sold to make apple cider.

“They’re more core than apple,” Enderton said. Bruised and cut apples were also culled out.

“I turn it in the light a little bit and the skin will look duller,” Enderton said, explaining as he quickly identified bruised apples.

Apples cascaded though the sorter faster than he could bag them, he said. Apples with cuts must be sorted out because an apple with broken skin gives off ethylene, a ripening gas that could spoil other apples in the bag.

“The phrase ‘one bad apple ruins the bunch’ is true,” Enderton said.

The four students munched on apples as they sorted, one of the perks of helping the club get ready for the sale.

“[We] pick the ones that are almost good, not quite good enough to sell,” said Van Zee, who said she likes the Chieftain apples. “I think the taste is a lot better in a Chieftain than in a Red Delicious.

“I don’t really like going to the grocery store and buying Red Delicious apples. That doesn’t excite me at all.”

Chieftain apples were developed by Iowa State and are one of six major varieties grown at the research station, which harvested about 1,800 apples last year, said Will Emley, superintendent of the Horticulture Research Station.

Iowa State is the largest producer of the Chieftain apples, distributing them wholesale to a few other orchards in the area, Emley said. For the first time, the farm sold about 300 bushels of Chieftain apples to Iowa State food service this year.

The Chieftains aren’t available outside of this area of Iowa, he said.

Chieftains, a cross between Red Delicious and Jonathan apples, are good for all purposes, Emley said. They are sweet, crisp and crunchy and store well.

The other variety the club will sell this weekend, Golden Delicious, is an apple good for eating, cooking, and applesauce.

The apple sale is one of the club’s many sales to raise money for its annual fall trip.

The Horticulture Club bagged 50 bushels for each sale. Because of the order that the apples ripen, Jonathan, Gala and Macintosh apples were sold at the September sale, Enderton said.

The club will sell half gallons of apple cider for $2.50 and gallons for $4. A ten pound bag of medium apples is $8 and a bag of large apples is $9. The large apples usually sell out first, Enderton said.

“People come back to the Hort Club because we have good apples,” he said.