Fruit thinning?

[CrazyEd]

Zestar!

Here is a backyard tree. 4th Leaf, G.30. It's growing in heavy clay. It's almost time for this one to explode. Last year it had 6 fruit that were softball size. This tree gets a little shade in the morning but a full dose of sun all afternoon. At this age, how much fruit should I let this thing pump out? How much is too much? When thinning, how much space per fruit? This tree looks like it should be a real work horse. I have had plenty of time to train this one and it's got real nice form.

 

[WTNUT]

Ed,

I was literally just starting to ask the same question. I have a lot of 4-6 year trees on 111 and 118 that are loaded. I thought I saw one Apple per six inches on young trees but will wait for someone who knows!

 

[DeerfieldApples]

An apple every 4-6" is a good rule to follow. I'm not sure how biennial Zestar! is but I would bloom thin flowers right now if you can given its only a few trees. Remove 50% of flower clusters if every single spur is full of flowers. (Just pinch off flowers once they expand from the spur, pink is great time to do this) This should give you close to 50% return bloom. If you want to get real technical a crop load of 5 apples/ cm2 measured at 1 ft above the soil line would be a good crop load for a young tree.

 

[WTNUT]

I am going to wait a little before shooting for "a crop load of apples/cm2 measured at 1 ft above the soil line". For now, I am going to practice hand thinning and MAYBE next year I will have enough knowledge to try thinning by means of spraying.

 

[buckvelvet]

Man that tree looks great, I can't wait to see my trees that old, just a few more years. :)

 

[WTNUT]

Bumping this one up, GOT QUESTIONS. Okay, I thinned some trees yesterday (by hand). However, in one small orchard with 28 trees I have a huge difference in age. All the trees are on 111 or 118. The youngest was planted as a two year old bare root tree three years ago, and I have some that were planted 14 years ago. There is a pretty big difference between my 6 and 7 leaf trees and the 4th leaf trees. How long do you keep the 4-6 inch spacing for your apples. NOW LET ME SEE IF I CAN ANSWER MY OWN QUESTION:

A: It depends on the age and variety of the tree. The older the tree is the closer the spacing can be, but you need to understand the variety to make sure you are not over cropping the tree in a way that will damage the limbs or cause it to not bear next year. Please tell me there is a better answer!

 

[aerospacefarmer]

Bumping this one up, GOT QUESTIONS. Okay, I thinned some trees yesterday (by hand). However, in one small orchard with 28 trees I have a huge difference in age. All the trees are on 111 or 118. The youngest was planted as a two year old bare root tree three years ago, and I have some that were planted 14 years ago. There is a pretty big difference between my 6 and 7 leaf trees and the 4th leaf trees. How long do you keep the 4-6 inch spacing for your apples. NOW LET ME SEE IF I CAN ANSWER MY OWN QUESTION:

A: It depends on the age and variety of the tree. The older the tree is the closer the spacing can be, but you need to understand the variety to make sure you are not over cropping the tree in a way that will damage the limbs or cause it to not bear next year. Please tell me there is a better answer!

Yes lol. Depends on variety because some varieties tend to overcrop but even on b118 you can get breaking limbs as I have evidence. If the tree looks like one big blossom when it blooms you need to thin I can tell you that for sure

 

[Turkey Creek]

While most trees we know about on here are grown for wildlife purposes, thinning fruit for commercial production leads to larger fruit, better spray coverage and to some extent improved fruit color (shaded fruit doesnt color up as well).

 

[WTNUT]

Well, I am not growing for commercial purposes, but not entirely for deer either. To be honest there is no way all my deer
Can eat all the food that is available to them at my place. There is too much ground in plots, too many oaks, too much native vegetation
And I consider the apples and pears to be a bit of ice cream for desert. I really want to grow nice large attractive apples
For my family and friends. As I have mentioned I will likely put in a small rootstock fenced orchard this fall of 100 to 200 trees
So I need to figure out thinning. I hand thinned my smaller trees Friday. I can't see doing that again but for on the smallest of trees - dang
That is a pain. I sprayed captan and Imidan yesterday and noticed there is a huge difference in Apple development on the same tree in
Many cases. At the very top of my taller trees the apples are often well below the 11MM thinning max but on the lower laterals they may already
Be the size of large marbles. I have looked at the apples closer this year than every as they develop. Is there a time other than just less than
11MM where thinning with Seven works best? Some of the apples are literally just starting and the stems on those are very brittle. I would think if you sprayed those it would thin nearly all of them. I wish I had "practiced" with one tree this year.