Thinning Honeycrisp

[Appleman]

With the huge fruit set in the northeast this season I'm curious to learn how successful you were getting the thinning done for Honeycrisp. I have 200 HC that I applied Sevin with better than 70 percent removal of fruitlets while retaining king fruit. Still requiring a fair amount of hand thinning but don't have to quit my day job to get it done. To compare, my brother has around 75 Honeycrisp that were not chemically thinned and have naturally shredded less than 10 percent of fruit set.

 

[Maya]

Tough going down here Bill. I made sevin applications at petal fall and about 10mm. Pretty poor results. Just too cold at the time. Terry came down when I was at about 16mm and advised to do a Refine application at 5ppm. Better, but I have to still do some hand thinning on HC's and Gala.... Macs over thinned! Everything else is about right.

 

[aerospacefarmer]

Had moderate success as I did my seven thinning at or just after petal fall and used maxim growth regulator. It was my first time chemical thinning so I didn't want to do again. I am doing some hand thinning and have a lot of doubles but will not push the envelope trying to thin too much more. I sprayed the day of ho weather and 2. Dry hot days following. My toughest apple to thin was the jonagold. Some thinning but still loaded. I bave been doing some vigorous tree shaking thinning lol. It actually works on the weak apples

 

[NE PA QDM]

Had moderate success as I did my seven thinning at or just after petal fall and used maxim growth regulator. It was my first time chemical thinning so I didn't want to do again. I am doing some hand thinning and have a lot of doubles but will not push the envelope trying to thin too much more. I sprayed the day of ho weather and 2. Dry hot days following. My toughest apple to thin was the jonagold. Some thinning but still loaded. I bave been doing some vigorous tree shaking thinning lol. It actually works on the weak apples

I will trap and transport some of the local bears from my neighborhood to your place, they can definitely finish your thinning for you. Ha!!!
Had them in my yard 3 times last week.....enough already!

 

[Appleman]

After 5 applications of sevin and givin some time for the chemical to work, I am happy to report excellent results using sevin alone. Sevin is the product of choice I use to thin Honeycrisp based on Cornell studies showing good efficacy without over thinning. Post bloom cover spray at 90 percent petal fall and follow up sprays after one inch rain or more has resulted in excellent insect control. Use of micro nutrients were delayed so to not counteract sevin from doing its job. On the lookout for now for codling moth which is more common in the Champlain Valley of Vermont but has popped up more recently east into the foothills. It rains just about every day lately here so applied first application of sovran fungicide for prevention of sotty blotch and fly speck. Unlike captan which is a surface barrier fungicide, sovran works deeper into the surface tissue providing longer protection. All though better, it should be used only 4 times per season to avoid building up resistance.

 

[Maya]

HC's are just about the size of a golf ball here. Looks like we are going to have a real good Honeycrisp year. I just used some TopsinM for FS/SB. Something that really caught my eye down here this past week Bill is Apple Maggot. I caught a few flies on traps and saw a few more.

 

[Appleman]

HC's are just about the size of a golf ball here. Looks like we are going to have a real good Honeycrisp year. I just used some TopsinM for FS/SB. Something that really caught my eye down here this past week Bill is Apple Maggot. I caught a few flies on traps and saw a few more.

View attachment 13704

Your apple in the pic looks great and leaves are really healthy. I haven't used TopsinM in the past, just Flint and Sovran. Is TopsinM a strobie? Is it effective on scab and how many applications can you do in a season? I haven't seen apple maggot yet but plan on staying on point with cover sprays in spite of all the rain. Still haven't seen codling moth in our area. I have inspected other orchards in the area and was surprise to find a fair amount of PC damage. I was lucky having stayed ahead with cover sprays which resulted in minimal insect damage in the orchard. The only insect damage that I could find was leaf miners, but that too was minimal.
I had surgery done about 10 days ago to repair a hernia and have been fortunate enough to have good friends who have helped me keep up with needed sprays this season. Today was the first day I got out to do some work on my 100 tree plus wildlife orchard on the back side of the property along the Quebec border. Following my doctors orders I avoided any kind of lifting. I set out to do a cover spray but it poured just as I was about to do it. We had started to burn some of the wood rows piled up in the middle of our extended food plot but the rain doused out the fire. We installed a charged battery in the old riding lawn mover we left up there only to find out it had a massive gas leak from the gas hose being weather checked and almost caught the mower on fire. If there was ever a day where I felt I didn't anything done it was today!

 

[Maya]

Oh boy, I know the feeling. Hope you heal up soon. I have to be real careful w/ my back for a year. Thought I broke something yesterday pulling root suckers!

I use TopsinM for my summer sprays for SB/FS, powdery mildew and w/ a half rate of captan for secondary scab. The reason is it has a short preharvest interval unlike Sovran. Without looking it up I think it has a 7 day phi vs 30 days for Sovran. Yes, it has a 4lb/acre max rate per year. Combined w/ Pristine and Sovran I can mix these up throughout the summer and not worry about a tolerance being built up. I've had real clean apples w/ this strategy. With a summer like this we need several tools in the toolbox! The rain just keeps coming.

 

[Maya]

Bill, I also started using CPS's fertilizer program. Eric comes out and does soil samples and mixes up fert based on it. I can't express how good this has been for my orchards. I saw a huge difference this year since starting it last year. Ya stil have to get some Calcium on the HC's though to combat bitter pit......

 

[Maya]

LOL, just checked a cam. This was one of my thinning sprays! This is out in a food plot with a small orchard I'm not spraying, but just sprayed to thin the apples some. I've got one Honeycrisp in this orchard and the deer definitely love it.

 

[Bowsnbucks]

Who IS that masked man ??? ^^^^

I hope you guys ( Maya and Appleman ) get your boo-boos healed up with no more problems. No heavy lifting, guys !!!

 

[Maya]

Who IS that masked man ??? ^^^^

I hope you guys ( Maya and Appleman ) get your boo-boos healed up with no more problems. No heavy lifting, guys !!!

I did to much this week! I got read the riot act by a guy that reps for a prosthetic company. This taking it easy stuff is real hard! I've got way to much to do and I'm to cheap to hire it done.