Fruit Thinning - Spring 2011

It appears we are going to have another bumper crop of Apples, Pears, Plums and Cherries this year, on all the Heritage Fruit Trees in our valley!  An experiment we did on one of the apple trees in Emma back in 2009, by thinning the fruit as soon as it forms after the blossoms are done, resulted in a fairly significant harvest in 2010, an off-year for all the trees around it.

This Spring, since we did very little winter pruning of branches, and since we have a bumper crop of blossoms, we'd like to propose that our Heritage Fruit Tree adopters visit their trees after the blossoms are done, which should be the first or second weekend in June, and remove about half of the small fruits, leaving no more than 3 small fruits per cluster on apple branches, or what looks like half the fruit on any other species.  This allows you to select the healthiest looking fruit for the tree to finish, and remove the fruits that appear stunted or weak.  Of course, you'll also be removing some healthy looking fruit, but the results will be worth it.
You should experience a crop of larger and juicier fruit this autumn, and you should see another crop next year, when trees whose fruit has not been thinned will have almost no fruit at all.
I'm planning to be at the Happy Day Ranch orchard in Emma on Saturday, June 11, and on Mary Lou Zordel's orchard on Sunday, June 12, to show adopters how to thin their fruit to achieve these results.
There will be no class and no fee, just some tree climbing and fruit thinning, so please join us if you want to experience this method of adjusting one of Mother Nature's trees to produce every year.