Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
entire crop will be lost or the tree has some terrible disease. In reality, you
need only a small percentage of the total possible number of fruits that could
develop on a tree to mature in order to obtain high yields and excellent-qual-
ity fruit. In the case of apples, up to 90 percent of young apples must be
removed following a heavy fruit set in order to maintain good size and qual-
ity and consistent yields. Stone fruits also drop poorly developed fruits right
after bloom and sometimes drop fruit later in the season, when the tree's re-
serves cannot support the crop load. For all crops, fruit that is damaged by
pests and diseases may fall.
Berry crops, including saskatoons, are usually only thinned through reg-
ular pruning. For some varieties that tend to overbear, you can prune the
bushes rather heavily to reduce fruiting wood and remove some flower
clusters.
For apples, pears, loquats, quinces, apricots, nectarines, peaches, and
plums, fruit thinning in addition to natural fruit fall is required to maintain
good quality, high yields, and healthy trees. Cherries, especially sweet cher-
ries grown on highly productive rootstocks, also benefit from thinning. When
to thin depends on the crop and the thinning method used.
Proper pruning techniques remove excess fruiting wood and are an im-
portant step in managing the crop loads of many tree crops. As we discussed
crop load in sweet cherries that are grown on highly productive rootstocks
like Gisela 5. Another example is the special pruning technique used for
apples grown in the tall spindle training system. In both cases, careful prun-
ing removes older wood that produces large numbers of small fruit.
