Hi Rye
We are working hard on these topics.
You will find here after a link to a pdf file (sorry French speaking) were you
can see a picture of a "Darwin" system working at full bloom a short English
summary, and some tables that you can understand...
http://www.fruits-et-legumes.net/revue_en_ligne/infos_ctifl/infospdf/infos%20251/251p32-36.pdf
Thinning at flowering time is fast, can be hand made (with a stick) or with a
hand held electric tool that we are developing on stone fruit ("Effleureuse")
or heavier mechanization like "Darwin" device or more...
Early thinning is good for next year bud fruit set. The effect on size of fruit
(compared to standard thinning) is controversial in our trials.
So were are the problems.
1/ if you thin at flowering time then you are trusting good weather conditions
and not expecting any frost or wind or wet weather or... everything else that
may have adverse effect on fruit set. When you thin on small fruit you can
adapt your thinning intensity.
2/ thinning at flowering time is a blind thinning, you can't choose the quality
of fruit since you cannot see it. Thinning on small fruit gives you the
opportunity to eliminate damaged fruits, give a better place to remaining
fruits... if done by hand
3/on species like peach (general behavior) were production is on one year old
wood, removing buds is not a problem, but removing flower buds on apple trees,
you not only diminish flower number but also you diminish the number of shoots,
giving the remaining shoots more power, and globally weakening the tree...
4/ for apple specific case, some variety are requiring to achieve a one fruit
per corymb (eg. short stem varieties), of course flower thinning is done on a
bud base (apart you are a scissors artist) not at flower level, thus you are
facing a new thinning work at small fruit stage...
But with increasing pressure on chemical thinning, the increasing costs of hand
thinning labor, we are in the process of implementing these tools in our
strategies...
Best regards
JM Jourdain
Ctifl
France
De : [email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]] De la part de Rye
Envoyé : samedi 12 mars 2011 02:30
À : [email protected]
Objet : [apple-crop] Manually dropping fruit from young trees
Why is it customary to allow fruit to form and then drop it when it is small,
rather than removing flowers so the tree doesn't "waste" energy forming any
fruit at all? Curious if tree growth can be increased without harmful effects
by removing flowers before they form fruit.
Thanks,
Rye Hefley
Future Farmers Marketer
So. Cal.
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