Standard practice, if I remember correctly, is to thin in june AFTER
the natural drop occurs. There is usually some spontaneous fruit
drop in early to mid June, and if that doesn't reduce the crop to
around one fruit per 4-6" of branch, you need to thin manually.
The fewer apples there are, the larger they will get, generally.
Pruning is also very important -- if this is a young tree, you should
pick three or four strong branches that do NOT meet in a common place
and make a stick with a nail or wire in each end and use them as
braces between the trunk and branch fo hold them down and out. Prune
all upward shoots off the side branches, you want the tree to spread
out, not grow up, which is it's natural tendency.
It should look fairly bare -- keep all branches open to sunlight, no
internal shading of branches, and don't let it grow upwards once you
have a set of nice "framework" branches.
Pretty much the opposite of a Bradford Pear.
Fertilize in the early spring, probably a couple pounds of 12-12-12
for an average sized tree (less for dwarfs, of course).
I never sprayed mine, so I can't tell you when or what, but DO NOT
spray ANY pesticide from a couple days before bud break until a
couple days after the end of petal fall -- otherwise you will poison
someone's bees and get poor fruit set.
Peter
_______________________________________
http://www.okiebenz.com
For new and used parts go to www.okiebenz.com
To search list archives http://www.okiebenz.com/archive/
To Unsubscribe or change delivery options go to:
http://mail.okiebenz.com/mailman/listinfo/mercedes_okiebenz.com
