North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[<dmnorton@royaloakfarmorchard.com>]

Ginda,

If you want your apples to size up well, then you will probably want to thin 
them some.  I would let the fruit set to see exactly how many of the blossom 
actually produce fruit.  Once they are about 5MM or so size, you can thin 
them by choosing the king, which is the largest fruit, then the next largest 
and then the next largest for a total of 3 fruit per cluster.  Pinch the 
rest off.  On the size tree you have, if you don't thin, the fruit will 
probably not size up very well.  Just a thought!

Dennis Norton
Royal Oak Farm Orchard
Office (815) 648-4467
Mobile (815) 228-2174
Fax (609) 228-2174
http://www.royaloakfarmorchard.com
http://www.theorchardkeeper.blogspot.com
http://www.revivalhymn.com
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Ginda Fisher" <list@ginda.us>
To: "NAFEX Fruit Explorers" <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Saturday, May 02, 2009 6:19 AM
Subject: [NAFEX] apple blooming too much?


> I have a small Ashmeads Kernal on M7, with two Karmijn grafts on it.   The 
> tree has been in the ground a couple of years.  It is about 4 feet  tall 
> and has lots of root competition, as it's planted on the edge of  a wooded 
> area.  It also has moderate winter-moth damage.  I've had  winter moth 
> troubles for the past few years, have treated aggressively  with spinosad 
> the last two, and treated a little less aggressively  this year.
>
> This year it is covered in flower buds.  Maybe the amount of flowering  is 
> normal in some conditions, but it's way in excess of what I've ever  seen 
> on my eating-apples.  It looks more like the ornamental crabs.   (We have 
> wild seedling crabs all over the place, but even for being  random 
> seedlings, they are very ornamental this week.)  None of my  other 
> domestic apples has anything like the density of flower buds --  the two 
> trees I planted at the same time (golden russet on one of the  new geneva 
> rootstocks, G30, and Tydemans late Orange on M111, all  planted spring 
> '05) don't plan to bloom this year.
>
> Should I be worried?  Should I remove the blossoms?  Most of the 
> blossoms?  There's even a flower cluster on one of the Karmijn grafts, 
> which I'm oh so tempted to allow to fruit.
>
> Thanks,
> Ginda Fisher
> eastern Mass., zone 6
> where the crab apples are at peak bloom, and the eating apples are  just 
> beginning to bloom.  Mmmm, perfumed air.