North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[Alan Haigh <alandhaigh@gmail.com>]

I always feel safe to thin the flowers of certain varieties and species just to accelerate the thinning process and direct as much energy as possible where I want it.  For apples, Braebern is certainly a candidate for flower thinning- the tree is so spurry and prone to bienniel bearing (for me).  Goldrush is another I thin the flowers of.  Any peach tree I grow can be thinned at any time and so on.

 

I would thin Asain pears early as well but their flowers are extremely frost tender so I wait until shortly after bloom to begin although I often thin the spurs a lot when I'm pruning.

 

The reason I like thinning early is also to limit my contact with Imidan as I do all my thinning by hand.  It's just too complicated for me to thin apples chemically because the orchards I manage are small with a wide range of varieties that respond differently to chemical thinning.  I also hate adding Sevin to my program because it seems to assure outbreaks of mites.