From: "William C. Garthright" <billg@inebraska.com>
To: North American Fruit Explorers <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
Subject: Re: [NAFEX] Pluots in Nebraska
Date: Tue, 29 Sep 2009 16:10:32 -0500
Bill, it might be worthwhile to thin your Flavor Grenade considerably more
next year and then see if it appears to ripen. Crop load can make a
difference.
Thanks, Doug. (It was also a LOT cooler than normal here this year. Some
things didn't want to ripen as well because of that, I believe.)
In fact, I deliberately left too much fruit on everything this year, as
an experiment. I'm having a hard time keeping most of my plantings as
small as I want them, so I wondered if letting them fruit a bunch would
slow them down.
I think that worked, to some extent, but I don't know if I'll do it
again. In some cases (but by no means all), the fruit stayed a bit too
small. Well, I expected that, and it's not a big deal for me. But I
really had a hard time holding up branches that were too heavy with
fruit. And I wonder if I'd have less trouble with disease if they were
thinned better. (Again, the cool summer probably didn't help.)
But in many cases, I just ended up with far more fruit than I could
possibly use. I gave fruit away to everyone I knew - and even neighbors
I didn't know - and I still had too much of it (the Concord grapes,
particularly). My refrigerator freezer is so full that I can't get
ANYTHING else inside. I've repacked it several times, just to try to
make a little more room. It's kind of ridiculous.
So next year, I'm going to try to concentrate on quality, rather than
quantity.
:-)
Bill
Lincoln, NE (zone 5)
--
I think it's important to realize that I was actually black before the
election... Whenever a president tries to bring about significant
changes, particularly around times of economic unease, there's a certain
segment of the population that gets riled up. It's not atypical. One of
the things you sign up for in politics is, folks yell at you. -
President Barack Obama