This post first appeared on Notes From the Allotment.
The three apple trees that we potted up into our Air-Pot mini-orchard are all doing very well so far. After blossoming profusely back in May they’ve all set fruit quite well; a couple of them maybe too well. Here’s a cluster of developing fruitlets on our ‘Cornish Aromatic’:
As you can see, there are four healthy fruitlets developing at the tip of one branch. This is lovely to see, but it poses several potential problems.
Firstly, too many fruit at one branch tip, getting heavier as they grow, will cause the branch to bend and possibly break off later in the season.
Secondly, if the tree puts out too much fruit in one season it may exhaust its energy reserves and that could prevent it developing fruit buds for next year.
And the main reason: we’re establishing these trees for long-term growth in their Air-Pots and so we’d really like them to focus on developing their roots, rather than fruiting.
It’s all about establishing a healthy basis for longer-term harvests, and that’s why I’ll be out later on with my sharpest scissors to thin those clusters of fruitlets down to one or maybe two fruitlets in each, rather than the three or four that are there at the moment.
The same applies to our Herefordshire Russet:
This one is a spur-bearer and so the fruitlets are more widely spaced, which makes them easier to assess for thinning. Again though, I won’t be leaving more than maybe five or six fruitlets on the tree this year. It’s best not to be greedy now at the expense of future growth and harvest size.
Finally, our Belnheim Orange only has three fruitlets on it this year, so I’ll be leaving that along to do its thing.