The Hood River glacier. (Hood River, Or.) 1889-1933, 1919-06-26
RECOMMENDATIONS
ON THINNING APPLES
(By Gordon G. Brown


The apple grower should nov proceed
rapidly TO thin his fruit. The so called
June drop has been over with for some
time and there is practically nothing
TO gain in waiting longer.
Ii an apple is Of such a character OF
is present in such abundance as 10
make thinning practical the quicker 1t
is remOI ed the better. During some
seasons, of course. this rule would not
apply. Ii has often been found pTactl-
cal to wait until apple scab control was
assured, etc. This year, however, the
grower has the situation fairly IN hand.
Apples from now on should increase IN
size very rapidly If they are to make
four or four and one half tier. Unless
a tree Is quite young and especially
vigorous such growth will not be at
tanned if il is overloaded, even with
favorable growing conditions.
In looking at the subject Of thinning.
information seems 10 indicate that the
point of view should be largely cen
tered upon the crop of this season
rather than that of subsequent sea-
sons. In other words the aim should
be 10 secure a maximum crop Of best
quality the number of apples upon the
tree will afford rather than to unduly
sacrifice fruit in thinning this season
in order to insure d larger crop next
year or subsequent years. Data col
lected by the West Virginia expert
ment station seems to indicate that
excessive thinning to induce more reg
uiar annual bearing of trees has not 10
all cases accomplished its purpose.
This is not to suggest that no influence
is eXerted on subsequent crops since
such an inference would be manifestly
unreasonable and contrary to general
experience If tree is allowed to
ovefbear it nearly always exhibits a
tendency to short crops and weakened
vitality, especially during the follow
ing year. On the other hand. the point
which it is desired to bring out is that
there is little to support the idea that
more regular annual bearing can be
established by removing more fruit
than the tree is capable of growing to
best quality.
AS rule it is doubtful if tree can
mature to best quality even one fruit
to every spur. This would apply par
ticularly to older trees and less so to
young ones. However, IN few cases is
the tree called upon to carry such a
heavy burden. In many cases good
crop is insured if one spur in three or
four bears fruit.
Many growers are unduly alarmed
over the heavy drop of fruit. In many
cases there has been heavy drop, but
in the majority of orchards where a
good bloom prevailed a fair to good
crop is assured. Where Newtowns,
for example, have thinned themselves
excessively it is good practice in many
cases to leave two apples to spur, but
this should not apply where a number
of spurs are closely punched. In this
case thin one to spur even though the
crop is light Fruit which is too close
ly crowded will not size up property
even though the total crop be light.
AS rule Spitzenburgs should be
thinned one to spur. Arkansas
Blacks as a rule thin themselves in the
June drop. With Jonathans thin one to
a spur.
Remember that the market is per-
sistently calling for larger sized fruit.
Systematic and careful thinning pays
and pays well, in that it increases size,
as sists in better color, saves picking
and grading costs and puts a higher
percentage of extra fancy fruit in the
hoy