Those of us who have fruit trees have been enjoying their beautiful flowers for the last few weeks. Now that there’s piles of pink petals all over the ground, it’s time to think about thinning that fruit.
Fruit is ready to thin when it’s between one-half and three-quarters of an inch big. Not all flowers will set fruit, and some of the tiny fruit will dry up and fall off the tree due to inadequate pollination. The fruit that sticks around long enough to reach dime size has the potential to develop to maturity. In this case, we don’t want many mediocre fruit – we want fewer, high-quality fruit.
Peach, plum, apricot, nectarine, apple and pear trees require thinning to produce good fruit. The sugars that make fruit worth eating are produced by the tree’s leaves, and those leaves can only do so much. Reducing the fruit load means that more sugar is available for fewer larger fruits. Remember – the pit from a 2-inch peach is the same size as the pit from a 5-inch peach.
Thinning is also good for the overall health of the tree. Overloaded branches can break, allowing disease and pest insects in. Too much fruit can stress a tree, leaving it vulnerable to disease even if the branches don’t break.
Fruit that is too close together can become infested with insects or subject to mold. Trees that are allowed to overbear one year may not bear at all the following year, a phenomenon known as alternate-year bearing.
How does one go about thinning fruit? First, wait until the fruit is dime- or quarter-sized. At this stage it is easier to see all the fruit and select which ones should go. Remove all doubles, or fruit that has grown together. If two fruits are set on either side of a branch, remove one (preferably the smaller of the two). After thinning, fruit should be spaced at least 6-8 inches apart. This means that you will probably have to remove 80-90% of the fruit that has set already. Don’t be afraid to be ruthless!
Twisting is the easiest and quickest way to remove small fruit. If the fruit doesn’t come off easily this way, you can use kitchen scissors to snip the stems cleanly. Try to be methodical and do one branch at a time. It’s easy to miss some, so you may have to do this over a few weeks.
If you’ve forgotten to thin, (or missed a branch or two) and the fruit has gotten bigger, it’s still a good idea to thin them. Your fruit quality won’t be as good as if you’ve thinned earlier, but it will still be better than if you didn’t thin at all.
Thinning is not necessary for cherries, figs, guavas and jujubes.
Citrus doesn’t have to be thinned, even though each tree can produce an enormous amount of fruit. Their branches are flexible and less likely to break under the weight of a heavy crop, and we’ve found that the fruit quality is unaffected by thinning.
Have questions? Email gardening@scng.com.
Looking for more gardening tips? Here’s how to contact the Master Gardener program in your area.
Los Angeles County
mglosangeleshelpline@ucdavis.edu; 626-586-1988; http://celosangeles.ucanr.edu/UC_Master_Gardener_Program/
Orange County
ucceocmghotline@ucanr.edu; 949-809-9760; http://mgorange.ucanr.edu/
Riverside County
anrmgriverside@ucanr.edu; 951-683-6491 ext. 231; https://ucanr.edu/sites/RiversideMG/
San Bernardino County
mgsanbern@ucanr.edu; 909-387-2182; http://mgsb.ucanr.edu/
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