I haven’t seen it work on any berries; black or blue. But it should if one could get conditions right. The best blackberries I’ve tasted were the wild ones in Oregon. I presume some of that is their dry summers and deeply rooted old plants.
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When I used to buy a lot of local strawberries it seemed like cool wet springs led to low sugar fruit- I presumed a correlation.
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True. And ample thinning would also help to overcome lower photosynthesis caused by clouds. Fruit drop during apple thinning in spring is aided by a cloud induced drop in tree carbohydrate levels.
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That I knew. Hard not to notice here- but a commercial grower told me that back when I first started my business.
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There probably is a correlation. I amended my earlier post. This should work on berries. But they are more water sensitive that fruit trees. It’s just a matter of getting some water deficit without over stressing the plants.
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We have had very dry weather here until recently. I think it caused a more than usual June fruit drop. Nothing to be concerned about though. I still have hope as the rain was needed. On strawberries my observations on sweetness appear to be more about the light than water. Good light produced good strawberries. Not heat, light
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Yeah, that could certainly be the case with straws. Excessive water and deficient sun often come together and are hard to sort out unless you are trying to.
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Alan your eye popping Honey Royale came with just a couple of fruit on the tree and a month of dry weather, right? Maybe next time you get a good set try a few trees with a 50-75% reduction in crop load. Maybe that would help eastern growers overcome the 9-10 peach brix that have been posted lately.
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I don’t understand the science involved, but my sweetest blueberries and peaches are produced in years of low rainfall like 2 years ago.
I believe its a well accepted fact that grapes grown in years of low rainfall produce the best (and most expensive) wine.
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My Flavor May did that for me- set only a couple dozen fruit on a mature tree, and the fruit was barely better than a somewhat overcropped Desiree nearby. There are always some fruit on a tree served by a surplus of leaves that I can make comparisons with. My thinning is never absolutely uniform.
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I think there is considerable transport of carbs throughout the tree. So comparing branches with differing crop loads could be misleading.
There are many factors I believe in improving nutrient levels in fruit. Water is definitely one of the biggest at my location. More water seems to lower sugar content and improve fruit size. The more difficult the climate the better quality the fruit in my opinion but again I have no proof. I read a study once that showed deformed fruits, scarred fruits , misshapen or small fruits all had higher nutrients than other perfect fruit on the tree. That was an interesting study to me because we always eat all such fruits and try and sell the other perfect fruits when there is excess fruits.
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This is not born out by my observations or probably even yours. Distribution of carbs is very localized when it comes to fruit, or shaded fruit would not be so bland, nor would peaches on the underside of trees- which you’ve observed.
I’ve read of studies that showed that apples suffering from scab infections get higher brix. The nutrients may also be part of a plants defense mechanism. As we’ve bred most of the bitterness out of vegetables we’ve also reduced nutrient content- or so I’ve read.
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Canopy position can affect fruit quality esp for apricots IME. But generally my nectarines are good even on the hangers under the canopy. But my trees have much less heavily shaded areas than what I’m thinking yours have. Better light, more thinning?, and smaller trees.
Even my outside trees are about like this. And this is a heavy crop load for me:
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Whereas on a season like this, trees tend to be extremely vigorous here- I’m summer pruning my peach trees every other week and my clients will mostly be pruned at least twice. As I posted on this forum previously, I found it very exciting that it was discovered that shaded apple tree leaves experience an irrecoverable loss of the ability to photosynthesize when shaded for a period of time, although the researcher didn’t say exactly what that period was- I figure somewhere between 2-6 weeks. Outlying leaves do not feed the spur leaves or fruit below adequately, which was the reason this affect was noted. It seems more than possible that most species of trees experience the same thing.
I actually removed a lot of vegetative shoots from apple trees everywhere I thinned in mid to late spring to keep light were it does good. Interestingly, at many sites, leafhoppers prevent much shoot growth by summer if I don’t keep poisoning them, so they may actually serve my purposes by allowing the light to get where I want it. Hopefully the carbs they pull from the tree are only contributing to vegetative growth- outcomes suggest they are.
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In his book Home Grown Nourishment, Beddoe presents an interesting idea. He says if the soil phosphates to nitrogen ratio is out of balance, then the brix will be unstable and easily affected by weather.
Interesting if it is bolstered by some data, which should be relatively easy to acquire if a researcher found it interesting. Otherwise,maybe not so much.
Isn’t Beddoe’s doctorate in dentistry? Are you teasing me Anne? You know where these conversations go with us.
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LOL If you begin with scoffing, this will go the way our other conversations have gone. 
But this idea certainly provides some fodder for experimentation which is better, IMHO, than just being subject to weather for food quality when one may not need to be if these ratios provide stability in brix. BTW, brix is not just a measure of sugars but also of the nutritional value of any food.
As far as dentistry is concerned, in a similar path as Weston Price (check out his foundation) Beddoe also saw dental problems were related to nutrition problems, which brings us back to the soil and the name of his book.
I saw an MSU video on cherries, and they mentioned the number of leaves needed to supply a cherry cluster. What they were talking about was heading branches on Gisela as the dwarf rootstock causes too many cherries at the end of branches, and to clip these branches down to where the leaf bud to fruit bud ratio is better. So I think you’re correct. The idea was to produce bigger,sweeter cherries.
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There are already so many knowns and research based possibilities to factor into fruit tree management that growing fruit is complicated enough without throwing in the ideas of people that are selling books based on their personal hunches- hardly a platform likely to inspire objectivity. I doubt this man has spent a 20th of the time in fruit trees as a serious grower. I’m just not a believer in these individual “geniuses” that develop rococo “theories” out of thin air- although I have to confess to going to a chiropractor for treatment from time to time although I’ve never been able to find research that supports the methodology which was founded by another one of these “geniuses” of intuition.
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