So how do you make those stubborn varieties produce fruit? Girdle them which I learned well from the cicada and rabbits there are times when it works http://www.ent.uga.edu/peach/peachhbk/cultural/girdling.pdf. The problem is rabbits eat around a tree trunk and girdle it and take off to much. Many on here are content with branch bending and they get very good results. If you have good results no need to go further. I have a few stubborn trees that just don’t like to produce much such as green gage. I have broken branches and it produced better, bent branches and it produced better but it’s always short of producing a good crop. Next year I’m girdling a big branch and will let you know how it goes. I can tell you the cicada had a field day on my trees last year and left me fighting fireblight because of it the whole year. The trees all produced fruit they cut up. That’s to big of a coincidence. I’ve clipped trees with the mower when I got in a hurry and they produce fruit the first time that next year. I’ve had at least a dozen people tell me about an apple they planted 8 years ago that never produced and the rabbit girdled the trunk and it bloomed and died later in the year. The rabbit just over did the girdling. I’ve not done it professionally but have observed nature and I can see that it will work. There are a few people on here that have mentioned it but I’ve not heard of anyone besides the pros that do it. My uncle planted and ran an orchard and he regularly shook his unproductive trees with a machine that was a tree shaker to get them producing. Here is additional information on girdling http://www.aces.edu/pubs/docs/A/ANR-0053-N/ANR-0053-N.pdf. Here is a video on the procedure https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45wYnQG9kjE. This is an additional example https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PFhLAn680Fs. The technique is frequently used as you can see for dwarfing and bringing the tree into production so both very desirable things. Pears such as warren are not grown because of how long they take to produce sometimes and these techniques are game changers for that type of fruit. Here is the tool if you don’t want to use a pocket knife https://www.amazon.com/Zenport-GK03-Girdling-Knife-4-Inch/dp/B007WD55DA/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1467570149&sr=8-1&keywords=girdling. Here is a different type of tool https://www.amazon.com/Garden-Girdling-Cutter-Pruning-Tools/dp/B014STSLPO/ref=sr_1_11?ie=UTF8&qid=1467570149&sr=8-11&keywords=girdling. So you might be asking what in the world I could possibly be planning to girdle this time of year and that is a branch on my fig! As mentioned in the articles if not done correctly it will kill the tree.
Cut a ring around the fig branch with a razor. You can see the white sap oozing out around the area I cut into. That white sap is common among figs, mulberry, and osage orange since they are in the same family. I did not want to do to much. I hit the fig with a dangerous dose of nitrogen mixed with water. Pinched the tips of the fig back again. <img
Rob posted this earlier this year. I figure it is worth re-posting here.
Levers I even see I liked it. Forgot about the earlier post apparently so thanks for pointing it out. I will update how things turn out with the fig. I had a five gallon bucket of nitrogen left from fertilizing the hay field so I had some laying around anyway so it didn’t hurt to use a little. Did not intend to duplicate post.
Kind of an old post but I’m still curious how it turned out.
I get fruit every time i girdle a tree.
Nice, I might try girdling my Bartlett to induce fruiting and my peach tree to control growth.
Do you do it at any particular time of the year? Some sources I see say Sept / October others say one month after bloom (for stonefruit). Id imagine in the middle of summer when the tree is fully leafed out is a bad time to do it.
By the way, two of the links in your original post are broken because they updated the websites so I found the files and uploaded them here for anyone that might be looking for it:
ANR-0053-N-archive Thinning and Girdling.pdf (674.1 KB)
[uga.edu] Low But Modern Tech Can Improve Peach Yield.pdf (51.7 KB)
Also, here is an interesting short video supporting the idea of girdling:
