Reduced fruit set = heavy growth!

I’m a little concerned that with so much less fruit set this year some of my pears are growing at an amazing rate! All this new growth makes my trees a little vulnerable to limb breakage, fireblight etc. .The trees are looking great overall though sunshine, heavy rain and no pears means I’m adding 8+ feet of growth on some trees! This is not how I normally grow pears. Some people fertilize heavy to get these results but I’m convinced fast growth is not all that great for trees. Slower steady growth is what I’ve always believed in because I literally think for a tree to double it’s height in a year is to much. What are your opinions and why? Many advise heavy pruning but I don’t agree with that philosophy because heavy pruning only leads to more pruning. Anyone else seeing heavy growth like this? I liken this growth to us when we gain growth in all the wrong places. With trees I want my heavy growth to wind up in bushel baskets I haul off every year.

4 Likes

I think summer pruning equals more fruitwood next year. And less pruning overall because you prune immature small branches. Whereas winter pruning equals heavy vegetative growth the following season. So I would start to shape the trees now. I did not thin my plums this year hoping that it’ll slow down their vegetative growth, and I think it did.

4 Likes

Depends on the growth in my opinion and how likely cut surfaces are to insect or disease infestation.

2 Likes

I’ve already pruned new growth on pear trees. I prefer doing it on sunny days hopefully reducing chance of introducing disease, although I don’t know if that matters. I always carry pruners and clip branches all summer long. In my case I’m trying to keep my trees as small as possible due to space constraints.

2 Likes

My feeling is that growth is mainly a matter of water and nitrogen. Crop load can have some effect but not as much IMO.

It’s been stated many times here that moderate growth is usually best for both the tree and fruit quality. I don’t see not thinning to slow growth as being very effective. And it will result in poor fruit quality. It can be an effective way to limit tree size via broken limbs.

7 Likes

Just had the extension agent here who looked at my peach trees and indicated my results are normal. Not sure about pears.

There is a huge difference between the vegetative growth of the peach trees with a lot of fruit and the ones with just a little fruit and the results are constant on all varieties. The trees with the heavy fruit set are about a week to 10 days ahead of the trees with less fruit.

1 Like

Are you saying the trees with a heavy crop have more growth? If not what does ahead mean?

1 Like

No just the opposite. The trees with most fruit have the least amount of vegetative growth by a large amount. However, the fruit on the trees with the most fruit is a week to 10 days ahead of the same variety in the same row with less fruit. I understand that less vegetative growth allows for a lot more sunlight to get to the fruit. Not sure if the extra sunlight fully explains the substantial difference in the fruit maturity between the same varieties. Also, I don’t understand how the fruit set on adjacent trees of the same variety of the same age with the same degree of dormant pruning vary so much this year.

3 Likes

@clarkinks

All that growth is becoming a food factory that will be stored in the roots for next year’s wake up. Summer pruning has 2 effects.

  1. It reduces the energy available to be stored for next spring. This avoids explosive vegetative growth" next year. So pruning now in the lull while the fruit is growing will avoid more work next spring when you have other things to do. Do you remember that old Fram Oil Filter commercial that ended with " Pay me now or pay me later"?

  2. Pruning those branches to 2 inch nubs will encourage fruit spur growth. Now, by late August some of the cuts will sprout other new growth which gets snipped down to 3-5 leaves and that stubby should get the idea that " Hey, I’m not becoming a tree so I might as well turn myself into something useful for the tree’s survival, but what to do? … I know, I’ll create fruits to spread my seed" :slight_smile:

  3. Also now might be the time to select for renewal branch/scaffold creation by eliminating some of the older naked wood.

Mike

3 Likes

That’s interesting. I find here that crop load has a lot to do with vigor- to the point that cropping a tree too much when it is small; can runt it out. Vegetative growth and fruiting counterbalance each other- an upright branch grows more vigorously and is less fruitful than a horizontal branch. In the past, when peach flowers have been frozen out, growth nearly doubles over a crop year. I always pull fruit off of nursery trees to maximize growth- when I fail to pull off peaches at all it is a disaster- trees are seriously stunted. .

The energy that the leaves use to make fruit has to go somewhere if it can’t go there. Of course you are speaking in terms of relative to water and N- but those 2 tend to be more consistent. Crop load is more likely to be variable. Speaking of the northeast.

4 Likes

Maybe the difference is I’ve seldom or never had a seriously overloaded peach tree. I think I thin a lot more than most. Most yrs here in west Texas are no crop due to spring freezes. I’ve never noticed a difference, crop or no crop.

I’ve got a neighbor with a grossly overloaded peach tree. I’ll look at it better tomorrow. Not sure how much he’s watered or fertilized.

2 Likes

If fire blight is an issue, summer pruning can probably exacerbate the risks of infection by creating points of entry. I have had serious FB damage, including a death, following summer pruning of pears, but this was a single site and I can’t be sure of causation, but I certainly felt guilty (never confessed). I have summer pruned pears for years at many sites without the consequence of FB, but I believe I’ve read that there is some risk.

3 Likes

Fruit set on my pears is very good this year here in zone 6/7 PA.
HOWEVER, a recent heavy prolonged rain caused a great many cracked pears that will not make it.
6 of one etc.

2 Likes

Too much nitrogen can kill or reduce crops, when a fig tree wants to grow too tall in a year I prune it’s height a little to force it to grow more under the cut, which makes a wider trunk and branches, I have never had any plant besides fig trees grow too tall to fast, yet pomegranates when they get older can grow too fast, mine are too young too do that. I make a 0-18-8.6 fertilizer and use that whenever nitrogen is not a good idea, fruit and vegetation are better quality and in higher numbers when the two other fertilizer elements are still in the soil. I have been experimenting using the fertilizer with different types of plants yet no ripe fruit yet and I have not been applying often enough so only time can tell. Pear trees are not strong enough to grow that fast. I do not have much experience pruning pears yet, yet I do not find that heavy pruning makes our pear tree need more pruning later, then again ours never grew anywhere near as fast as yours is, that is scary fast for a pear I think, at least a young pear tree anyway. Same thing with fig trees I do not find I have to prune more often when I heavily prune our fig trees either with one exception, if they are growing too slow, then they may come back much faster than the snail going uphill pace the trees had before. Still not too fast though.

1 Like

It is pretty hard to tell if a plant needs additional K if it is not to the point of showing symptoms and in most soils there is absolutely no benefit to additional P once trees have established mychorizal relationships, IMO. When adding K, it is a good idea just to add what you’ve removed in crop. It is certainly possible to have an excessive amount of it, which, if memory serves, can lead to a harmful reduction in calcium uptake. This is why I have reduced my pee apps on apples that have suffered from bitter pit.

Surprisingly, excessive N doesn’t seem to reduce brix (much of what we consider quality) in fruit and presumably vegetables- excessive water (unfortunately for me, this season) is the main problem in this area.

3 Likes

I was reading a study about fertilizing pomegranates, they use the equivalence of what I use in my fertilizer with great results although their soil is high in calcium so a reduction in calcium uptake for them might be a good thing. The fertilizer I make has 4.2% calcium and 4.2% magnesium. Magnesium increases calcium uptake, I have found lately that cedar and Cyprus mulch are a great way to slow down nutrient runoff, nutrient runoff means having to fertilize more often. Too much nitrogen can force fruit to ripen slower and abort, it really all depends on how much energy is being taken way from the fruit and being put in to the vegetation which is one thing that nitrogen can do. Different plants require different ratios and more of one thing might require an increase in something else to take away a chemistry imbalance.

1 Like

In commercial fruit production the norm is to base rates on combined soil and leaf analysis- the latter being the most important, although if you know your soil well you certainly can often get by with an estimate based nutrient program- especially if you are not in the business of selling fruit. As far as nitrogen forcing fruit to ripen slower and dropping fruit, I’d need to see the research you are referring to to make sense out of what you are saying so I’d appreciate a link. So much depends on where you are growing, but where pomegranates are grown in this country you can control water after early spring (most years) which also allows a lot of control of N intake. I am largely ignorant of their culture, however.

2 Likes

I am not an expert but for my zone if I have a scion or a tree with extremely vigorous growth I get nervous. In my experience those scions and branches are often winter killed. I don’t fertilize my fruit trees at all unless they are showing deficiency symptoms. This might not be the best way, but it works for me, and they all seem healthy.

I am trying to summer prune this year to avoid extensive spring growth, so we’ll see.

2 Likes

I go based up what other people tell me and what I have lots of experience with, that is just fig trees, yet I doubt that most fertilizer companies that make fertilizer for fruiting trees are wrong, they make their fertilizer with low to no nitrogen, yet if a person fertilizes early enough in the spring then it does not interfere with fruit. I think a person with major nutrient run off most of the nitrogen might wash away in a few days, then again people like me our soil it naturally high in nitrogen or so I have read that about the area we live in. Maybe because I was adding nitrogen to a soil that already has lots of it that was aborting the fruit. No one study is going to be true for everyone. That is why each state should give their suggested ratio for each area. Here we have clay soil yet we amend it about 50/50 so the very slow runoff we would have is somewhat lessened. Mulching everything does help prevent nutrient run off on everything and does lesson the need for fertilizer as frequently, which might change a recommended ratio. Mulch VS no mulch.

2 Likes

Did you at any one time apply any nitrogen to the trees that are growing at this incredible rate? It’s true as well that doing a heavy handed prune can cause rapid vegetative growth also. As long as trees are healthy you can easily do size control summer pruning to help as well seeing the concerned you have with a weak tree.

1 Like