As I said earlier, I’m not interested in increasing flower production; I have to thin apples too much already. I’m trying to increase the size and quality of the fruit at the base of the new shoot, and that seems to be what the AI response addressed. I’ll apply that guidance and see what happens.
I would prune one half of the tree randomly like that, leave the other shoots growing. At harvest, weigh the apples and determine Brix with a refractometer. That readout would be very interesting I think and pretty conclusive.
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Yeah, as long as you didn’t use the north and south sides of the tree for comparison.
I think the research has already been done to prove the benefits of June pruning in a general sense, but your idea is sound. You could prove to yourself something that wouldn’t really hold up as scientific research because of all the variables in play, but it would be a better test than anything I’ve done and a more direct experiment than what I’ve seen on the subject. I started doing it to reduce the trait of biennial bearing and anecdotally experienced improvement in numerous orchards. However, I manage orchards of big old apple trees where I don’t do any summer pruning at all that produce a very high quality crop ever damn year.
Take all advice with a grain of salt, including mine. This isn’t rocket science… because it’s a lot more complicated.
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Yes, a lot of variables. I think that in the above experiment, the caveats would be that other varieties may respond differently, and the location and weather that year may matter.
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Just yesterday I wondered if the fire blight monster would look the other way if I did some June thinning of vertical growth on apples and pears. If I wait a week for high 80’s I will feel more comfortable that blight may be inactive at those temps.
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I’ve summer pruned pears for decades and hundreds of times and never suffered FB consequences following that. I had assumed that FB is much more encouraged by warm wet temps and not at heat above about 80F. Apparently this was a misconception and FB is increasingly encouraged as temps rise into the '80s and continues to a lesser degree well into the '90’s according to CHAT GPT. However, if you live where it usually attacks blossoms, there probably isn’t that much active inoculum floating around by summer. The largest concern is if there are existing cankers in your trees.
Here’s CHAT
For healthy summer pruning of pears, I would not be terrified of rain after pruning. I would simply prefer a drying window when convenient: dry canopy, no active strikes nearby, no major storms forecast, and enough heat/air movement for cuts to dry. But if rain is often coming in your region and your long field record says it has not caused trouble, I would not let extension-style caution override that experience.
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I should add that I spray a lot of orchards, and I far prefer spraying ones that are open and have been summer pruned. It isn’t just about encouraging annual cropping of great fruit via better sun access, there is also the matter of reducing fungal pressure and the amount of spray material required. A summer pruned big apple tree requires half as much when I’m spraying to control Marsonnina leaf blotch and/or fly speck and sooty blotch. Or mites or scale.
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This fact alone would make it worth doing in my opinion.