Golden Delicious Thinning

We have a golden delicious tree in a pot. That is a total rockstar.

First of all, there never seems to be anything wrong with it, but also it is in a pot and still created an amazing amount bloom clusters.

It is so pretty I feel it should be involved in weddings somehow.

At first, I thought we had the wrong variety because it looked like it was going to have pink flowers.

It has gone through petal fall and all of the fruit buds are hanging on, which appear to be in clusters of five.

At what point to you to decide to thin the buds, if all fertile?

Leave just the middle one or take out just the middle one or what’s a standard good practice?

Will it thin itself?

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Mine overproduces also and almost none fall off by themselves.

Most people thin to 2 or 1 per cluster and keep the center one or the biggest ones

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Personally, I wait with the thinning until the fruit is at least 2cm in size. I don’t spray and there is always the chance of weather, beetle and whatnot damage. I don’t want to thin out my chances at harvest. It’s a different thing, though, if the tree is very young.

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