Thank you for this good information.
Ha, ha.
Pruning in part, but rootstock and choice of variety (cultivar)
are more likely to enable you to stay off the ladder
(or harvest from off the ground after they splatter).
Incidentally, Niedzwetzkyana and Arkansas Black are but a couple varieties that heal much of the time rather than decay after a fall.
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I can add a datapoint here. In San Jose, we are closer to the coast, but not as close as Santa Cruz or Monterey. We do have clay soil here but not as hot as inland like Tracy or Folsom. I have been tracking the temps between San Jose and Folsom, particularly early in the summer around June. Coming out of the spring, the differences are only around 2F. It jumps to 10-15F in mid-to-late June as we are still cooler around 80-85F while inland turns hot around 90-100F. I think thats the main difference between decent early peaches in Bay Area (~15-17 brix) and superb ones from @fruitgrower (~25 brix). Thats also the difference between pit-burned Blenheims in inland to superb ones here (I know, just a consolation 
)
Definitely not a controlled experiment, but only an observation. The peaches are different varieties, so I did get June Pride scions from Jon and grafted on my tree. I don’t water my tree one drop until the end of June. It doesn’t show any stress compared to the tip-burned leaves Jon posted in the other thread. I will have slightly better comparison next year.
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This is essentially true, especially because you put as much emphasis on variety which is often overlooked in the literature or catalogues where great attention is paid to relative vigor of rootstocks in terms of determining the ultimate height and spread of trees. However, I have managed N.Spy trees over a hundred years old on seedling rootstock that had been kept low in height. Pruning isn’t important at all for keeping trees on fully dwarfing apple rootstocks short, but any tree can be coaxed to a low spreading form with the aid of pruning and training.
There are advantages to growing trees on more vigorous rootstocks that may be more important than the disadvantages of of the high upkeep of aggressive but judicious pruning to sustain a pedestrian height and later fruiting. I’ve read that the Japanese excel at managing cherry trees on Mazzard roostocks very low growing with a lot of tying down of branches.
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Which is why I posted the link on how to improve color of apples. It included this statement, "If light is the factor limiting red color development, then exposing fruit to additional light during the final two or three weeks before harvest will often enhance color development of apple and peach.
I believe along with color comes higher brix.
Interestingly, higher color also comes along with cool nights and warm days. I believe the cool nights inhibit respiration at that time which would tend to send more energy towards vegetative growth rather than fruit sugars (higher nocturnal respiration, that is). However, I can only run on anecdote for this as it isn’t a researched subject, as far as I know. Many years ago I came up with this idea because I noticed that zucchini sweetness intensified later in the season when nights became cooler.
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That is an indirect relationship. Sugar is produced via photosynthesis. Carotenes and anthocyanins are in a biopath that consumes sugar to convert precursors into carotenes and along the way produce many of the flavonoids we love so much. Carotenes generally appear yellow, orange and bright red. Anthocyanins usually are blue, purple, and deep red. They are produced on different biopaths but share some precursors. When fruits change color as they ripen, the chlorophyll in the skin is either absorbed or converted into carotenes. More light means the tree can photosynthesize more sugars which hastens the removal of chlorophyll and production of carotene.
This again is from the tomato world. Breeders about 70 years ago found a gene called Uniform Green that resulted in very uniform red all over ripe tomatoes. Before UG, virtually all tomatoes ripened with green shoulders. Off on their merry way, nearly all commercial tomatoes by the 1990’s have UG and everyone is complaining that they taste like cardboard. Harry Klee and others start researching flavor in tomatoes and very quickly find that UG decimates both flavonoids and sugars in the fruit. Other researchers had flagged the clear skin mutation as causing loss of flavor. Clear skin causes pink fruit, but so long as clear skin is not tied to UG, the pink tomatoes taste fine. Pink tomatoes are generally described as sweeter than red tomatoes and having less intense flavor. The point of this is very simple. Almost all fruit bearing plants share multiple traits including storage of sugar in the fruit and accumulation of flavor compounds from plant protective chemicals we call carotenes and anthocyanins. The reason green shouldered tomatoes taste better is because the chlorophyll in the fruit produces sugars that are stored in the fruit and help produce flavor compounds. Yes, there is a reason green apples are green until they ripen!
Why do I know about this? I wrote an article about 12 years ago about the relationship between fruit sugars and flavor compounds and how plants produce them. I covered each step in the carotene biopath from phytoene to carotene to lycopene to beta carotene.
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What I’ve done is buy a hive of bumblebees. Not cheap but they do a great job pollinating.
Most of the discussions on this forum are about how to solve issues with growing fruit outdoors. Either it’s the weather, critters, insects, diseases, or usually all of those. My greenhouse solves 98% of those issues. Think of what many growers do that I don’t. Just for deer it’s fishing line strung around the yard, Sprinklers that come on when deer arrive, Stinky stuff sprayed on trees. And when all that fails convert the orchard to trees so tall you can’t reach to spray, bag the fruit, thin, or harvest. Meanwhile I grow small trees easy to work with.
I do have a great climate for a greenhouse but that’s why I moved here. Greenhouses would work in many other areas for many fruits but only if properly designed and operated.
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Your set up sounds great. As you say, it eliminates a lot of problems, and probably can reduce the need for spraying quite a bit. I’ve worked in large commercial greenhouses and always enjoyed the control you could have.
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Spraying glyphosate can be very tricky. I once sprayed an area of of weeds and didn’t think about where I had walked. A few days later I could follow my tracks across the lawn!
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I spray three times a yr for spider mites. That’s it and my growing season is nearly all yr long.
The control in a greenhouse is what I enjoy most. I grew many crops outdoors near Amarillo for 30 years. The wind blew nearly all the time, usually we had more than one crop damaging freeze each yr, and averaged 6 hails a yr. In my greenhouse it hasn’t frozen in 17 yrs, no wind, and no hail. Add to that I can get 800 Utah chill hrs in only 45 days in the GH and do it anytime Nov. thru Febr. 95% of the days when not in chill mode have high temperature between 80-92F unless I want it cooler.
So yes I love the control a greenhouse gives in my climate.
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My multi gafted dwarf apple tree lost its leaves about 3 weeks ago from a fungus. The gold rush apples are still green instead of light yellow but my pink lady has turned pink on the side facing the sun without the aid of leaves. Could it be a genetic difference?
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ive grown all kinds of stuff in the greenhouse. i just leave the front/ back doors open from june to aug. and the bumbles/ flies come in and out doing their thing.
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There are tomatoes that ripen red from lycopene
Some ripen pink from the clear skin mutation
Some tomatoes ripen orange from beta carotene
and some ripen tangerine from phytoene not changing to lycopene
some ripen green from retention of chlorophyll
and some ripen white from turning off most of the carotenoid biopath.
Now do the same for apples
Some ripen red
some ripen yellow
some ripen orange
some ripen green
Make three guesses about the similarity between ripening tomatoes and ripening apples. Hint, it is not as much as I suggest, but the basics are the same.
Ripening is a complex process for any fruit. The plant is trying to ripen seed and at the same time ripen the ovule around the seed so that it will be attractive to an animal that will eat the fruit and disperse the seed. Without leaves, the plant will not produce enough sugar to support the process of ripening.
I’m not an expert on fruit ripening and genetics. I’m just a guy who loves to grow tomatoes, apples, pears, peaches, and some other fruits and along the way decided to figure out how ripening works. You can find a lot more detailed information in peer reviewed papers with a web search.
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So what exactly does that mean in practical terms? A long time ago an assistant of mine who worked for many years at a nearby commercial orchard told me a story about a Fuji that someone tried to remove with a tree spade. There was a big rock in the way so he ended up cutting a lot of the rootsystem and leaving the tree where it was.
The tree’s apples had the best color and most sugar of any Fuji in the entire orchard, so I’m thinking the good color was directly related to high sugar. I believe it is always or at least often DIRECTLY related.
I’m trying to know the practical methods to improve fruit quality and am mostly interested in the theoretical that helps me do that. If high sugar leads to better color, how is that not a direct relationship?
A direct relationship would be sugar accumulated in the skin causing color. An indirect relationship is when sugar is stored in the fruit which provides an energy source for biopaths that ripen the fruit and cause it to turn colors.
In practical terms, what it means is that the more you can encourage photosynthesis within limits, the better the fruit will taste and the more it is likely to achieve good color. Healthy leaves are the first requirement for photosynthesis so pay attention to anything that limits leaf cover. By the same token, a green fruit is photosynthesizing which boosts sugar accumulation in the fruit and encourages ripening processes.
Your example of a tree with roots cut is an example of a common method of ripening tomatoes at the end of the season. Use a spade to cut the roots on one side of the plant and it will immediately go into overdrive to ripen any fruit remaining. This is a combination of two effects. The first is that photosynthate that would otherwise be feeding the roots is now available to ripen fruit. The second is that wounding a plant triggers a sequence of genes that accelerate the process of ripening seed and the fruit around them. Look up “plant wound initiated gene action” for some relevant reading.
As for ways to encourage better fruit ripening and better fruit color, the best suggestion I can give is that reducing stress on the plant goes a long way toward producing superb flavored fruit. How can plant stress be reduced? By controlling fruit load, keeping the leaves healthy, maintaining water balance, keeping the roots healthy, ensuring nutrients are available in the soil, and keeping insects under control. Sound like some things you are already doing?
The plant has two conflicting objectives. It has to move sugar/starch into storage in the roots to support next year’s growth and it has to ripen the current fruit load. If the fruit load is so heavy that the plant can’t feed the roots, the tree will be unable to fruit the next year and may die over winter. This is very common with Pecan varieties that overload one year and don’t make a crop the next.
Water stress is the single most controllable problem plants encounter. If you want good flavored fruit, irrigate properly. At the end of the season as fruit are ripening, they may benefit from restricting water.
Ever heard of “girdling” a plant to encourage fruiting? it is a common method used with avocados that won’t fruit for many years unless girdled. My son accidentally girdled a pecan tree that set a heavy crop as a result. I don’t recommend it, but just noting that changing the movement of photosynthate within a plant can cause dramatic changes in fruiting.
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Early Fuji apples did not have good color but excellent sweetness and flavor; but they didn’t sell as well as they should have. Breeders created a Fuji with much better color but reduced sweetness and flavor. I often see these inferior ones in stores now.
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I believe the problem is that a plant overset with fruit doesn’t have the needed energy to invest in flower buds the following season, when we are talking about tree fruit. Plants dying from oversetting fruit isn’t something I’ve experienced as a common occurrence unless there are other sources of stress.
If it was about roots, it doesn’t seem it would be necessary to get fruit thinned so early in the growing season to help assure annual production. There is a short window in which a plant “decides” to set abundant flowers for the following season or not and apparently the most important issue is how much energy is in the bank in early to mid spring.
You can stick to your semantics as far as direct relationship. I’m a farmer, not a scientist, but if one condition automatically leads to another that is my idea of a direct result because for all practical purposes it is. Specific definitions don’t help me farm better, knowing what gets results does.
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“the most important issue is how much energy is in the bank in early to mid spring.”
This varies by species. Pecan seems to set flower initials in the July to September time frame. Apples, pears, and most stone fruit seem to set flower initials based on the end of shoot elongation which would be late spring to early summer. There is a lot of disagreement about this in scientific circles at present. Some argue that carbohydrate balance is the key determinant while others who have measured carbohydrate levels throughout the canopy and stems of large trees can’t correlate subsequent year fruit set with previous year carbohydrate levels. About all I can say is that this is at the edge of my knowledge level. You will have to talk to someone who knows a lot more about trees!
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FP, it is well known that fruit has to be thinned within about 3 weeks of petal fall in order to help assure annual cropping, well before early summer. Petal fall here is around mid-May and the most beneficial time to thin is about 2 weeks later.
I would say I misspoke to say early to mid spring but now that I’ve thought about the issue more clearly in terms of what is considered the optimum time to thin, I would put it between my first statement and yours. On average, the most important time in my part of the country is from late may to early June. By early summer you are too late to have much influence on getting next years crop, according to most expert advice I’ve read.
I’m not talking about nuts, which I know very little about. As far as thinning to get annual production I’m only talking about apples.
There is a subtle but fundamental difference between what you are saying and what I am saying. You are saying that the time to thin is within 2 or 3 weeks of fruit set. I am saying that next year’s flower initials form around the end of shoot elongation which would be in the late spring to early summer time-frame. We are saying the same thing, just expressed in different ways. Thinning fruit would lead to early buildup of carbohydrate reserves which would then lead to abundant formation of flower initials once the tree reaches that stage.
Each species works just a little bit different but the same overall theme applies. An overloaded tree is a stressed tree which tends to reduce production in the next growing season.
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