I don’t know who Stephen Edolm’s is, but the subject of notching on this forum started right around its beginning- I learned about it from an article in the NAFEX publication Pomona way back in the early '90’s written by the world famous commercial fruit growing consultant Bas van dan Ende and the technique was already well established then- probably for centuries.
Here’s an article about it that shows something about how long the technique has been practiced and also information about timing/
I like for credit to go where it’s due.
Here is something from this forum on the subject in 2019, and it was not at all the first time the subject came up. It’s very thorough though.