Beautifully shaped tree. At least the KG came through with a big crop. Bill
Thank you, BIll. I call it a modified central lead style. As it grew to the height where I can barely reach the top with my ladder, I top it off and bent the heck out of every branches. Then, I keep removing branches, now sprouts I don’t want.
It’s also good to learn about hinge cutting. I could come in handy.
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Fascist, I rarely get earwigs until they are in the bag of the apple. This year has been the worst ever. Not enough flowers on my other apple trees to pollinate my Jonagold = no apples! I have a ton load of mirabelles, sour cherries and for the first time in 7-8 years pears! Three varieties on one tree. Never having pears before I am waiting for the rain to stop so I can spray then bag. This is painful.
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Usually, I wait until after the first drop to do thinning and bagging
This year, tho, with the apples taking the year off, only the pears have done any dropping to speak of. Almost no yellow, unpollinated fruitlets
Time to thin anyway, now
@Auburn and anyone else: Do you find that king bud fruit hangs on the tree better than others, as far as June drop?
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I’m starting to think that the blooms that get the best suited pollen to create seeds is the trees preference to not drop. Just my opinion. This year I’m letting each cluster bloom and set fruit. When they are pea size it’s pretty easy to pick a couple of fruit that is growing the fastest. Sometimes there is only one and other times there are several. This year If the cluster has several strong candidates I will bag two and if all the fruit in a cluster looks weak I remove them all. More fruit per cluster but less clusters. I should know more after the typical June Drop.
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Isn’t the King bud always the largest, fastest growing? I better pay more attention.
I have been removing clusters on top of the branch and keeping clusters that hang down under the branch so that my zip lock bags can hang down and drain easily. Maybe that’s the wrong approach.
I still have some more apples to bag but I’m about 90% finished. I have several different varieties bagged but the majority are Goldrush. When I got scions of GR from generous members I over grafted it. Hard to beat a well ripened GR so I can’t complain.
I remember having a discussion about whether the king bud was necessarily the keeper and the consensus was that it’s the one. But @Auburn
So in some years sure, the king bud is going to be the keeper. But maybe in years when the insect activity is low it will just depend. Or not - I’m just mulling this over.
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Hey, Bill. That’s how I got mine … Thanks again!
:-)M
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In my case I might have two to four large fruit. I’m not sure which is the king fruit. I look for the largest but I can’t always determine which it is. In this case I don’t think it is a big deal seeing that I bagged the largest looking two.
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I think you have a good idea about the drainage. Most of the time I’m just looking for which of the largest apples that will be the easiest to get the Ziploc bag on.
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For apples, the king fruit is easy to see. Larger and often in the middle with a short but stouter stem.
In my experience, a king fruit is not always the best-positioned fruit in a cluster. While I tend to keep the king fruit, I remove it if other apple in the cluster look and position better.
I removed tons of flower clusters if I want to stop a
biennialing tendency of my Honey Crisp and Gold Rush.
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I will bag mainly king buds this year and see if more of my bags stay on the tree, not on the ground. Will report in a few months.
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Yes, king fruit stems seem sturdier.
Many literatures say that June drop is a result of poor pollination. Do you think that was the reason of a lot of your apple drops last year?
It could be the varieties of apples you have donot cross pollinate well and/or the weather during bloom time was bad i.e. raining or cold or both (pollinators did not show up).
I thin early like taking off lot of flower clusters before they bloom or set fruit. It has helped lessen severity of June drop as the trees do not have to spend so much energy feeding all fruitlets.
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On the first pass i left one or two fruits per cluster and bagged one of them. Some clusters i took all fruit off if too close to another one, or left one fruit unbagged if i need a nackup in the area. I’m shooting for 125 fruit which is a little less than 5 fruit per square centimeter of trunk cross sectional area. It seems like too many but i read some papers from cornell that suggest 5-10 fruit per trunk area. I figured id be ok if less than that considering that goldrush has biennial tendency. Every day or two i pick off a few more unbagged fruits. Im getting close to having only bagged fruit now. We’ve had some big winds lately but i have not lost any bags yet surprisingly. Im seeing some curculio scars but nothing too devestating at least not yet. Ive got my first fruit set on hooples, sundowner, sundance, and crimson crisp grafts. Hopefully they make it.
Thanks. I had not considered poor pollination. I have more varieties blooming this year so will see, although weather has been cold and windy, not great bee weather. Will definitely aim to keep my king buds. Did quite a bit of early blossom thinning- I find it’s easier than fruit thinning.
As I thin I keep alan’s words in mind: it takes 40 leaves to feed one apple. I think it was 40, maybe 30.
Sometimes it’s hard to get the bag onto the king fruit stem.
@ltilton,
That’s why I am not attached to king fruit. When I thin to bag, I consider the health of the fruit and the position of its stem. Both need to be good.
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